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Hot on the heel of Dan Dare & Co. comes a new brand of space hero Matt Trakker. His purpose is to rescue his son Scott from the clutches of Venom, more commonly known as Miles Mayhem. Matt is helped by Alex Sector, who looks suspiciously like Sean Connery, and his hi-tech masks, monitored by a central computer - your CPC.

You control Matt, and have to fight your way through a large complex of buildings to rescue Scott.

There are four main types of baddies - deathspheres (spiky things like World War I floating mines), blockbusters (cannons, in the spirit of the 1812 Overture), angels of death (which look like common or garden space rockets) and strangely biological and low tech serpents.

On your travels you can pick up any one of four types of mask. As long as you have that mask you can select it. Then pressing Fire either dematerialises you and protects you from the baddies or gives you ammunition to fire at them. Each mask can be used 99 times before it has to be replaced.

As well as dodging flying and exploding objects, you have to negotiate natural hazards. These include areas of water which slosh about very realistically and in which you will drown if you fall in, and fastmoving bridges which you can easily fall off.

There are also bouncy objects which can sometimes be shot, but are probably best avoided as they drain your energy. Lying around are teleportation stations. If you jump into one you will be transported to another level.

This may sound like just another platform game, but it is a cut above that because of the animation, which must rank among the best ever seen on the Amstrad.

Probably the most remarkable feature is the feeling of depth. Although the game is only two-dimensional, moving objects will pass behind some things and in front of others.

A spectacular example of this is on a screen which contains several Greek-style pillars and a centipede. The centipede moves behind one pillar arid in front of the next at high speed. This has to be seen to be appreciated.

Backgrounds are detailed and colourful, with everything present from multicoloured spacesuits and rotating gyroscopes to views of the Moon and mountain ranges. There is no problem for green screen users.

You are given a password whenever you complete a series of levels. Type it in at the start of the next game and then skip all the levels you completed previously. Nice.

In fact, it's great stuff - just the sort of program that looks nice on the coffee table when Spectrum owners call for tea.

Many years ago I bought Jet Set Willy as my first Amstrad program, believing then that it was the greatest creation since Alan Sugar himself. Well, Venom Strikes Back is now, what I thought JSW was then.

The animation is some of the best I've seen on the Amstrad, and I'm pretty sure some 16-bit computers would be pushed to better it.

Zebedee, Dougal, Andy Pandy, Captain Pugwash and friends seem prehisoric when compared with today's cartoon characters. I've no idea about the quality of the cartoon (I'm a bit old to watch that sort of thing), but Venom Strikes Back certainly is excellent stuff.

Lovely graphics, easy control and terribly addictive. Who said dodging the nasties was old hat? Pass the matchsticks.

I opened the box... and what did I see? Cartoons (in English, with French subtitles for the linguists). Not a promising start, bearing in mind some of the less successful cartoon spinoffs I've seen.

However, it turned out to be Pandora's box (cracked plastic version), with a terrific game inside. After a few games I was hooked, although I kept falling off my chair each time I saw the waves.