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The old saying "You get what you pay for" is an inarguable truism. Hunter Patrol, one of the Mastertronic £1.99 range, is certainly good value at the price but, while playing the game, it's hard to forget that these days £1.99 does not buy a lot.

The object is to fly your plane, avoiding various obstacles along the way, ever onwards. A pointless exercise? Absolutely! Ignoring the rather primitive graphics, the major failing of this game is a lack of ultimate objective and any kind of real climax or variety.

The initial phase has you weaving between the oncoming enemy aircraft, destroying what the inlay calls 'ground-based defences' - in this case tanks. To make things more interesting the tanks fire at you. Two complaints here. The gun doesn't fire quickly enough. This kind of game relies, or rather should rely, heavily on fast action of the most violent kind imaginable. It's just not on to have to wait five seconds in between destroying things. Secondly, I know I hit a tank several times and it didn't blow up. Still, by the same token I hit at least half a dozen by accident.

When enough tanks have been turned into so much twisted metal, you get to have a bash at a different kind of 'ground based defence'. The second lot looked disconcertingly similar to red cross ambulances - I was only obeying orders. Four sets of ground-based defences later, you get to have a go at strafing the building, (no doubt the hospital or local school!). The greater the damage inflicted, the more bonus lives you get to carry through to the next phase. Which is? Doing it all again with the speed knob turned up.

Not a bad effort at a standard shoot-'em-up, but there are half a million others like it. It's cheap, but I'd rather have one good game than four of these.