First off, this is not a demo - it's a fully-fledged game. A fully-fledged game of Asteroids to be exact. Now if last month's covergame Guardian 2 rang no bells with you, you'll have no chance at identifying Asteroids. Basically, it's a shoot-'em-up in space - you're this tiny little ship in the middle of the screen, and before you can shout butter, the Speccy lets loose a whole pack of horribly large asteroids. These drift around the place, not really meaning to hit you but nevertheless managing to do so rather spectacularly - unless you shoot them first. Tragically, shooting a big rock doesn't destroy it. Rather, it creates two smaller rocks. Shooting each of these creates two even smaller ones, and finally zapping these gets rid of the pesky things altogether. (You might get a little light bulb coming on above your head if I mention Pang - a somewhat newer game which, erm, ripped off Asteroids shamelessly). Anyway, the really tricky thing about Asteroids was the controls - it was the first 'rotate and move' game. The other really tricky thing was that now and again you'd get attacked by flying saucers, who definitely did want to zap you and inevitably managed to do so. Pretty tough, eh?
    Well, enough of the potted history lesson. Blaster! is a PD version of Asteroids (obvious really) and it's extremely good (perhaps not so obvious although the use of the word 'amazing' back there was probably a bit of a giveaway).
    The graphics flicker alarmingly and the saucers are disappointingly lax in their security as they flit about the place, but Blaster! holds buttercups under all the right chins with the gameplay. It's incredibly playable. It's fantastically addictive. It's not quite as good as Quicksilva's Meteor Storm but, heck, you can't get that any more. Blaster! is instant arcade smartness in a bijou Speccy form and is worth a pound of anyone's money, except it's free, which just goes to prove something although I'm sure I don't know what. (Quite. Ed)