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This is a movie spin-off game that stands up in its own right, perhaps because it bears so little similarity to the original film.

Cobra, a vigilante cop movie, with Stallone as the star, was a failure by Rambo standards although it contained the by now standard quota of mindless violence. Ocean have made no attempt to make a carbon copy game of the film and in fact Cobra is a tongue-in-cheek send-up with a ludicrous plot, absurd characters and cartoon logic.

The cop, "Cobretti", is a muscle-bound chunky sprite who is initially armed only with a devastating headbutt which, if he connects, sends his enemies winging off screen in the direction they came on. As for these legions of psychopaths, they are made up of obese wrestlers, old ladies touting lethal bazookas, knife-throwing assassins and the like. This is not to mention the turbo-charged prams that ram Cobretti and sap his energy.

If all this sounds a bit wacky, wait for the plot. Okay... Cobretti has to rescue top fashion model Ingrid Knutson from the clutches of the evil Night Slasher. All right so far, but in order to do this, he's got to find weapons which are hidden inside beefburgers at certain points in the three playing areas (city, country and a factory). Quite why a knife, pistol and laser-sighted machine gun are concealed in this way is a mystery. Anyway, shaking off the mince from the weapons, Cobretti must rescue Ingrid and completely decimate the attackers before progressing to the next section. The weapons however have a limited life-span and tend to disappear just when you need them most.

Cobra is a very fast, very well animated game that's hard to master at first, simply because you are confronted by so many bizarre comic hatchet men.

You are given a miniscule three lives to start out with, and additional lives can be obtained at 10,000 points and further up the high score table.

The game, which can be played with keyboard or joystick, is really enjoyable and arcade fans who are looking for something a little bit different will not be disappointed. Unfortunately the image created by the film is misleading. Stallone on the inlay cover with his laser-sighted machine gun and the hard man phraseology "Crime is a disease. He's the cure," look a bit silly once you've got the Stallone figure scampering up the platforms after the beefburger.

It may well have been the intention to send the whole thing up... and that's fine... but those who like their destructive blasting untainted by any form of fun had better stick to the film.