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If there are any extra-terrestials sniffing around Planet Earth, they're probably pretty paranoid by now. Since Space Invaders first soft-shoe shuffled their way down to a phosphor planet, the computer games industry has had the Aliens in its sights. Starstrike II continues in this well-worn vein. The Outsiders, bless their little plutonium socks, have been routed from Federation space where, one presumes, they were up to no good whatsoever. Now Federation command is sending Starstrike II ships to knock out what remains of the Outsider's home planet's defence before marching in to liberate them. They probably won't appreciate being liberated, but that's not your problem.

Your problem is to penetrate the defensive screens thrown up around the planets, knock out any spaceships that happen to want to stop you, and knobble computers, reactors or whatever else keeps the planets going.

There are three types of planet, industrial, military and agricultural. Military planets have a central battle computer and are heavily defended. Industrials are dependent on the obligatory nuclear reactor and are less well defended. Agricultural planets have a computer which looks after all the robot farmers, are easiest to get to and probably feed millions. That's not your problem either. War is hell.

Your controls on this noble quest are fairly simple. Looking at your spaceship you can see a speed gauge and indicators for fuel, laser life and force field strength. There's also the symbol of the star system you're currently attacking, and the type of planet enjoying your attentions.

You can hop from system to system by using your support unit. This also refuels the ship. On arrival at a system, and having left the comfort of your unit, you can choose a planet to attack. If you choose a military planet the first thing you'll encounter is an orbiting space station. Shoot bits off it, dock, and you'll have a short-cut past the extra shields that these planets have, Otherwise, you'll have to run the gauntlet.

The shields are planes with small, heavily defended openings in them. You can fly straight through the planes but this depletes your force-field something rotten, so it's a better notion to fly through the openings and zap anything that moves.

Then comes the dogfight, just like any other 3D dogfight. Following that, fly along a trench zapping ground installations (sounds familiar?) and then plummet down a ventilation duct to dispose of the Very Important Hardware at the bottom. Ahem.

During a skirmish with other ships a head-up display clicks on, giving ship type, distance and inclination. Elite-like, an exploded ship can drop a fuel pod which you can pick up and use.

All the various stages are well and truly 3D. Quite the most impressive parts of the game are the solid geometric bits and bobs that float around the Lesser Magellanic Cloud (chez Outsiders). In that respect it's quite as good as Elite. But it has none of the subtleties that hallmarked that game - it's a zap-'em-up pure and simple. And if that's what you want, that's what you'll get.

Ooh eck, another galaxy to defend from galactic tyranny. There is a lot to shoot at, the rotating space station is very impressive, the walls in space very difficult to navigate through and the deep space battle makes Starion look like 31) invaders. Just as you master one section there is a new challenge.

Once you are good enough to last a few waves you find that it takes a very long time to play Starstrike II, so a save game option would have been useful,

Elite without all the boring space trader bits.

I'd been waiting so long for this game that it couldn't possibly have lived up to my expectations. I had seen the Spectrum version and watched demos at computer shows. Real Time has an enviable reputation, and with clever maths and efficient coding produces video effects that George Lucas would be proud of. These make you feel as though you are there at the helm of a small spacehip, fighting the foe.

Starstrike I was good but suffered from being in Mode 0, This has crisp mode l graphics, with stipples to add the necessary colours and make objects look solid.

Technically brilliant, suitably fast and generally the biz.

Cor - unbridled zapping! Awesome graphics! Galactic jingoism! Whizz around zapping pugnacious polygons and generally making the place radioactive. If anything, Real Time has gone overboard on the rotating solid thingies, as your ship feels sluggish and unresponsive and the gamesplay is so shallow.

OK if you're not tired of Star Wars and Starion, but me, I'll stick to Elite.