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And you thought that Spectrum games had come of age? Odyssey 1 is a throwback to early days of games software.

The inlay is almost more interesting than the game itself. "It is the duty of Algorth (that's you), an incredible fighting man-machine, to protect the Star Gate"; "The Riggos will attack with the dreaded Blind Mutons", and so on.

What all this boils down to on the first screen is you at the intersection of four red walls, surrounded by four quadrants. It's in these that the dreaded Blind Mutons are assembled; they're somewhat indistinct purple blobs which fire more or less at random.

Algorth is yellow and can be rotated to fire through the compass points as well as diagonally. Shown as a rectangular torso and a blob for his head, his firing arm stuck out to one side, or elbow bent, he's one of the worst UDGs I've ever seen. At the foot of the screen there's your score, a high-score and lives left. You can move Algy into the quadrants, blasting away at your adversary.

Here you control a space ship and have to fire at diagonal waves of coloured enemy vessels - the awesome AstroFleet. Got to watch out though, as each destroyed vessel changes the craft into a homing missile.

If you survive this, on screen three you'll meet the Rigossans - pterodactyl-like creatures of incredible ferocity. I was almost tempted to have a bash, just for a laugh.

Leave it out, this one's a bad egg; even at just under a fiver.