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A lot to get through on this one my lovelies, so pay attention. Open your books at page 34. Science-Fiction Plots, Alien Civilizations (Advanced, Ancient, Departed). Sub-Plot 32 - The Fabled Treasures Of A Long Gone Mega Race Lie Before The Fortunate Prospector.

The goodies in this case lie on the Magrathean planet of Koronis, a radioactive globe scored by rifts.

In these rifts, your sensor systems report, lie a number of abandoned war machines, each holding arcane weapon systems which any disreputable hi-tech metalnabber would give his/her/its leftmost protuberance for. And you've found them first.

All lucky ol' you has to do is pootle down to the long-abandoned landscape below, get your repo-tech (lIT) robot to scurry across the radioactive wastes and return with a hold just bursting with machines, any one of which would make you a Big Noise among Big Noises. Sounds too easy? Of course it is.

The creators of your putative mealtickets saw fit to defend them against all comers with a fleet of flying saucers. No doubt you're not exactly what they were designed to dismantle, but you'll do. So as you hover hardwarewards, these computerised Defenders of the Bits will do their automated utmost to stop you.

You have a few things on your side. Little things that mean a lot, like the chromospecific lasers, the shields and your RH robot. The radar that shows you where to go for the hulks holding the goodies. The onboard computers. They all go to make life worth living (well, possible).

So you plummet through the atmosphere and home in on a convenient wreck. Out pops RH, who returns smartly with an Interesting Bit.

By some strange machination of fate, the modules that you find can be fitted to your ship and can add to your firepower and defensive capabilities no end. Obviously the InterGalactic Standards Bureau has had more luck with spacecraft than anyone's having with RS232.

You can also analyse these mislaid modules for worth, power and other attributes. If you choose to dismantle them, their intrinsic worth gets credited to your bank balance. However, they might be worth more in your ultimate endeavour.

There are 20 rifts. In Rift 20, on Farringdon Road, [? - Ed] lies the Guardian Base, which controls and maintains the saucers which cause you so much aggro.

As befits such an installation, it is very heavily defended. If you want any chance of destroying it, you've got to collect a lot of very powerful weapons fast and do it to them before they do it to you.

Fight and flight take place in your fractally active main window. Above this sit a set of monitors, displaying vital info concerning your ship. Below the window sit icons showing the systems you have and which ones are active.

You've got to keep an eye on all of them - for example, your shields have varying efficiency against various lasers. Colour is the key.

Destroying the Guardian Base is very lucrative. So is a series of lightning raids on the planet; you choose your method of personal enrichment and the best of Betelgeusian to you too.

One of the things I liked about Agent Orange (reviewed elsewhere) was that the instructions were divided into two parts. Waffle and the bits you need to play.

Koronis Rift is the opposite, you must read the boring bits of blurb and sort out the useful bits before playing. When you've made that investment you can launch into worlds unknown.

There is a good role-playing sensation which makes Koronis an absorbing blast.

Activision loses money, a very great deal of money. When it produces games that are as good as this it must take very great skill to do so badly. Perhaps gamesters are so tied up in the last Activision game they bought that they don't get down to the shops for the next one.

Koronis takes a lot of getting into. In a way it's Fractalus with knobs on. The quick start instructions help but a friend who understands what is going on is better.

Koronis Rift follows Rescue on Fractalus in the Lucasfilm jaggedy bits series. In similar style, you pilot a scout through a forbidding landscape - a bit too similar, really.

Lovely spot graphics though, I was especially taken with the starting sequence. The controls are fiddly and a bit difficult to understand, but there are a number of hidden depths to the game which lie in wait for the determined gamester who shrugs off the first impression of a graphically-good but gameplay-stunted bit o' software.

Greenscreeners need not apply, as colour is vital to the cause. More subtle than it looks.