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You gave those poor old camels a thumping in Llamasoft's earlier game but now you're on their side against a madcap multitude of aliens.

Rather special, these camels. Ninety-foot high, neutronium skins, Olympic high-jump champions, splitters of deadly missiles.

The tape comes with a different version on each side. One loads in the normal way (approx. 15 minutes), the other uses an experimental loading system called Turbo. You can choose the length of each attacking wave, and order. This is an excellent idea since it gives you the chance to see most of the screens. Your giant camel strides elegantly across the sands, which scroll smoothly from right to left. The camel walks, jumps, sits down, and stops. It also fires in any of the eight joystick directions (no keyboard options).

The scrolling background is at first suitably camel-related - there are pyramids with winking eyes and waving palm trees but mountains and space cities appear later. All is mesmerisingly picturesque and tranquil before the first attack.

The aliens come thick, fast and weird, each wave more bizarre than the last. A few of the less exotic are kangaroos on skis, portable loos, clouds raining real cats and dogs, eagles dropping ten ton weights, flying CND badges, telephone booths, music stands and walking sticks.

Surviving is a question of ducking, leaping, running and firing back. Each enemy hit on your camel damages its shields, causing it to slowly change colour. When maximum damage is reached the camel flips over onto its back, legs in the air.

Graphically superb and thoroughly testing - the best yet from Llamasoft.