Producer: Mastertronic
Out of Pocket: £1.99 cass
Author: John Cain from a design by Silhouette Software

No, this game hasn't anything to do with peas and lentils: it's all about energy pulses. A hostile alien race from Cirrus Major has decided to attack the Earth (crikey, why do all aliens hate our little old planet so much?). Their first targets are the Earth's massive orbiting solar power stations which are completely defenceless.

Naturally this is where you come in, with a hastily-made spaceship that lacks nothing except a weapon. So the only way to eliminate the invading aliens is to exploit the energy pulses generated by the power stations themselves. By using your ship to deflect the pulses into lenses, the pulses can be magnified so that they can destroy the aliens. This task must be achieved in each of the station's 36 sectors, which are all divided into three zones. Each zone has its own colour and, more importantly, time limit for completion.

The idea of bouncing pulses (shown as little lines) around the colourful screens is original, but doesn't quite come off. Severe frustration is caused when, after building up a large pulse, it's too easily lost through one of the exits. What action there is moves at a snail's pace and completely lacks any strategic element to get you thinking. Still, at least there's been attempt at originality and the graphics aren't that bad. If you can take the laborious pace it might be worth investigating at the budget price.

PHIL [52%]

THE ESSENTIALS
Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Sound: Atmospheric 128k tune which a strange tendency to change into a monotone
Options: definable keys

In the long history of computer gaming, saving the Earth has never seemed boring than in this game. In 128K mode, sound is represented by simplistic effects and an atrocious in-game tune. Graphically Pulse Warrior is okay, the monochromatic sprites move around the coloured backdrops well enough, but in the playability stakes, yes folks it's 'zzzz' time again. Maybe you can something more to this game than wandering aimlessly around, deflecting rays and avoiding baddies, but I certainly couldn't.
MARK [40%]

BARGAIN BASEMENT

Ben 'n' Skippy take a seat in the stalls to play their way through this month's cut-price offerings! With a bit of help from the usherette of course!

Mastertronic
£1.99
Reviewer: Ben Stone, Mike Dunn

Graphics wise this game is pretty good but on the playability stakes it's a dog! it took us ages to work out exactly what we had to do - the instructions are a little unclear to say the least. But we did finally manage to discover that the idea was to pick up pulses of energy in order to destroy all aliens in the space station. Control is a bit haphazard and it's a real pain to re-define the keys after each game. As far as strategic shoot 'em ups go this is certainly not one of Mastertronic's best - you'd be better off buying Thrust!

Label: Mastertronic
Author: Simon Price
Price: £2.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

In the near future, Man has used up all the earth's resources in creating lots of spy satellites and Star Wars weapons and lots of other things to protect himself from himself. So, in the tradition of putting things in the sky, the various nations have come up with a space energy platform, designed to catch any space energy that might just be floating about and send it down to earth. Due to various technical complexities, the platform is almost completely defenceless, so your job is to fly around its general vicinity, guarding it. From what? From the alien invaders haven't mentioned before. Aliens have decided to take over the Earth (don't they always) and the easy way to get at the people of Earth is to cut off their power. Simple, innit?

The platform is made up of a grid of screens. Each screen is viewed as a small section of spaceship, with lots of galleys and walkways, and it looks quite a lot like Intensity. On each screen, you'll find 4 basic items. (For details, see box). The idea is to reflect the rays of light into a lens. When you bounce one in, it stays there. When you bounce another one in, it goes straight through, but comes out with the first ray attached to it. It's like this that you construct a ray large enough to knockout the alien control panel.

The graphics are quite nice, though not half as detailed as they could have been. Everything moves about at quite a speed, and there's no slowing down when you've got 6 or 7 rays of energy bouncing around. Backgrounds are nothing exciting, but there is a very nice scrolling landscape behind them.

There are some OK 48K sound effects, but the 128K sounds are really superb. Add to that a continuous tune playing throughout and you've got a quite decent amount of sound.

It all plays very nicely, if a little easily. In fact, I found very little to challenge my gameplaying skills, and I'm not exactly red hot. (Ain't that the truth? - TH). A very nice bounce-the-lines game, and a real bargain at the price.