Okay, okay, I know people are fed up with hearing me say it. I know you all think that it's favouritism, but Microdeal have produced what is graphically the best game this year. I was given this game at the 6809 show where it was also on display, and at the time had no idea of its superlativeness!!

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Shock Trooper is very heavily based upon the television disappointment 'V', putting you in the role of a fifth columnist ... a what? I'll explain.

The plot ran that Visitors from another planet came to earth and acted very nice and friendly whilst their motives were actually very sinister. Soon they managed to turn the whole of Earth upon the scientists - in a mini-series that shrewdly paralleled certain aspects of World War II (hence the title -V- the symbol of the resistance).

It turns out that aliens were actually using us for food as they were not pleasant Hollywood people but lizards.

You play a fifth columnist in the game and your mission is to collect the four parts of a space ship, miniaturise them, and escape the base.

There are several defences designed to stop you, and all of them, as you can see from the screen picture, are depicted brilliantly (provided that you pick black to play the game in, the other colours are a hippie nightmare!).

These defences include laser guns, rotating lasers, force-fields (which must be deactivated by shooting their appropriate control consoles), Zadrolds (indestructible killer satellites), and two-legged Imperial walkers from Return of the Jedi (Don't ask!).

To aid you in your quest you have an incredibly powerful blaster which, unfortunately, is powered by the same system as your radiation shield, i.e. whilst the blaster is firing your radiation increases drastically. You are also equipped with the ability to dissolve your particles making you invisible - and also invulnerable to laser fire! - but to do this again makes you exposed to the deadly radiation ... too much of this and you literally fry on screen.

The explosions are superb, the enemies are actually frightening, and the sound, from the four part playing of the V title music, to the Game Over tune is quite smooth and even pleasant!

But, not only does the game look great, it plays smoothly, quickly, and with just the right amount of sensitivity. The screens are designed very carefully, one involves shooting a sequence of force-fields out and the screen only slowly opens up as this is done. The game really does become progressively more difficult; towards the end lives disappear with horrifying speed!

This is a quite brilliant piece of work, the Juxta-Position of arcade games this year, and if it's not a best seller then you're all stupid!!