Outlands

Just for a change, here's a vertically scrolling shoot-em-up for one or two players. After all but wiping out humanity, the aliens are planning on coming back and destroying those few survivors who managed to escape to Mars. Attack is the only solution, so it's into your viewed-from-above space ship and the start of four levels of blasting.

As you might expect there is wave after wave of aliens to destroy, but your job is made easier if you can pick up some of the extra weapons amongst which are included twin fire and drones that shoot.

The graphics are fine, it a little basic, and though it scrolls slowly, the ships move well enough and everything is smoothly animated. Unfortunately, the gameplay is not so hot. When you're playing, it's hard to be gripped by that sense of urgency and you're just left feeling 'so what'. It's not very addictive even though the difficulty tuning has been set about right, and after a short time you'll be bored of it.

There's nothing glaringly wrong with this game: it's just that there are several others around that have much more to offer.