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"Prepare to die player one," said Vortron at the beginning of the first sheet of aliens on Alligata's new budget-priced shoot-'em-up. I couldn't believe my eyes. What a cheek - and from a £2.99 job as well. I wasn't going to take that.

My reviewer's back was well up as I began to blast away at the bird-like aliens that crept down the screen like they were coming off a conveyor belt.

You get nine levels of play. When you have blasted all the nasties in stage one you go on to the next, tougher level.

Trouble is, until you get to about the eighth and ninth levels you don't really notice very much difference in difficulty.

The idea of the game is to protect your planet's central core - this looks like a purple gob stopper - from the marauding nasties.

Control of your ship takes a bit of mastering. There is a peculiar gravitational pull operating towards the core. The knack is to bounce off the sides of the screen and the central core so that you can pick the nasties off.

On the tougher levels, the nasties emerge from the bottom of the screen as well as the top - so careful control of the craft is needed on these levels as well as a quick finger on the fire button.

Vortron has some neat sound effects but these do not make up for the third-rate graphics. Just a boring old shoot-'em-up with very little to recommend it.