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One glance at the screenshots and it's obvious that Photon Storm is another Oids clone.

Your task is to control a small spacecraft, blast all sorts of freaky aliens and pick up globes of plutonium. Some aliens move so quickly that you need to watch an on-screen scanner just to know who's approaching so you can be ready to hit the lasers as they whizz past.

Two markers are also located on-screen and if you steer towards them, one leads you to an enemy Battlestar and the other takes you to the Stargate. When you've picked up enough Plutonium, found in some of the spacecraft, the Stargate opens for you to pass through .Use the mouse to steer carefully through a hole in the stars. At the end of this challenge you pick up a bonus and progress to the next level.

Keyboard control makes steering extremely difficult in many Oids-style games, particularly when the screen starts filling up with aliens. Photon Storm, however, is mouse-controlled; press the right mouse button accelerate and the left mouse button to fire lasers. Steering and firing are a real delight in Photon Storm because you can shoot forward in one direction and blast at everyone else in another.

The game, written by Jeff Minter, is stuffed full of colourful frenetic visuals. The sound effects, however, are merely functional, simply providing a warning of approaching craft.

The scenario and style of Photon Storm are so frayed that there are times when the game threatens to fall apart at the seams. It's amazing that the graphics and collectable bonuses still manage to rescue it from a shoddy obscurity. But when the aliens start coming at you so fast you can hardly see them, there's no denying this is still a great challenge and lots of fun to play.