Sprites on the rampage

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If you can imagine Defender twisted on its side with the mentality of Rambo in a bad mood then you are getting close to the destruction possible in Video's Revenge from Budgie Software. (No, it's not going cheap!)

Officially you must pilot the Federation fighter Power Blaster against the usual invading waves of intergalactic aliens.

Though the space is literally crawling with them, you've got several surprises in your armoury that'll wipe them out.

The screen shows the area of space you're in and you can move up, down, left or right with the help of a Defender-style long range scanner at one side ol* the screen.

If things really hot up you can fall back on a smart bomb to instantly destroy everything on the screen - except you, of course.

Another feature is inviso-flight which makes you tem porarily invisible and hence indestructible.

That extra Rambo element is achieved by power blasting which multiplies your firepower threefold. You do this by shooting the alien energy ball oon 12 times and then catching the energy pack it ejects. In practice the energy balloon isn't as keen on this as you are, so it tends to shoot back.

The sprites are fast, furious and plentiful but they do tend to flicker a bit. Sound is wonderful. The general presentation is excellent with title pages and high score charts that slide on and off the screen.

The instructions are adequate though after reading them I was expecting something a little more run of the mill. The Return key comes in for the usual hammering since the keys cannot be redefined and joysticks catered for.

Phil Tudor