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It may be odd that a state-of-the-art computer should be offering one of the oldest arcade games but that's the situation with the first action game for the Macintosh - a version of Missile Command, called Ground Zero.

In a sense it's a bit of a cop-out since it's hard to conceive of a game that would be easier to implement under the Mac's superb graphics. To compensate, publishers Mindsports have dressed it up immensely.

You can begin on any of six levels of difficulty with corresponding increases in scores. Each attach wave comes in four stages - three waves of the familiar missile tracks criss-crossing your screen, followed by a wave of intelligent bombs.

If you survive each group of attacks your rank increases with an accompanying high-resolution badge of merit, then it's back to the fray with more and faster missiles matched by larger bonuses.

Control corresponds well with the arcade version with the mouse replacing the tracker ball, and the Z, X and C keys allowing experts to fire from the left, middle or right missile bases.

Your cities are works of art, and the graphics are fast and smooth, as might be expected given the machine. The sound, however, is only adequate and there is no facility for controlling the volume - it's either very loud or off.

All in all it's not a bad debut for the Macintosh as arcade machine and since it's all there is for the moment, we can be grateful that someone is at least trying. However, Mac owners can look forward to better than this once publishers come to terms with the machine's lack of colour.