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Jeepers! The Bydo Empire has massed a huge alien task force on the edge of the galaxy, and it's heading straight for Earth! An all-out attack with space cruisers would be impossible, owing to the fact that the Bydo scum could pick them up on their scanners and lsiten to their mobile phone calls (and then presumably blast them out of the cosmos). No, only the tiny R-9 fighter, with its anti-scanning alloy shell can blast off into the inky vastness that is space and take on the Bydo Empire in an all-or-nothing space battle.

If you hadn't figured it out yet by looking at the screenshots, R-Type is a horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-up with the usual plethora of power-up weapons, waves of enemy sprites and end-of-level super bosses. There are five levels of blasting action, each more dangerous than the last, choc-a-bloc with Bydo aliens.

Can you defeat the whole damn lot of them and then survive an epic confrontation with the Bydo leader, the absurdly named El Supremo?

Collect a power-up, and an indestructible pod (known strangely as The Force) attaches itself to your ship. Three different weapon variations are found in the game.

1. Reflective This laser bounces around the scenery, destroying everything it touches.

2. Fire Chain Hugs the ground, destroying everything it touches.

3. Bubble Hunt Covers a great area in front of the ship.

This is something of a technical achievement for the Gameboy, but it's quite slow and in the excitement stakes it isn't as good as the skillful Parodius. If you've got that, I'd wait to see if Gradius II is any good before getting hold of R-Type.

Gameboy R-Type is amazingly similar to the original arcade machine. The only problem is that it's a bit slow. In the blasting stakes, Parodius and Gradius II are better, but if you can't wait until they're released, this is worth checking out.