OC HIGH: STUDENT NEWS AND VIEWS : Video Game Review : Stellar 7: Draxon’s Revenge; <i> For 3DO CD, from Dynamix, $59.95 </i>

Much of the challenge of making it big with a new game system is making sure your software is exciting and challenging.

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If all of the games designed for the 3DO CD system meet that requirement as well as Stellar 7: Draxon’s Revenge, 3DO has it made. This is one great game.

In Draxon’s Revenge, you are the driver of the super-tank Raven. Armed with powerful weapons and able to speed across the terrain on an anti-gravity cushion, your Raven is a mighty weapon against the evil hordes of Gir Draxon, overlord of the Arcturan Empire, who wants to add Earth to his collection of slave planets.

Forget it, Draxmeister. Raven can handle it.

But this amazing weapon can’t do it alone; a pilot with sharp eyes and a quick trigger finger is needed. There are about a dozen different Arcturan attack craft, plus a bunch more that either have not been identified or are invisible.

Your basic weapon, a laser gun, can smash most of the Arcturan attackers. Power-ups give you a super-cannon, and an invisibility shield is available.

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I hooked up the 3DO to a 27-inch TV, and the effect is spectacular. Graphics are eerie; bleak landscapes stretch to the horizon, dazzling shades and shapes appear and disappear, bizarre enemy craft zoom in and out of your windshield.

You visit seven worlds, each stranger than the last. At each stop, you must blast as many of Draxon’s evil henchmen as you can. If you toast enough of them, you meet an end-stage boss--a Terminator-like robot called a Guardian--that must be defeated before you can move on.

If you beat the Guardian, you will see a Warp Link. Drive into it, and you will be propelled to the next planet. On Planet Seven, you must destroy Draxon’s flagship to win the game and save Earth. If you fail, it’s adios Earthlings.

This one-player game provides three difficulty levels--practice, which operates on the first world only; standard, which allows you to move on, and difficult, which is described as “for masochists only.” I agree.

Driving the Raven is simplicity itself. Push up on the directional pad to move forward, down to reverse, steer with the left and right D-pad arms. Your instrument panel has a radar screen that is vital to your health; watch for the little green dots and go after them before they come after you.

You can also see your score, your energy level and a panel showing the status of power modules and how many are left.

The modules include such things as a cloaking device, a boost thruster for short bursts of extra speed and an “RC Bomb” that acts as a mine that detonates when an enemy electrical field is detected. Don’t worry, it’s coded so it won’t blow you up.

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Control is very good, although lining up your sights on an enemy at speed is not always as easy as you might like, and you can’t elevate your weapons to hit flying enemies. The sound quality is good, with the sound of weapons clear and sharp.

And this game is fun. The challenge is high, and you’ll learn to keep moving or die.

If 3DO can keep software makers producing this level of quality, the company should have a long and happy life.