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This game is a great disappointment. The packaging trumpets its virtues as 'an all-action, jumping, climbing and shooting game with 31 different caves to explore.'

What you don't get told is that the configuration of the caves is very similar, with only colours and the number of aliens changing. This might be forgivable if there was some outstanding - or even merely good - gameplay to be had.

Unfortunately. these caves are far from exciting places. Up ropes and on to ledges you go - but why? The game doesn't provide any kind of scenario, or even a name for the character you control. You can't help feeling that someone messing around in caves full of aliens should be left to his own devices.

Movement takes a while to get the hang of. You lose a life if you walk into any area of raised ground, which sometimes makes it difficult to position yourself correctly under a rope. Jumping is easy enough once you've realised that you must keep an eye on the strength meter and keep it up for the high jumps.

The aliens aren't a bad-looking bunch; some whirr like rotors, some crawl like slugs, and there are even bullet-firing flowers. But yer man is a pretty uninteresting figure who insists on performing a celebratory jig every single time he shoots something.

The game does become a little more interesting after level 20 or so: the aliens are more numerous and the task of shinning up ropes and landing on ledges becomes more demanding.

Cave Fighter really is not the sort of game that's going to thrill you through those long winter nights. Its graphics are too simple to make it a visual treat, its sound is horrible and horribly boring and the gameplay is dull. Speleologists beware.

This is an unimpressive jump and climb game with a claimed 31 levels. Most of the levels appear to be variations on a theme, with the scenery being much the same. Control is a little tricky as it employs a strength meter for jumping, which means you having to hod your joystick fire button down for varying periods of time to determine the distance you leap; this is a very time-consuming activity, which makes gameplay rather tedious.

Cave Fighter reminded me a bit of Bugaboo, except instead of a flea, you are a human who has to escape from the caverns. It is tricky to control the jumping and shooting since both use the fire button. It also annoyed me that if I walked into a wall I would lose a life, since I doubt if that would happen in real life! It is better than Bugaboo however.

After the nice little theme from 'Chariots of Fire', I embarked onto the ropes and platforms. There is little variation on each of the 30+ levels and 99 lives made it tedious. For me, there was not much of a long term challenge.