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This new release from Jeff Minter may be technically brilliant but it takes more than technical pyrotechnics to make a good game, as I discovered.

Supervising the whole thing is an options menu where you can select any of five alien types (Rory makes a reappearance) with six pre-set parameters (time, shields, alien generation rate, etc).

The first of the game's two sections is a strategy grid where you move symbols around to select the wave you tackle. Each symbol represents a type of planetary surface. There are five different symbols including, not surprisingly, a camel and a llama. The colour tells you roughly how many aliens to expect.

The longer you take to select your wave, the more the aliens build up in the unselected squares, even to the extent of creating no-go areas.

Into battle. A mother llama, followed by two of her young, canter across the screen. The horizontally scrolling backdrops include Inca and Egyptian cities, a lunar colony and a rock music world.

You control mother llama. When she jumps, so do her babes - in fact, they copy her every move. The llama family is defended by means of a Killdroid, a moving sphere.

Holding down the fire button on your joystick takes control of the hovering Killdroid (the llamas still keep on moving). Forcing the sphere into contact with any of the aliens that come swooping down on your four-legged friends kills them.

Sound and graphics are first class and the game large and fairly complex. But it all seemed pretty much of a muchness - when you've seen one llama, you've seen them all.