Producer: Romik, 16K
£5.99
Author: Ian Morrison

Halfway between an invader and galaxian type, this three skill level game offers reasonably attractive graphics and plenty of them. You're at the base firing up at ten bomb racks containing five aliens per rack. Above them a mothership floats lazily from left to right and back again. To hit it you must blast out all five aliens from a rack so you can fire through the gap. Aliens reproduce fast! For more points there area few saucers that venture out, but they're easy to hit. The aliens drop bombs on you but the screen is so full that the dropping distance is small and they are hard to dodge. Skill doesn't appear to be a factor, rather luck. Hi-score. Joystick: Kempston or Sinclair, machine code, only average value for money.

Producer: Romik, 16K
£5.99
Author: Ian Morrison

Halfway between an invader and galaxian type, this three skill level game offers reasonably attractive graphics and plenty of them. You're at the base firing up at ten bomb racks containing five aliens per rack. Above them a mothership floats lazily from left to right and back again. To hit it you must blast out all five aliens from a rack so you can fire through the gap. Aliens reproduce fast! For more points there area few saucers that venture out, but they're easy to hit. The aliens drop bombs on you but the screen is so full that the dropping distance is small and they are hard to dodge. Skill doesn't appear to be a factor, rather luck. Hi-score. Joystick: Kempston or Sinclair, machine code, only average value for money.

Memory Required: 16K
RRP: £5.95

The graphics are fairly attractive but I think the arcade qualities of the game are low. You have three speeds of play but at each speed, of course, the relationship of the elements remains the same, and I found that skill didn't enter into it. Avoiding the bombs is too much a matter of luck as the space allowed to dodge them is small and the relative rates of movement doesn't seem right. I think the game suffers from being dated now.

CHRIS PASSEY

Despite the use of the word Galactic in the title, this is more of an Invader type, but pretty simple at that. Romik manage to pack a lot of graphics onto the screen, a mothership sliding left/right across the top, 10 vertical bomb racks wIth 5 aliens per rack, and the occasional saucer floating around which is easy to hit. Hitting aliens is simply because they sit in a stacked row. Shooting the falling bombs is pointless because there isn't enough room left. Sideways ship movement and rate of fire compared to the bombs is too slow. Generally fun to play, if not exactly arcade excitement level.

LLOYD MANGRAM

Memory: 16K
Price: £5.99
Joystick: Kempston

The galactic attack force is, apparently, attacking the earth. It is the player's job to save our planet for as long as possible by destroying the downward-moving galactic troopers, their landing craft and mothership, as frequently as possible.

This description sounds familiar and, indeed, the game and its object would be instantly recognisable to anybody who had played Space Invaders or one of its many other imitators. Move left, move right, fire. See the explosion. Hear the beeping noises. All that was entertaining and original, five years ago. A new variation seems pointless and dated. In writing Galactic Trooper the authors proved they can produce good imitations. Such a game is a test only of their programming skill, not an addition to the range of the software market.

Galactic Trooper is produced by Romik Software Ltd, 277 Argyll Avenue, Slough, Berkshire.

The Romik Galactic Trooper and 3D Monster Chase are competent and bug-free games but do not have sufficient new ideas to make them attractive in 1984.

Producer: Romik, 16K
£5.99
Author: Ian Morrison

Halfway between an invader and galaxian type, this three skill level game offers reasonably attractive graphics and plenty of them. You're at the base firing up at ten bomb racks containing five aliens per rack. Above them a mothership floats lazily from left to right and back again. To hit it you must blast out all five aliens from a rack so you can fire through the gap. Aliens reproduce fast! For more points there area few saucers that venture out, but they're easy to hit. The aliens drop bombs on you but the screen is so full that the dropping distance is small and they are hard to dodge. Skill doesn't appear to be a factor, rather luck. Hi-score. Joystick: Kempston or Sinclair, machine code, only average value for money.