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First advertised well - over a year ago, this foray into fantasy land finally slips out - quietly. Three dragons, bored with peace in the land they perceive, stage their version of an acid party and incinerate most of the population! This sort of behaviour is out of order as we all know, and true enough, out of the wastelands comes a hero with retribution on his mind and the muscle power to achieve it.

Known as Black Tiger he stalks six levels of dank caverns and spooky places full of nasty creatures, skeletons. mad axe-wielding trolls and vampire bats. He will not rest until he tastes the dragons' blood.

He starts on armed with an extendable mace which also shoots daggers - impressive and devastating. By collecting the Zenny coins (a la Forgotten Worlds) that appear when certain creatures are killed and taking them to the grey-haired merchants standing around parts of the maze, modes can be bought potions, armour and more powerful weapons - essential for killing the end of level creatures, and most especially the dragon at the end of level six. Vengeance will be yours if you follow the right path, but if you put a foot wrong you could end up on the dragons' dinner menu.

Great stuff, plenty of hack and slash fun for all the family! Black Tiger in the arcades Is a very beautiful looking game, and tough to play. On the Spectrum a great deal of effort has gone into making it look as authentic as possible. The hero sprite is a chunky little chap who is certainly no push over, whilst the enemy match him for graphical detail and savageness. Black Tiger is a tough no nonsense effort that pulls no punches.

MARK ... 84%

'Black Tiger has taken a long, long time being released. It was first previewed way back in Issue 54. July 1988.I played it then and thought it was an almost finished version! So has it been worth the 20 month wait? Well, both the sprite and background graphics are highly detailed, mating it hard to see what is going on half the time. The yellow monochrome doesn't help much either. There are a mountain of different monsters to battle it out against ranging from maniac skeletons to bricks with eyes! The movement of the main character is a title jerky when the scream sends, and this can put you off what you were doing. Successfully moving around is a mater of adjusting your movements to cope with the scrolling. One area the game does fall down on is sound. There is one pathetic effect when you fire and no tune! Black Tiger isn't one of the most amazing games every to be released, but all fans of this style will find it quite fun for a while.'