Hi-yaaah! Ok Kung-Fu dudes, it's time to put on your special Bruce Lee trousers. Virgin has released a compilation of martial arts games, enabling you to kick seven shades of sunlight out of a plethora of baddies. There are four games to choose from and a vast array of bare-fisted combat moves at your disposal. Are they worth lashing your satin 'jammies on for...?

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Welcome to cutesville. The Ninja killers have to take a back seat for this game, and are replaced with their cartoon counterparts - dangerous ducks.

Bin and Pin are the names of the two heroes of this tale, and what a pair they are!

The plot is remarkably similar to that of Double Dragon, as is the game style. The evil Achacha has been up to some fowl (har har) play, and has stolen little Lucy. Bin and Pin's bestest friend in the whole wide world. "Gah! Let's get "em", they cry, and set out with their phenomenally big fists and serious attitudes to dispatch Achacha. Oh, and rescue Lucy while they're about it.

The action scrolls horizontally with the occasional vertical scrolly bit. Baddies of various degrees of cuteness make their way towards you, and you either whack 'em with your big gloves or pick up a weapon and waste 'em. Treasure can be picked up along the way, as can energy-replenishing cakes and sweets. Power can be built up by holding the Fire button pressed & la R-Type, making Bin and Pin are more than a match for the big end-of-level monsters from kung-fu land.

The graphics are absolutely excellent, very cartoony and outrageously cute. Scrolling is super-smooth, and only the lack of decent sounds lets down the presentation. Gameplay is simple and good fun, although it borrows heavily from other games in the kung-fu genre, and it is marred only by the fact that the game is a little easy to complete. Having said that, it is almost definitely the best game on the compilation, and by a long way. A total big laff, dudes.

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Apart from having a completely daft name, Bangler just happens to be the most powerful figure in world politics. Not only that, he is totally bananas. His power-hungry struggle is despised by the world's population, but his criminal connections have kept his position secure... or at least until he messed with a nice scientist fellow named Mulk... (Where do they get those wonderful names?)

Mulk, being the outrageously spiffy geezer that he is, has come up with a solution to Bangler's menace. A bomb? No. Poison gas? Nah. A candlelit dinner with Madge Bishop? Well, er, possibly.. but no. Instead, Mulk has come up with two cybernetic, nigh-on indestructible Ninja Warriors. Right on, dudes! (Well it had to be the obvious solution.)

Their mission is to basically kill everything they come across and eventually assassinate big bad Bangler himself. Now the question you are asking yourself is this: If you have the technology to make android killers, what kind of weapons are you going to kit these guys out with? Particle beam accelerations? Localised nuclear fission generators? Quad photon death cannons? Unfortunately not - you give them knives instead. As soon as the bad guys make their way across the horizontally scrolling screen, you have to take them out with a well-aimed swipe of your blade. You also have at your disposal a limited supply of rather weedy shuriken, which allow you to avoid those close encounters.

A poor Kung Fu Master clone at best, but enough pulling power to keep you interested for a while at least.

Duff graphics and poor gameplay combine to make this game one of the most harmlessly banal titles in years.

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"Shinobi" is a Japanese word, it means literally "to steal in", and shinobijutsu is the art of stealth. Stealth is the trademark of a Ninja assassin, and so it is stealth which is required for success in this game.

The Sega coin-op made its way onto the Amstrad some time ago, and the story goes a little like this...

Joe Musashi is a rock-hard Ninja who is having a little trouble with a totally nasty dude called Bwah Foo. Bwah Foo is angry, and not just because he has a pathetic name. He wants money, and in order to get some he has kidnapped lots of young pupils from the local Ninja school (not too heavy on plot this one). He has demanded a ransom for the safe return of said Ninja sproglings. Joe, however, has other ideas...

Boing... with a well-timed Ninja somersault, he springs into action and sets about the task of rescuing the brats. It is all standard kung fu fare, only the joy of close-quarter fighting is replaced by shuriken-throwing. The platform element in this game is more important than the beating and kicking, and adds greatly to the thrills and spills. Extra weapons (in the form of little rockets) are gained by collecting selected sprogs. After three separate sections you meet an end-of-level baddie - for example, a whirling hurricane Ninja or helicopter gunship.

The Amstrad version is fast and reasonably smooth, and contains most of the elements found in the original arcade game. The graphics are colourful and well designed, and the overall effect is helped by decent (although far from perfect) scrolling. Sound is a bit weak, but if you can live with that minor niggle then what you have is a very accurately converted and enjoyable arcade romp-o-ra, and a cool beat-'em-up.

Remember... strike hard and fade away.

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Billy and Jimmy are two righteously cool dudes, so you can imagine how upset they get when the boss of the local gang sends out some henchmen to murder Billy's best girl, Marian. Decidedly miffed, they set out to avenge her death - which is as much excuse as you need for the ensuing rampage of mindless destruction. Kill, maim, torture... and generally make life difficult for the nasty gang of kung-fu clowns.

Billy and Jimmy can operate as a team or work alone, but you will find it easier if you take your brother along as back-up. The action scrolls horizontally from right to left, and various baddies with their own strengths and weaknesses wander into your flying fists and feet. It is possible to climb ladders and gain access to ledges and platforms to avoid the baddies, but the real psychopaths amongst you will prefer to wade in and deal double death with deft dexterity.

End-of-level nasties with special talents pop up from time to time, and are generally huge and vicious. Being picked up by a huge goon and pummelled mercilessly to death is not a fun way to go. But you're no cissy yourself, and you can dish it out too. You have the usual range of moves available... and a couple of really brutal tricks like the Glasgow Kiss and the super spinning cyclone kick.

Sounds good so far? Well, sorry, it's actually a bit duff. The graphics are slow and blocky, the sound borders on the pathetic, and the gameplay is absolutely diabolical. The characters' response to the joystick is about as fast as a slug breakdancing in treacle, and this makes the game a hundred times more difficult than it should be. Double Dragon II in the arcades was better than DD1, but on the Amstrad the first version is still the best. What a turkey!

Nobody really cares what happened to their girlfriend, and frankly, it's a bit suspicious, what with them being brothers, and sharing one girlfriend and all.

A bit of a mixed bag. Shinobi and Dynamite Dux are OK, but the other two are not terribly inspired. Still it's better than a kick in the... [Yes, that's quite enough of that! - Ed]

Good value for the most part, and an irresistible package for the hardened martial arts psychonutters out there.