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"Le project North Star, l'operation classe la plus haute." What? Oh, wrong instructions. The North Star project, the most highly classified operation ever to be undertaken by the four Earth Lords has gone tragically wrong. Too much birth and not enough death has resulted in the Earth becoming over-populated and famine ridden.

As a short term solution, a gigantic space station capable of supporting thousands of people has been built in the orbit of our humble planet. For years, transport shuttles were ferrying tons of equipment up to the construction site. Then one day shortly before the station was completed, one of the shuttles failed to return. To investigate this, the wise lords send someone up to nose around. As it happens, the station has fallen under the control of an alien menace. Surprise!

When that person arrives (who turns out to be you) he gets rather a nasty shock, the life support systems have been shut down but thanks to some rather hi-tec robot implants you can survive. Your mission is simple, terminate all the aliens and restart the life support systems by reaching the central control room at the heart of the space station.

Initially your only weapon is an extendable bionic arm which can be used to destroy the alien aggressors. Five other weapons can be collected on your jaunt, four of them are of the obvious kind, the fifth being a smart bomb. As well as the weapons, extra oxygen must be collected in order to survive.

A nice fat bonus is given at the end of a level, calculated by the amount of oxygen you have left. Then it's time for a quick ride in a lift to get to the second level which is like the first except the backdrop is black. Without getting any further into the game, it became painfully obvious that the gameplay was going to be the same throughout the game.

The graphics on the backdrops are poor, bland, and generally uninteresting. The aliens appear as suited humans or bouncing half-egg shells. Soundwise nothing much is produced except spot effects and they're none too good.

The game failed to grab me anywhere - let alone where it hurts. North Star just left me wanting to leave the space station in alien hands and go and do something really interesting, like going for the world cracker-eating record.