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With a new software name for the Dragon, you never know what to expect. Avenger is an arcade-style game with unusual features, not least its graphics.

You are a freedom fighter based on the Moon and defending the Earth from the invading Marcon Empire.

You're first asked if you want to load a previously saved high-score table, or rather ten high-score tables, as each skill level has its own. You then have optional instructions explaining the three-screen game, followed by a chance to set your joystick's sensitivity on a ten-point scale. You can test each of the settings before settling for the one you prefer.

But these refinements need a decent game to go with them, so what of Avenger? In the first screen you gather your ammunition by landing on the green stones while avoiding orange mines. A timer ticks away, the skill level determines your number of lives and you use this section to gather ammunition for the next part.

Here your ship faces a barrage of alien fighters. The timer ticks on and if you collide with an alien it restarts. You score for each alien you hit, this is more difficult since your direction of movement and direction of fire are linked.

The third screen gives you a chance to get more ammunition and extra lives by raiding stores at the top of the screen, avoiding aliens as you go. As you progress through the game, moving among the three screens, the aliens get tougher to beat.

The game is fast and smooth, and although the graphics are fairly simple they're more like the user-defined graphics on the Spectrum, with assorted shapes sliding about in a way you seldom see on the Dragon. It suffers from the machine's lack of colour, and the familiar sounds, but it has nice touches, such as Magic Roundabout stars Zebedee and Brian in the high score tables, and being able to make a joystick move a ship diagonally.

For all its virtues, though, the game soon got repetitive and didn't offer distinct challenges. Not feeling prompted to beat a particular high score, I left the Earth to the Marcons.