1st June 1985
Yes, this is the superb arcade game of the same name, converted by Superior for the Electron, and released with the full approval of Atari who created the original.
It involves protecting the universe from aliens who are swarming through the star gates. Your ship, armed with a blaster and super zapper, can skip round the rim of the star gate in clockwise or anti clockwise gates. As the flippers, spikers, flipper tankers, fuseballs and pulsars emerge they can be destroyed with a quick spray of missiles from your blaster - well, theoretically anyway, it's not quite so easy in practice.
The aliens are semi-intelligent and tend to move in your general direction if they can, so you have to watch out for any that make it through the star gate.
If you get in a really tight spot, you can use your super zapper which destroys all the aliens in the gate. However, it can only be used once per screen.
When most of the aliens have been destroyed, your ship enters the star gate to proceed to the next. At this point there may well be several spikers left which must be avoided by blasting a clear route when the message "Avoid Spikes" appears.
There are eight star gate patterns and 255 levels of play. At the start of each game there is the option of one or two players and any odd numbered star gate can be selected.
The sound and graphics are excellent and it's quite an exciting game to play. Also it is quite an original idea. My only criticism is that there isn't a high score table or a joystick option - but it is compatible with the Plus 1 and 3. Arcade fans will thoroughly enjoy this classic.
Other Acorn Electron Game Reviews By Roland Waddilove
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