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Strange as it might seem to the novice galactic warrior, trouble always seems to crop up where you, and you alone, can sort things out. Take this latest bit of alien arrogance, for example. The colonies around Regulus have just had the heat turned up. Maybe that's why the colonies are called the Regulo 5. Anyway, the news came flying out of the system; "Ships of unknown origin landing at key installations!".

And of course this sort of thing can't go unpunished. So the GEM council, more fond of sticks than carats, send their entire space force in the Regulus sector into action.

Entire in this case means one ship, one heavily armed, razor sharp, Lightforce fighter. Manned, as these things have a tedious habit of being manned, by one razor sharp, top gun, spacer. To wit, you.

Surprised? Not half as dumbfounded as you will be when you pop out of warp-space beyond the outermost Regulan planet to find...

Klingons! Oooopsss... wrong game. Well, they might be Klingons. I seem to recall they were good buddies of the Romulans. But the exact identity of the thousands of battle-ready alien ships waiting to turn you into so many sub-atomic particles and the occasional high energy Hertzian waveform (why didn't you become a bus conductor, like your mum wanted?) is never revealed. But their hundreds of ground based weapon installations and energy domes (and gas rings, eye level grills, easy-wipe hobs and self-cleaning ovens. Regulo 5, remember) are most certainly revealed.

The aliens (recently privatised) also have no intent of trying to hide the host of Special Armaments Pods (SAPs?) that idly orbit each planet, evil glinting lightly from each beweaponed craft.

The odds, needless to say, are stacked heavily against you. But you have one small advantage. The aliens, apart from their obvious technical prowess in producing devices of unimaginable destruction, are incredibly thick. Mind-numbingly moronic. Strategic simpletons.

Seeing that they have a numerical advantage of several thousand to one, you might think that they would send swarms of ships to outnumber you. Nope. Eight at once is the absolute maximum, more usually it's two or six.

And then there's the not insignificant fact that your megazappo lasers point forwards only. If they were to send just one lightly buttered liferaft with a peashooter up behind you, you would be so much deceased waterfowl. This too seems to have missed the miscreants' minds, as does the idea of actually fi ring on you from those ground installations.

But perhaps all this is just as well, as you would be dead in a jiffy otherwise (technical note: A jiffy is the smallest unit of time, the time in which the universe came into being, a temporal quantum. Really). As it stands, you have a small but finite chance of removing the evil that is infesting Romulan space. And, more important, getting your name on the high score table.

So, with only your trusty joystick between you and oblivion, forth you sally. There's an entire solar system to de-alienise before lunch.

It's not often that a game comes along (or, in this case pops out of hyperspace) that one can say, hand on heart, is the best of it's kind_ This is one. A zapperoonie of such epic proportions that it seems churlish to criticise it.

If you ever spent an evening playing Space Invaders, you'll spend a week crouched over Light Force. I did. Some might say it lacks subtlety. Some might say it's simplistic. True, but who cares?

I'll het one of the other two have already mentioned Sorcery-esque graphics, so I won't.

However, if you ever wanted to see just how rood a game's graphics can be buy a copy of Light Force. I suppose the idea of the game isn't exactly original, being part Invaders and part Galaxians with a scrolling backdrop. Be this as it may, this could well be the definitive mindless, blast it if it moves and blast it if it doesn't type of game.

It's a bit of shame that the joystick doesn't auto repeat, in fact I've already gone through one joystick's fire button.

Colourful wee beastie is this. Plenty to shoot up, and not too much of it shooting back.

The background looks like a cross between an art nouveau universe and an organic chemistry lesson to start with, but has more than enough variety later on to stop me whingeing about it. Also the pretty pictures are recognisable on a green screen.

Now the bad news: When things start to get hectic the lovely sprites slow down. Mass enemy telekinesis also seems to jam your guns, even with an autofire.

Problems apart, can't decide whether to waste my time on this one or Moon Cresta. Ah well, I'll just have to alternate, then.