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You can get pretty frustrated waiting for software to arrive at the offices of CU, and often when it does it's a terrible disappointment. How often we've groaned at the sight of another badly converted licence or tossed aside another hyped release after a cursory look. That's when games like X-Out come as a very pleasant surprise.

Rainbow Arts have sprung into life as the year ends, first with the highly playable Rock 'N Roll, and now with this. X-Out marks a return to what they do best - shoot-'em-ups. Now that the furore over Katakis/Denaris has been forgotten, they come up with another class blast.

The sales blurb describes X-Out as 'a multi-sensort assault', and whilst there's an element of hyperbole there, it's not too far off the truth. It's pretty impressive stuff. True, it's a fairly typical horizontal blast, but what they've squeezed in is little short of remarkable. X-Out has forty different aliens, fifty pics per second, and 48 colour graphics.

X-Out is set in the depths of the earth's oceans, where, Abyss-like, aliens have set up shop. However, there's nothing very warm about their intentions, because they're using the sea floor as a base to launch a series of attacks on the world. As ever, it's left to you to pilot a lone craft to the heart of their defences to stop the rot. That lone craft though, probably has the potential to be the most heavily armed in the history of gaming. The array of weaponry is available for it.

The game begins in the weapon shop, which has a passing similarity to the one in Xenon II. You are given a certain number of credits with which to fit your ship. Once you have enough money, you can afford to strap on nearly a dozen weapons to the bigger ships. This is part of the fun, because when you see some of the awesome destructive ability that the disk laser, or the lightning bolts can wield, you're going to be spending like crazy.

The game offers you eight levels of action, and since each is some twenty screens long, you can imagine the test is pretty tough. The backgrounds alter in each, cycling, amongst others, through some neat crystal formations, and volcanic crusts.

X-Out may not be a breath of fresh air, it's not original enough for that, but what it does is offer another option to fans of shoot-'em-ups, who are still poorly served after two years of releases.