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Big Trouble In Little China was a really neat movie. But once again the dreaded curse of the movie spin-off has struck. Big Trouble In Little China has a reasonably good game idea, pretty graphics and nice sound - but it all gets let down by the tedious gameplay.

You get three characters to control. Each has different abilities and each is brought into action for different parts of the game.

If you've seen the film then you'll know the basic plot which is a simple save the girl from the evil, oriental mastermind adventure. And that's just what the plot of the game is.

You can control the heroes - Jack Burton, Wang-Chi and Egg Shen on their quest to save their girlfriends from the villainous Lo Pan.

Jack is armed with his fists and, when he finds it, a gun. Wang Chi is a martial arts ace who sometimes gets to use a sword and Egg Shen is a wizard who fights with mystical energy bolts.

Initially Jack is able to defend himself only with his fists. However, if you can penetrate far enough into the Mandarin's empire you will find a Bushmaster gun which you may use. There is only a limited amount of ammunition, though more may be found lying around.

Wang chi is gifted with a knowledge of the martial arts. In addition to this, a sword will eventually be found. Swords have a comparatively short life and will eventually break. More swords may be found during play and if picked up will prolong the life of the sword you are carrying if you already have one.

At the beginning of the game Egg Shen uses magic bolts which he can fire from his fingers, those only have a very limited range. Eventually, a magic potion in a bottle will be found which will enable him to use stronger magic. He will now have control over lightning bolts which will have devastating effects on the toughest of opponents.

This strong magic may be topped up by finding additional bottles of magic potion.

The game has four levels. Level One: The Streets of Chinatown. Here your three heroes will encounter unarmed martial arts experts and gunmen. You will have to retreat - you can't defeat the gunmen until you have gained more experience. Warriors and other henchmen will not allow you to run past them without fighting.

Level Two: The Sewers: In addition to the combatants to be found on level one you will also find the Sewer Monsters here. You must avoid the Sewer Monsters by jumping over them as they cannot be killed.

Level Three: Lo Pan's Headquarters: The Storms are elemental beings who must be defeated before you are able to face Lo Pan in combat. They may be identified by the wide brimmed hats they are wearing.

Level Four: The Marriage Chamber: The Marriage Chamber, to be found at the heart of the headquarters, contains Armoured Warriors and Lo Pan.

The combat sequences aren't action-packed enough and I quickly got bored kicking and punching my way past the various assailants.

There's no doubt that the game is very well packaged and presented - it just lacks that all-important playability factor which would make you want to shell out your hard-earned pennies on it. My advice is to save them for the film.

To defeat Lo Pan (who appears on a flying cloud in the Marriage Chamber) you will need the combined combat skills of all three characters; as he has the power of regeneration he will need to be shop, zapped and run through a number of times to finally kill him once and for all.

All of which sounds pretty neat, doesn't it? But the fact is that the game quickly becomes repetitive and you end up not really caring if you save the girls or not.