It all began in the year 2094. You were on board an observation ship sent deep into space to examine a planet not entirely unlike Earth, along with its three orbiting moons [What else do moons do? - Ed].

Four teams, consisting of between five and 20 scientists, were sent down to each of the four terrains to sample, probe, and monitor whatever they found.

Everything was peachy until one day, as is common with deep-space exploration, radio contact with one of the teams was lost. With no time to draw up emergency back-up contingency plan B, radio contact with the other teams was also lost. Cue eerie and dramatic music. In reality, the men were being attacked by a multitude of aliens and many were killed as they ran for the safety of the teleport bases.

They soon discovered that, by hiding in the water and remaining motionless, they could avoid detection by the aliens. It is your task, your mission, and your duty to board your Tracer craft and attempt to rescue the scientists from almost certain doom.

Deadline is set against a beautiful horizontally scrolling backdrop, with boasts some incredibly effective parallax tricks. Taking control of the Tracer craft, you must traverse the landscape, blasting anything above the water whilst rescuing any scientist-shaped objects in the water.

The Tracer has on-board laser cannons, which allow you to deal with even the most tricky of alien life-forms, and is fast enough to outrun even the swiftest of swift terrestrials. Once you have spotted a white-coat in distress, rescuing the being couldn't be much simpler. Just move the Tracer above the creature's head, at which point a small target appears to aid your rescue, then drop down as far as possible to teleport them into your ship. Once collected, each scientist must be taken to the main teleporter. Here you simply drop down on to the teleporter to zap the scientist to the safety of the orbiting mothership.

Surely Deadline is inspired by Defender, and Dropzone, but that's not to say that it can't bring something new to the genre - it does... Just.

The aliens in this particular game aren't mapped on to the landscape, and as such are completely random. This makes every game, no matter how proficient you may be, a very different experience. As the aliens fly aimlessly across the landscape, the frenzied chaos generates a superb atmosphere, especially if you only have one scientist to rescue and one life to do it with. Thankfully, smart-bombs appear from time to time, which clear the screen (albeit for a brief moment) and allow you to breathe a little.

The shoot-'em-up action is complemented (rather than overshadowed) by the collect-'em-up side of the scenario, indeed it is possible to spend aeons on levels which only require you to rescue a handful of scientists. Perhaps the only drawback is the lack of diversity - each level, although a little different, doesn't offer anything substantially new or challenging for the player. The learning curve, it seems, should curve a little more.

While Deadline wouldn't normally rank as anything special, it comes at a time when new releases are, frankly, as rare as a steak still attached to the cow. The graphics are neat, colourful, and well drawn, and there are some superb tunes to accompany the action. Add this to a ridiculously low asking price, and you'd be barmy to ignore it. Let's face it, even if you aren't a big Defender fan, you'd be hard pushed to find three better games for under £2.

Go on treat yourself.

With the disc version of Deadline, you also get a free copy of Dystopia (in addition to the superb Tracer). You may well recall the demo DYSTOPIA 2, reviewed in CF44, or even the original DYSTOPIA demo which made its appearance a couple of years ago.

Dystopia, the game, is a simple two-player affair, the sort of thing bored programmers knock up over particularly rainy weekends.

The basic premise goes like this: the action takes place at the bottom half of the screen with each player controlling a small ship. In between the ships is a barrier, which moves up and down at a varying rate. You can't move past this barrier, and so the aim of the game is to hit your opponent (while dodging his or her bullets) and earn points. The player with the most points when the time limit reaches zero wins.

Dystopia is a simple concept, and is, surprisingly, great fun to play. There are some nice graphics, too, along with even more classy sonics by Chris Lightfoot. As a standalone game, Dystopia would rank as average. But it isn't, and it's great.

As an added bonus for anyone who buys Deadline, the author has included another of his games, free. Tracer is the unofficial prequel to Deadline, indeed they feature the same main ship, called a Tracer (for the uninitiated). However, that is where the similarities end.

Tracer is a static-screen shoot-'em-up. No mess, no fuss and no bitter aftertaste.

Each screen, set across a gorgeous backdrop, contains a myriad of enemy sprites, swirling around in traditional multiplexor fashion. You must clear each screen before the time limit runs out. If you're successful, you move on to the next screen, along with a fresh time limit...

This continues until you either (a) run out of lives or (b) run out of time. In most cases, you run out of lives. You see, Tracer is initially very frustrating. The time limits seem ridiculously short, the attack waves impossibly complex, and your bullets unfeasibly slow. But once your brain and trigger finger begin to work in harmony, you discover a 'pattern' to the attack waves, and you'll progress a little with each subsequent try.

Tracer is an excellent little blaster, with neat presentation, plus a choice of four tunes to listen to. Heck, it's not the greatest shoot-'em-up on the C64, but as a freebie it warrants special attention.

1. Splendid introduction sequence.
2. No fiddly multiloading nonsense.
3. Two great freebies - Tracer and Dystopia
4. An absolutely bargain price!

1. Gameplay can become repetitive.
2. Some colour schemes are lacking.
3. Concept lacks originality.