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Following hot on the heels of Way Of The Exploding Fist, Melbourne House have released a second combat game, this time set in ancient Egypt.

Fighting Warrior puts you in the position of trying to rescue the Princess Thaya from the clutches of the evil Pharaoh (please note spelling Melbourne House). Armed only with a two-handed sword, you must battle against the Pharaoh's magicians and force your way across the desert into the temple where the princess is held.

The first thing you notice about the game is the superb quality of the graphics. The characters are huge and beautifully drawn and animated. Your adversaries come in various shapes and sizes, my favourite of the ones that I've come across so far being a hideous winged demon. All this is set against a scrolling background of assorted Egyptian scenery.

Control of the character is a relatively simple affair via either keyboard or joystick. You have four defensive movements of jump, duck, forwards and backwards, and three aggressive moes of a high, medium and low swipe. The action is quite slow and, whilst this mirrors "real life" (you try swinging a two-handed sword quickly) some players may find that there is not enough zip for them. I also found both keyboard and joystick responses a little slow, especially when leaping and ducking the arrows that periodically come your way.

As you progress towards the temple you come across assorted objects left by previous adventurers and working out how to use their reported magical powers is vital to your progress in the game. Scoring is dependent on how many hits you score and how quickly you kill off your opponent. The relative strengths of the warrior and the creature is denoted at the bottom of the screen by a number of arrows - the number being the quantity of hits thatyou can take and still live.

Comparisons between Fighting Warrior and Way Of The Exploding Fist are inevitable which is a pity as they are decidedly different games. However, it must be said that Fighting Warrior is lacking that certain something which turns an ordinary game into an outstanding one.