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Like Bob Smith, I've never been a big fan of office parties, and in his latest Sinclair ZX81 game Virus, the game story starts at one just before the Christmas shutdown.

Macrobiology Industries Limited is enjoying the end-of-year blow-out, but among all of the celebrations, something disastrous is happening in the bio-hazard containment refrigeration units. With the anticipated pandemic of swine-flu not happening, an overload on the disco lights blows the fuses and shuts off the fridges, which are full of different strains of influenza. Unfortunately, no one checks them before leaving at the end of the night, raising the units to room-temperature - ideal for mutations.

Returning on 2nd January, a security guard starts making his rounds and switches the fuse boxes back on. Once getting to the fridges, he notices that the doors are broken. He sees strange mucus-like cells moving around. Grabbing his SHARPS pistol, he goes to hunt down all of the mutated strains before they spread to the general population and cause havoc. Your task is to guide the guard around the now infected labs, shooting the mutations for each area before moving onto the next.

Bob says this game is based on Into The Eagle's Nest, released by Pandora in 1987 for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and other 8-bits.

It also bears something of a passing resemblance to Atari's arcade classic Gauntlet too, with the exception of no diagonal movements for the player. The difference is that as you move the screen scrolls with you, and at a very reasonable rate too.

Some doors require keys, and some are simple partitions that can be shot through. Your health is a constant concern, as you become slowly weaker as you play, but this can be replenished with the first-aid kits that are strewn about each level. You have a limited supply of ammunition, but refill cartridges are also around, and some storage boxes have hidden power-ups too.

Virus has eight expansive levels, some maze-like and others a little easier mentally, but all can be explored once all the mutated strains have been removed, provided you have enough health left. You will find three types of viral strains throughout, but all will generally move towards you if you're in the immediate vicinity to infect you and quickly drain your health.

It can be tricky to obliterate some of the virus strains, because some are smarter than others. While most will head straight for you, others will hide behind walls. As the gun is held only in your right hand, it's sometimes necessary to realign yourself to take out the mutated mucus. And once all are gone, it's time to head to the exit for the next level. The three difficulty levels pose a unique challenge on a real ZX81.

At its hardest, the viral mutants move as fast as you do: if you have more than a couple chasing you, they can corner you quickly. With the keyboard being touch-sensitive and non-tactile, it can be easy to lose your position over the keys, unless you're lucky enough to have a compatible joystick interface. I suspect that most people will play this from the comfort of an emulator, though, but if you have a real machine, the likelihood is that the keyboard is no longer functional. The good news is that RWAP Software provides durable and newly manufactured replacements, of which I've purchased two. If you require one to play this game 'the hard way', head over to www.rwapsoftware.co.uk and have a look at the Sinclair pages.

On completing the game, it tells you that the virus has been eradicated, before a question mark appears, which is a strong suggestion that a sequel might appear at some point in the future, which is surely a good thing. Put simply, this is Speccy quality gaming on a ZX81.

Overall, a very playable and extremely polished top-down shoot-'em-up, making the most of the machine's limitations. More of the same please, Bob!

Product: Virus
Price: £TBA + postage
Developer: Bob Smith - www.bobs-stuff.co.uk
Publisher: Cronosoft - www.cronosoft.co.uk
Platform: 16K Sinclair ZX81 and compatibles