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Sarah Jane Avory entered her vertically-scrolling shoot 'em up Neutron into the RGCD 16K Cartridge Coding Competition and has now made a new Christmas-themed version available.

Jack Frost is determined to ruin Christmas, so he has cast a spell over various items associated with Christmas! Use the new S.A.N.T.A.H.A.T.01 space fighter and put an end to Jack's mischief!

Be on the watch out for perilous peppermint swirls, killer snowmen, kamikaze icicles, plasma spitting sugar mice, charging turkey legs, and other assorted twisted adversaries. But help is on hand, so lookout for useful floating presents, each with a power-up bauble inside. Only you can save Christmas, so strap in, and blast off! There are nine different levels to conquer, with three different snowy graphic themes and three different Christmas tunes. The gameplay is the same as Neutron – blast the flying aliens, destroy ground features and pick up power-ups. There are small mini-bosses and a large end-of-level boss to defeat. The new graphics include a present hiding the power-up bauble, enemies including Christmas puddings, holly and flying crackers, and a boss that looks like a Christmas wreath. One addition to the original's gameplay is the bonus count. Destroying the background blocks marked with a B or a b awards bonus points, counted up at the end of the level.

Neutron was one of my favourites in the 16K competition, so this new version is very welcome. The graphics are great and really carry off the Christmas theme. The title screen has a bouncing title and a nice snow/starfield behind it. The music is very good too. This is the same Starforce-inspired game with a new coat of paint, and it plays very well indeed.

The only thing that has really changed is the presentation. Otherwise this is the same game, with the attack waves appearing in the same places. The difficulty is still quite high, even with the autofire option on.

Deck the holly, blast the boughs and shoot up the halls!