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As soon as this tape loads you can tell that the music is by the games business's very own St Bob - no, not Geldoff, Hubbard.

This game falls short for originality in just about every department except the High Score table. You have to shoot the letters of your name as the alphabet scrolls past at speed.

This makes entering your name a more time consuming operation than the game itself - interesting but highly impractical.

Putting the lack of originality to one side I enjoyed Light Force - though it has to be said that you must have at least one game like this in your collection already.

Faster Than Light, an arcade branch of Gargoyle Games, did very well with this on the Spectrum - but I am not sure if it is going to be up there with Uridium, Sanxion and the like in the C64 shoot-'em-up big league.

As is the case with most concentrated shoot-'em-ups the plot isn't of any particular interest. You are the pilot of a LightForce Fighter that is suddenly set upon by thousands of aliens. Look, don't blame me - I told you it wouldn't win any prizes for originality. Switch on your autofire if you've got one and start wasting them.

The screen scrolls smoothly upwards with the aliens coming at you from all directions. Some of these nasties can be vaporised with one shot of laser fire - others will require several direct hits.

The enemy attack in waves - each wave appearing from a different part of the screen. An extra bonus is up for grabs if you successfully wipe out every single alien in a wave.

About every fourth wave, you find yourself flying over a Control Centre which has various bits and bobs that can be blasted to earn still more points. The danger here is that you will get too greedy and take your eye off the aliens that are still coming thick and fast.

The graphics on these centres of the increasingly popular metallic variety as seen in various games like Uridium, Parallax and Warhawk to name but three.

Talking of Warhawk, it is worth pointing out that the games are really very similar but the Firebird game has the advantage of a budget price tag.

In fairness to Light Force, it does have more to keep you occupied longer. There are four rather large levels to get through - each one looking graphically spectacular. Light Force also has extra weapons to be located and bonus lives hidden in the Control Centres. You can also earn an extra life by annihilating four Control Centres.

Metallic though the sprites may be the backdrops are exactly the opposite - Level Two, for example, is a dazzling shade of orange.

The sound is excellent - way up to Rob Hubbard's top notch work. I do have one gripe with the sound though - you have to choose between sound effects or music. Both are incredible - it would have been so neat to have them both at the same time.

All in all this is an extraordinarily good first game from FTL.