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Many years ago at the start of the 25th century - I missed that... must have overslept – the Solar Warriors protected Earth and all its baubles and trinkets by spreading them around the known universe. It is now the year 2650 and the location of all the goodies is the worst kept secret in the Solar System.

For reasons untold but pretty important to the plot, you are the only Solar Warrior left. You must zoom around all the planets to deinfest them of the bad guys, who are bent on treasure theft and general shoot-'em-up mayhem.

First mission: A choice of Pluto or Mars. The colourful enemy craft scroll in from the right, ducking, weaving, blasting and generally trying to relieve you of one of your six lives. A gentle hint of things to come.

Automatic docking with the mothership and a few seconds to get your breath back before stage two, the descent to the planet. A strange antigravity side-slipping motion is used here. If you don't land gently, and in the right place, it's...

A tricky manoeuvre, but if you are the one at parties who can balance a jelly on a broomstick while coming down the staircase on roller skates, you will do well here.

Once safely on the surface you blossom out of the landing craft into a vehicle that owes its ancestry to a tank, a high-speed train and a spacehopper. With this you trundle left and right through the scrolling planetscape. The surface undulates – if you come to a pothole too wide to drive over, a wiggle on the joystick and your craft bounces across.

With radar scrolling below to tell you where the bad guys are and a wary eye for potholes, you shoot left, right and upwards at the same time. There are points for shooting everything that moves.

Once the enemy are all smitten, it's back to the menu to choose another planet and the same again, only this time a bit harder.

Mars is protected by more fighters than Pluto. They are more vicious, but predictable. After jelly-on-abroomstick time, the landscape of Mars appears, redder and bumpier, with a lovely brand of multiplying ball out to get you.

Complete Mars and you've finished the first mission. Now it's off to visit Venus – lovely architecture, nasty surface and the pace is really hotting up. Venus was a devil. So was the thing with the odd name. By teatime I didn't want any tea. Just one more wave, please. Liz says the attack waves are too predictable, but that is what makes it playable for me – knowing where to skulk off and hide to avoid being, aarghhh, xrft-pitxxxxed.

Graphically it's no Rembrandt, but the use of colour, particularly on the planets, is done tastefully. The landing sequence, although strange, is a refreshing challenge. The movement of the land buggy is done well, with its suspension and bouncing motion a pleasant change from the anywhere as long as it's sideways feel of many scrolling games.