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The human race has spread across the universe like locusts across a wheat field. They've been there, they've done that... and now they're bored. So, for want of better things to occupy their time, they've created a race of bio-technological beings to run the show, started taking illegal substances and indulged in the kind of activities that can't be described in a computer magazine.

It's a recipe for disaster - and that's exactly what's happened...

A nasty piece of bio-technology called Arod 7 has woken up and decided that he is going to wipe out the entire human race - and has mercilessly slaughtered billions of people in the attempt.

The few people that have managed to survive have now hit upon the ruse of creating a second generation piece of bio-technological hardware, nicknamed Metal Mutant. They reckon that if they send it to Arod 7's home planet of Kronox, it could infiltrate his defences and give him a damn good thrashing.

But what makes them so confident? This - Metal Mutant can transform at the touch of a button into any one of three different robots. How's that for versatile?

Metal Mutant is initially disappointing: all you do for the first few screens is match appropriate manoeuvres to combat situations and keep plugging away until your enemies are destroyed.

If you persevere however, you begin to discover the game's appeal: horrible puzzles, 40 different types of monster to defeat and a variety of weapons and gadgets to acquire. It's really a 130-screen test of memory and joystick dexterity - opponents come at you quickly, and if you haven't selected the right droid or weapon to face them, you might as well kiss goodbye to your energy.

This isn't too much of a burden to begin with, since in the early stages you can destroy some opponents in a variety of ways and by experimenting you select the more effective methods. The difficulty is cleverly graded so that (hopefully) by the time you face Arod, you'll have the necessary reactions to knock his lights out.

This is just one of the game's neat touches - others include a 'save game' option which doubles as a source of energy and three difficulty levels, the third of which is really tough. After that, good sound effects and graphics (including a host of excellent animation sequences) are just the icing on the cake.