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Buzzard Bait is the game selected by Tom Mix and Microdeal to launch their software protection device, the dongle. The custom chip inside the dongle is encased in epoxy resin, and unless the device is plugged into the joystick port the game won't load from tape. This should cut a lot of simple tape-to-tape copying. but is the game worth the extra £1.95 the dongle puts on the price?

It's a joust-type game in which you control the movements of a bird which flaps about the screen, lance beneath its wing, attempting to knock out other birds invading its air-space.

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You start with three lives, with a bonus one every 10,000 points, and there are seemingly limitless waves of attackers on slowly changing screens. The first wave is just three enemy birds, the second wave four, but then the numbers increase with alarming rapidity and some of the platforms you can rest on start to disappear while the highly nasty pterodactyls put in more appearances.

The basic technique is the same on each wave. The joystick controls over left and right movement, with the fire button flapping you up into the air. To 'unseat' opponents you must try to get above them, as a head-on collision has you rebounding across the screen in spectacular style. The action is fast and it takes a while to master the unusual joystick control needed, but once you've done this the game really takes off.

> If you unseat an opponent it lays an egg which bounces around for a time before coming to rest. You earn bonus points for touching the egg, which you must do before it hatches.

On some screens you earn extra points for finishing quickly, but a greater incentive is the pterodactyl which starts to fly about the screen after a certain time. This gets the better of you in most encounters.

Every so often there's an Egg Wave, with no buzzards baiting you but eggs slowly hatching. On later waves part of the ground is replaced by fiery furnaces into which you can be dragged.

> An unusual feature is the P for Pause key, which you can stab at repeatedly to advance the action a movement at a time to have a close look at the marvellous graphics.