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The crew of the good ship Orion have put themselves into Sustained Low Energy Expenditure Process or S.L.E.E.P. while they journey to the Hercules Cluster to map it. Speaking of sleep that's one thing you won't do when you play this game. And why? Is it amazingly cool graphics? Utterly awesome FX? A profusion of pure addictiveness? Well, no more like anguish at having paid out a tenner on it.

Anyways, while the crew are in S.L.E.E.P. the Zimen board the ship (Oooo-er sounds a bit rude) and take over the ship's onboard computers and reprogrammed them in an alien language. Who can save the crew? Who can destroy the Zimen? Who can save me? The cast of this game are:

1. Slog: Ship's captain and pilot, he has a specialised Compu-Brain (bit like mine really) but Slog also has a complex, he's slowing up, and he knows it.

2. Plot: Ship's navigator. Brilliant at any sort of calculation. Plays 4D chess with the ship's computer, hates losing (now that sounds like me).

3. Knut: Ship's engineer, knows every Zecometre of the ship. Has a screw loose.

4. Bodd: Now Bodd is my favourite. I used to watch the cartoon you know.

5. The Zimen: Strange mechanical intelligence, their origins are shrouded in mystery.

With these four humble droids you have to free the ship from the grasp of the evil Zimen, who either have a population of several thousand million on the ship, or just breed like tribbles.

It all rapidly develops into a maze-bound shoot-'em-up. I must have killed hundreds of the pesky blighters on my travels around the ship but to what avail? One of the droids starts off locked up in a prison, another starts with no energy, and then the Zimen move so fast your energy whizzes down and then it's goodnight wherever robots hang-out. Yawnsville!

It appears to me that Bubble Bus must still be living off the royalties from Starquake, and this should do nothing to change it.