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I'm feeling decidedly apathetic this chilly evening, so I dearly hope none of you are going to tell me you didn't see George Lucas's money-making, record-breaking Sci-Fi epic... Oh. There's always one, isn't there? Well, for the sake of you, I'll explain. Our hero Luke Skywalker was roped in to saving the universe by an old Jedi knight (an ancient band of warriors guided by the 'force' dedicated to do-gooding) called Ben Kenobi. Saving the universe (a popular task in computer games) is in this instance achieved by destroying a huge space station called The Death Star. The Death Star is the HQ of the evil empire, led by the equally evil Darth Vader (who incidentally turns out to be Luke's father in the sequel, but that's another story...) Anyway, as the MENSA members probably guessed, your objective is to take the role of Luke and do just as well as Mark Hammill did in the motion picture.

Star Wars is not only a movie conversion, but also an arcade conversion. A hugely successful arcade game it was too. Star Wars, despite being three years old is still fairly popular now, and still can be found in the arcades. It still attracts a 'cult' following who can make one game last several hours.

Star Wars is a vector graphic shoot-'em-up, and as far as I can tell it was the inspiration for many of the vector shoot-'em-ups on the C64 today like Starglider, Deathscape, etc. Anyway, despite its wonderful and cultural background is it worth paying the sort of money for this game that could buy a front row seat for the long-awaited Hoddle and Waddle tour?

There are three levels of difficulty in Star Wars, the harder the one chosen, the bigger the bonus. The first stage of the game is set en route to the Death Star, in deep space. The empire's infamous tie fighters swirl all round you, and you must kill all these off before you progress onto level two. But don't be gullible enough to think that they just lie still like sitting ducks. Oh no, they're armed all right, you must blast the fireballs they fire at you, or your shield will be depleted. Nine hits and you're history, Luke!

The second stage (which is non-existent on 'easy' level) is set on the surface of the Death Star. You must fly along the surface taking out all the defence towers as you go. The way to do this is to shoot them directly on the top causing their circuits to go haywire. The towers also fire at you. Oh and don't bump in to them or your shield will go down. Hard life being a Jedi, huh?

Stage three is pretty tough too. You've made it into a trench, deep, deep, into the surface of the Death Star. If you can make it to the end, you will see a small hole which is the only way to destroy the Death Star. Shoot this and it will cause a chain reaction, causing the Death Star to explode into eight million over chip sized fragments. Hurrah!

Star Wars is an excellent game in the arcades but not I'm afraid on the C64. Not really the fault of the programmers though. Vector Graphics have never worked as well on the Commodore as they have on other bigger machines. They just don't carry quite the same bright clout.