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It's the 23rd Century, but this doesn't matter. The Interstellar Alliance is crumbling and anarchy is about to engulf the Galaxy, but this doesn't matter either. All you need to know is that Frenetic is a 2D vertical scrolling shoot-'em-up.

You've been given a spaceship which fires little bolts of laser energy out of the front, and your sole aim is to get this craft through eight levels of nasties. Exactly as you'd expect, things start off fairly easy and get progressively harder as you trundle along, wasting the hordes of extra-terrestrial lifeforms you encounter. Unsurprisingly, there are also eight End-Of-Level Guardians which require a great many more hits to destroy. As a game format, Frenetic isn't going to win any awards for novelty.

After wading through the 23rd Century claptrap, the first thing you notice about the game is that it isn't particularly fast. Your craft takes what seems like an age to cross the screen, and it feels very sluggish during the bog-standard avoidance of wayward aliens. The laser bolts seem to fire at an acceptable rate, though, so you aren't doomed. And come to think of it, the aliens generally move around at a pretty slow pace as well.

So as it enters stage right, Frenetic does not look good. It isn't very original and it seems too slow. But keep at it and it gets slightly better. The graphics - nothing to write home about when you first see them - become more competent as new aliens and levels are introduced. Later, you might even suspect that someone with imagination has had a go at designing the visuals. But sadly they never become particularly awe-inspiring. Sound is generally limited to a mindless and repetitive tune, interspersed with clunking lasers and splatting aliens. This is a pity because good sound effects might have rescued the game.

Originality? Mind stretching? Forget such notions. Frenetic is a shoot-'em-up. A game of yesteryear. It has medium slow speed, poor sound and fairly nice graphics. But if you love the genre, you could get into it. The skill levels are set about right and mechanics such as collision detection work well. For most people, that won't be nearly enough.