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Most computer games have B-movie style plots anyway, so remember when you chortle over this tongue-in-cheek plot it's intentional! Basically, the 'synthetic industrial planetoid' called 'X' has been invaded by the evil green Reptilons. The human inhabitants have been enslaved (and the women forced to wear skimpy bikinis). The Reptilons want everyone to build robots for the invasion of Earth, and any refuseniks will be turned into Robo-Zombies!

Jake and Duke of the interplanetary SWAT team have been rocketed to Planet X to rescue all the hostages, destroy the robots and find Professor Sarah Bellum ('coz she looks incredible in a bikini!). Unfortunately the hostages have been more industrious than workers in a Japanese factory, churning out hundreds of robots to fight Jake and Duke!

There are so many, in fact, that Jake and Duke have decided not to rescue all the hostages, but merely escape with as many as possible. The planetoid is divided into 32 sectors, including two blocks of three corridors of four sectors, which gives you some choice as to which route you follow through the planetoid. There are two basic types of sector, ones where you rescue hostages and ones where you take on a large (and blue!) Reptilon. Amiga owners have an additional section, where Jake and Duke must simultaneously fly through a maze inside a very strict time limit.

In both the hostage-rescuing and Reptilon-killing stages, there's a shared view of the isometric 3D landscape. If one player goes down a lift, he's in limbo until the other player goes with him. The basic idea is to run around shooting robots and rescuing the hostages by running into them! So far, so familiar, but there's plenty of fun touches in this Gauntlet-style game. Control systems need to be found to activate elevators (replaced by ladders on the C64) and free hostages held in glass cages. Blasting open cabinets can give you food, bombs, or even a force field which makes you invulnerable. For a more powerful ray-gun you can collect green crystals deposited by destroyed robots. After every hostage screen those you've liberated are packed into shuttles to be flown home. For every shuttle filled you get an extra block of energy. You also have three lives, and nine shared continue-play credits.

Escape isn't a classic but it's playable all the same. The wacky plot helps create a fun atmosphere, backed up by cartoon graphics which are humorously animated (on both machines) - I love the way the heroes hang on for dear life after falling over the edge.

The game's downfall is its repetitiveness - there's nowhere near enough variety to keep interest high. Believe it or not, even rescuing bikini-clad beauties gets boring after a while!

If you ask me, these Robot Monsters are pretty smart guys - if only I could turn my underlings into mindless, super-efficient Robo-Zombies! But even in ironic 'B-movie' computer games you have to play the blockheaded goodies, here wrecking a perfectly good slave labour factory.

The shoot-'em-up action is hardly original, but the many humorous touches make it all worthwhile. Inevitably the C64 lacks quite a few of the coin-op elements, using lots of electrocution tiles to compensate, but it's still quite fast and playable.

All in all, two fine conversions of a fun coin-op.

Presentation 65% Good title page, all one load.

Graphics 67% Well animated if small sprites. Backgrounds detailed but monochromatic. Big, colourful end-of-level monsters.

Sound 57% Average tune.

Hookability 71% Instantly playable with fun two-player mode

Lastability 71% Gets repetitive after a short while.

Overall 68% A fast, playable conversion of a fun coin-op.

Presentation 86% Fun comic-strip style intro, nice inter-level screens, music on/off.

Graphics 81% Hostage scenes a little repetitive but niely detailed. The maze in particular has a great cartoon feel.

Sound 68% Repetitive in-game tune interrupted by good spot FX.

Hookability 80% Very playable, especially with a friend.

Lastability 74% Eventually gets repetitive!

Overall 77% Never really enthralling but good fun.