Once upon a time, there was a happy, happy land, where Dragon Data still existed, where all the people were friendly and full of goodness and smiled even when it was raining and where the people were so primitive they still thought that Pimania was a good game. And all day long these happy, happy folk, sang jolly songs about life, love, and the legend of the dongle.

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But also there dwelt in the land an Evil Wizard and he began to spread rumours that there was a land far away across the water where there was a machine with really good games called the Spectrum, for lo, there were no Spectrums in this happy, happy land. And then, the Evil Wizard turned his wicked hands and Dragon Data went bust and lo, all the people did panic and scream and try to sell their Dragons through the pages of the scroll known as "Popular Computing Weekly".

But all was not lost in the land for there also existed the Good Witch Cablette who had heard that one of these games for the Spectrum was a version of the arcade game mentioned in the legends of the elders called Zaxxon and lo, she said "Let there be Zak's Son, so that all the little folk of the land can once more dance and sing and do all those happy sorts of things."

Word of her goodness had, however, reached the Evil Wizard and verily he was filled with wrath and he decided not to stop this spell of good, but to alter it, for lo, he was as cunning as he was evil, and that's pretty cunning, and verily he did speak these words... "Yes, let there be Zak's Son, but let it be boring, slow and generally disappointing."

And lo, throughout the land adverts did appear on trees for Zak's Son and once more the people did dance and sing and sent off for their copies and behold, on the day after they had given up getting up early to meet the post it didst arrive on their doorsteps (for Sod's Law was still present in the happy happy land even if Sinclair were not). And lo, the peopie didst load the game into their Dragons, and lo, and it was not good.

And yea verily the moral is... Those who bring out totally unimaginative arcade copies deserve to receive cynical reviews.