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My amazing powers of deduction tell me that Hades Nebula bears no small resemblance to that sizzling arcade shoot-'em-up Terra Cresta.

The cassette cover features a crummy illustration and an even crummier futuristic blurb. "They're going to use a Meason Accelerator (a go-faster gadget)," it reads. Reading blurbs can be so instructive.

Fortunately the game itself is a much classier offering. It follows the Terra Cresta theme of adding pieces of hardware to your ship as you blast your way up the screen. There are six blast-enhancing pieces to be picked up: extra speed, power wings, two types of laser, front and back rotaries.

To get them, you have to fire at what the blurb calls mining platforms on the ground. Most of these simply blow up with a nice puff of smoke. A few of them fire a missile at you (they're supposed to be friendly) and even fewer come up with the goods. Trouble is, if you're too trigger happy, you may well shoot down the part you were trying to pick up. So it's back to making more rubble to try and get another one.

Predictably, spare parts get classier as you proceed up the levels. Level One simply offers up increased speed, whilst Level Two gives you power wings, a sideways firing laser and front rotaries. With that lot you should be able to make it to higher levels, were it not for the fact that you lose a piece whenever you're blasted - and you've only got four lives.

The aliens aren't messing about. They decided to be pretty nasty right from the beginning, firing both backwards and sideways, and letting missiles go even when they've been blasted. They swarm and swoop around in the usual manic attack waves - very impressive. On later levels, you get more elaborate nasties, greater speed and a bigger blister on your thumb.

That's it really. Hades Nebula offers you as much fast shoot-'em-up action as you're likely to want. The nasties are spectacular, fast and unpredictable in their flying formations. Graphics are well up to standard, ranging from lunar-type landscapes to metallic relief stuff like Uridium. Music is pretty good too. By the way, you can switch it off and leave just the sound effects on.

There's a one or two player option and a key that aborts the game and takes you back to the start. That's a good idea. Let's face it, there's no point carrying on if you've squandered too many lives at the beginning.

If you missed out on Ocean's Terra Cresta, this is probably a worthy substitute. But true blasters will have already got this kind of game out of their systems. Sorry Nexus, you've missed the boat on this one.