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When Sega's Zaxxon hit the arcades two years ago hardened Space Invader fans couldn't believe the quality of the graphics. True scrolling 3D graphics, accurate response to joystick, beautiful colours and a thumping good shoot-'em-up to boot.

Now this reviewer can't believe the game has been so faithfully recreated on a home computer.

Had I not played the game with my own joystick I wouldn't have believed it - especially as I'd seen a couple of previous attempts on other micros fail dismally.

It's taken several months and a legal wrangle to get the game into the shops after Synapse UK - a manufacturer of business software and totally unconnected with the top American games house - slapped a writ on US Gold stopping them from importing the game under the Synapse name.

A slight name change has enabled US Gold to get the game out crediting it to a company called Synsoft - wonder what that reminds you of.

Let me say straight away that this legal arrangement is good news for C64 games as Zaxxon is set to become one of those games that no self-respecting Commodore owner would want to be without.

For the uninitiated the game is basically a space scenario shoot-'em-up. The object of the game is to destroy the evil Zaxxon - a giant robot that you can confront you after you have blasted your way through several preliminary levels.

The first of these is the flying asteroid city. You must destroy as many of the enemy ground installations as possible in this level. The more enemy aircraft you destroy here the less you will encounter in deep space later in the game.

What makes the asteroid city the trickiest part of Zaxxon is the walls and electronic fences - over and through which you have to negotiate your shuttle craft.

On your first few cities the walls and fences are wide and far apart but on later ones you will need very skillful joystick control to get through the narrow gaps.

If you get through the asteroid city, your next challenge is a shootout in deep space. This calls for a really quick finger on the Fire button as you do battle with the aliens that you did not destroy on the ground.

Success in deep space also depends on correctly judging the distance and approach of the aliens - no simple duck shoot this.

Now comes the final conflict as you seek to destroy the Zaxxon robot on the last remaining asteroid city. To do this, you will have to score three direct hits on its missile launcher.

The robot is a difficult moving target and is armed with deadly seeker missiles.

It will take you a good few hours play before you even get get on to the right city to take on Zaxxon - and several more hours before you get the better of him.

If you manage this the game begins again only now it is faster and more difficult. The score you notched up in the previous game is what you take with you so it is possible to achieve some really ridiculously high scores - if, that is, you have the skill.

Quite simply, the best shoot-'em-up for the C64.