Mastertronic
£2.99

The city of Xenon is under siege! The bunch of nasty alien invaders also wiped out the dry defence system while they were at it Most of the inhabitants of Xenon got out when the place was evacuated, but as usual a few hapless idiots got left behind (must have left the cooker on and missed the train out!). A Panther ground attack craft has been provided to rescue them, and it turns out you are the only sucker who learnt how to fly one at school! Your day to be a hero has arrived!

Aliens have been sighted in the city, over the water that surrounds it and in the dessert beyond. Dotted over the landscape are bunkers where your little people are hiding from the enemy. You start off in the desert shooting down all the alien waves you come across and stopping at every bunker to pick up survivors.

The diagonally scrolling landscape of Panther is made up of seas, buildings, railway tracks and of course aliens, all detailed and complete with shadows. To stop the risk of colour clash, the whole landscape is monochromatic making things quite hard to see. Shooting the aliens may seem easy, but they not only swerve from left to right, they also go up and down: match their height to blast them from the skies. You can speed over the landscape to outrun the aliens, but then you run the risk of flying over the people to be saved and missing them altogether.

Panther is original, well presented, playable and provides a challenge for even the hardened gamesplayer.

BARGAIN BASEMENT

He's strong, firm but fair, extraordinarily good-looking and what's more he's been put in charge of the Bargs again. Jonathan Davies, my man...

Mastertronic
£2.99
Reviewer: Jonathan Davies

Well, it scrolls. Diagonally. You can shoot things, and you can also land to pick up refugees who have been stranded on the planet surface. You can fly through buildings and things too, which can be rather unnerving. It doesn't look particularly impressive, but then diagonally scrolling games rarely do. So much effort seems to go into lugging the graphics across the screen that little things like sprite design and special effects tend to be forgotten.

The purpose of all this is to liberate the city of Xenon from the fiendish alien invaders who have moved in. Most of the original population has been evacuated, but a few key figures remain. These are the ones you're meant to pick up. As you're doing this the obligatory alien hordes arrive and float around taking pot shots at you. I endured it for about 20 minutes and then moved on to better things.

Label: Mastertronic Plus
Author: Icon Design
Price: £2.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

A superior bit of sci-fi stuff, this, though the scenario's as old as Bruce Forsyth's wig; you are the lone remaining pilot of the Earth's defence force, left to fend off the attacks of the hideous slimy aliens (well, I assume they're slimy, you don't actually get to see them). This one's a diagonal scroller, and the monochrome graphics roll along pleasingly smoothly.

You get to control the height and left-right movement of your ship; as you get higher, you speed up. Perspective is well done, and the alien ships have realistic shadows which make it easier for you to line up your shots. They attack in waves which appear on your radar scanner, and are announced on your handy-dandy message screen. Each stage of the mission has a a different aim; in the first, you fly over the outskirts of the city, looking for stranded Earthies. Land near an installation, and they'll come running out, giggling with joy to see you. They won't be quite so happy if the aliens turn up and blast you to atoms while you're sitting there like a fool.

Later stages take place over the city, where the aim is merely to survive the alien attacks; over the sea, where the challenge is to stay awake, since nothing much seems to happen; and over a landing strip, where meteorites and guide missiles are almost certain to bring you to a fiery end. Never fear, your Phoenix Shields allow you to regenerate your ship up to four times, and you may, just may, be able to get right through to the escape shuttle at the far end (which I've not yet seen).

A little man told me that Panther has been out for ages, and this seems to be some sort of re-issue; but for all that, if you like a joystick-twiddly blast, Panther is worth getting.