The other major release this week we certainly did dwell on though - It Came From the Desert, by one of the Amiga champions, Cinemaware. It was an affectionate homage to the science fiction B-movies of the '50s and had the player as a research scientist in the small town of Lizard's Breath, where a meteor storm had caused the local ant population to grow to enormous size, terrorising the small town. As with most Cinemaware games, the gameplay mixed exploration and adventure with action elements, and it was a cracking good yarn. Perhaps the most notable aspect of It Came... was its size. It was one of the first games which demanded a whopping 1Mb to run: "There's not that much memory in the world!" wailed disbelieving Spectrum 48K owners.

Psygnosis were later bought by Sony for a reported £14m - a massive amount at the time, but chickenfeed compared to what many lesser publishers were later sold for - and were responsible for some of the PlayStation's more noteworthy early output, such as WipeOut and Destruction Derby. Cinemaware reportedly hit financial troubles and just seemed to vanish in the early '90s after producing a number of disappointing - given the innovative nature of their early releases, such as Defender of the Crown, Sinbad, Rocket Ranger, The Three Stooges and It Came From the Desert - US sports simulations under the TV Sports brand. Shame.