Everyone almost expected this game to fail. After Paradroid and Uridium, both of which were real classics, Alleykat had to be a let-down, didn't it? Contrary to what everyone expected, Alleykat is another great game from Andrew Braybrook. Undoubtedly it is simpler than Paradroid but Uridium was scarcely the most complex game of all time, yet it was still one of the most playable.

Describing Alleykat is almost impossible. It is a space-racing simulation. It features some of the smoothest vertical scrolling seen on the Commodore 64 and should keep trigger-happy gamesters happy for hours.

Once the game is started, you must choose which race you will enter first. At the beginning, as you have no money, only five races can be entered. They are set on various landscapes, with various objectives. Each race is measured in laps and to make life a great deal more difficult, there is a large variety of aliens who would rather you failed to complete the course.

If the player managers to complete a race, he is awarded bonus points for speed, aliens killed and race completion. They are added to the player's points tally, and money varying from 400 to 20,000 guineas, depending on the difficulty and length of the race.

As with all Braybrook games, the background and sprite animation is faultless and in one section of Alleykat it is truly superb. When pulling back on the joystick during the race, your craft does a loop-the-loop - very useful if being chased by a Katerkiller.

Without doubt, Braybrook is one of the programming talents of the moment and this game reflects that. It lacks the depth of Paradroid but it has the immediacy which made Uridium such a smash.