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I always take a very wary view when playing vector graphic space games. Some are cool like Elite, and Mercenary, but most are downright useless like Starion, or to name one of Reaktor's own miscarriages Deathscape.

Still, better throw all prejudices aside and get down to some unbiased prose. You play Hawkins who in short is tough, real tough. Hawkins is the pilot of Starfox and he must clear the eight planet universe, named the Rubicon of a ninth planet which has invaded security and is attacking everything in sight. Stop these creatures by completing eight gruelling tasks.

What this rather inane story comes down to is a vector shoot-'em-up with smatterings of adventure and strategy mixed in. To start with you fly around the galaxy in search of a planet. Because only when you've found a planet can you begin to do some effective blasting, as the laser you are forced to strat with is well... rather pathetic. The trouble is that you find yourself flying around pointlessly for a while as you cannot use the autopilot to get to a planet unless you've already visited there and how can you visit there if you can't use the autopilot. It is a kind of Catch 22 which does lead to frustration after a lot of searching, although there are hints on the instructions booklet (which frankly didn't seem too effective for me).

Take one of the eight gives you the object of killing an allotted amount of enemy. So to do this quickly the best thing to do is go to another planet and get yourself a decent laser and then proceed to blow away the aliens. The only trouble with this is the fact that you only seem to come across an alien convoy once every five minutes, and this is when you've got the enemy locating system on, so at the end of it all you seem to be doing is floating around wastefully until you find a planet, then once you have your new mega-blasting weapon you must then fly around for hours looking for someone to use it on.

The other seven level require a lot more knowledge of where the planets are as much to and froing between them must be done. When you are choosing which of the twenty-three weapons don't necessarily choose the most powerful as on the next level the enemy craft will use it on you.

The game also contains other small features posing as interesting additives but a lot of the entertainment you get out of this game is really just surface deep.

Star Fox is initially a fun game, but somehow it seems like a diluted version of Elite. Visiting the planets and then actually existing is all very well but as an arcade adventure it just gets all a little too slow and frustrating dull at points.