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America's quaking in its boots. U-Boats have been seen in San Francisco bay and the call has gone out for Action Fighter to come and save the day. There's one small problem, though. Mr. Fighter has gone down with a heavy cold and his mum wont let him out until Thursday. You're the only one who can take his place. You've got the weapons, you know the score, but have you got the style?

Action Fighter's ace in the hole is his car. No ordinary motor, this baby has the ability to change from a car to a bike to a plane at the flick of a switch. Add the on-road modifications - available from the Sega truck - and he's truly invincible. His missions involve tearing along, shooting everything and anything until the crisis is over - not a terribly rational solution, but fun.

Racing through the streets (or the skies), Action Fighters want to kill as many enemies as possible, because besides gaining points there's the chance of grabbing some extra firepower. Starting with a measly single cannon ain't no fun, so you must kill foes by the bucketload to gain double front blasters, bombs/missiles, back-fire-power and even limited invulnerability! All you've got to do is line up behind the Sega truck that chortles into play and use it as a drive-in armourers.

Before you're allowed to do any shape-changing, though, you need to collect four letters that destroyed cars have left lying in the road. Once these are in the bank you can change to the more manoeuvrable bike or the sturdier car. After that, there's only two letters to go before you become the plane and get down to the real business of the day. The first stage is considered to be your drive to the harbour, when you get your wings and then soar out over the bay. Your missiles become bombs, and it's U-Boat-popping time. Quite why you can't fly there in the first place, avoiding all that on-road nastiness, is never made clear - but there you have it.

Airborne, you keep any weapons you had before (kiss them goodbye if you die) but you get a bomb sight in front of you to help trash the nasty Nazis below the sea.

Unfortunately, the Action Fighter's life is not a happy one. You see there's plenty of shooting and killing, but little else. There's no pace to the game and everything happens exactly when you expect it to. Continual shooting and dodging is initially good fun, but it doesn't have much staying power. Interest would be increased if the game moved at more of a lick, but as it is everybody ambles along casually disregarding the fact they're being shot in the bot by a super car/plane/bike.

The graphics too follow in this vein - they're perfectly competent but not awe-inspiring. The scrolling scrolls, the sprites sprite, but none of this happens at the reflex-numbing speed which makes vertical shoot-'em-ups so appealing. The sound is limited to the occasional crash, and so even dying loses its appeal.

Coin-ops are like going to the movies for the home gamester. Now, while we'd all happily trot out to spend our cash on Lethal Weapon 2 or Forgotten Worlds, no sane person would queue in the rain to watch Neighbours. Likewise you can't imagine being drawn to this Sega coin-op. Five years ago it may have been state of the art but now it's just average. A realistic conversion like this can't therefore hope to be a classic game unless the programming team find something dynamic to add to the program.

Unfortunately, even the great team at Core Design (of Rick Dangerous fame) haven't managed the impossible. The result is a playable but completely forgettable product.

If I'd seen Action Fighter in the arcades five years ago, I wouldn't have played it then either. Pretty enough but shallow and hackneyed gameplay.

Graphics 66%
P. Works well enough...
N. ...but not exactly awe-inspiring.

Sonics 25%
P. It has got sound effects...
N. ...but very little else.

Grab Factor 78%
P. Quickly-learned blasting gun.
N. Unoriginal theme and execution.

Staying Power 65%
P. Six levels...
N. ...if you can muster the enthusiasm.

Overall 54%
N. Average shoot-out that lacks thrills.