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Be warned. Drink was nearly the finish of Freddy Hardest, the rootingest-tootingest Space Ranger this side of the Pleidies. It was after one of his "little parties" - gate-crashed by an obnoxious little oik - that Fred went for a little ride in his spacecraft. Unsurprisingly, he had a little crash.

To escape back to home and another party a spaceship must be hijacked. The satellite on which things happen is divided into two parts, outside and inside the alien base. The second part is loaded separately from tape and needs a password from the first stage.

The first stage is the simpler: The only thing that Freddy needs to do is massacre a few aliens and make his way across chasms, water, holes and other landscaped features.

All the xenobiological entities encountered fall into one of two distinct galactic groups. Those that can be killed by shooting, and those for whom a good kick does the business.

Mr. Hardest has both his laser pistol and his right foot to hand, and he's certainly not shy to use them both - joystick down and fire to laser, up and fire to kick.

The aliens float, creep, pounce and rush on to Freddy, who needs some wrist-snapping joystickery to keep them out of the way as he advances left to right.

On the menu: Avoidois, Antopids, Koptoi, Snakkers and others. All deadly, but some are faster on their tentacles than others. And there's a model of a robot that floats along above ground level - not so bad unless you need to leap on to a floating island right in the middle of their flight path.

Found the password? On to part two, and the spaceships. There are four spaceships hiding away. To use one of them Freddy has to get the Captain's Code, the energy modules and the instructions for hyperspace from the alien base in which he finds himself,

He also finds a new and even less amicable selection of aliens to deal with.

Gabarda Robots - "cold as steel" says the blurb, but then what would you expect from machines - can move much faster than you'd like them to.

Micro sounders sit there until you blunder by, and there are, not too surprisingly, The Inhabitants. A strange halfbreed, immune to laser fire, these need to feel Freddy's toes before letting him pass.

The instructions Freddy needs can be found by interrogating computers whose terminals are scattered hither and thither. He has to get the right codes for the ships, but everything is thoughtfully colour coded for his operating convenience. Greenscreeners will need felt-tips.

This is another game where making a map helps a lot. To make it past the second stage, you have to know where you're going and what you're going for, otherwise the sheer mass of alien lifeforms can bring you down.

Speed is of the essence. The first stage is more your basic zap - and - slay epic kickeroonie. Something for everyone? I should imagine that Imagine imagines so.

It isn't often, since The Incident, that I've seen the Ed burble. But he burbled as he handed me Freddy H. "Everyone likes it," he smiled - an unnerving sight.

And I must say I see what they mean, as some pretty swish - not to say big - things happen on-screen. Like Saracen, it's difficult to put one's digit on the exact reason for the general feeling of a good game, but Freddy Hardest has it. It also has infinitely superior graphics.

I would have liked to see a little more ingenuity in the design of the end part of the game, but still, it's good enough.

A great game. I fear that once completed it will lose much of its appeal, but at least there is a lot of time to be spent playing it.

I'll pass the access code for level two on to the Hairy Hacker in a month's time. Until then it's you, space, and the aliens. Odd, they aren't really the aliens since it is their planet. You are the visitor.

Those Spaniards really know their DEC HL from their LD A,3. This is the game which sits in the office Arnold's cassette deck and gets summoned to provide succour in times of stress.

Shoot a few robots, kick the odd alien and having to hang around developing rooms at strange hours waiting for screenshots does not seem so bad.

Cute sprites, very playable without taking anything too seriously.