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The latest arcade conversion from Imagine is Konami's Green Beret. There's none of your subtle problem-solving arcade adventure stuff here, it's sheer mayhem - death and destruction from start to finish and it'll probably sell in bundles.

Your mission as the afore mentioned Green Beret is to penetrate four Strategic Defence bases and rescue the captives who are lined up in front of a firing squad. The four bases are a Harbour, Bridge, Missile Base and Prison Camp, with the captives being held in the last of these so that you have to get through all four stages of the game to succeed.

The scenery in each of these bases is different, with a series of bridges, missile launchers or whatever is appropriate for each base. The graphics are all finely drawn and smoothly animated and, apart from the limits that the Spectrum puts on the use of colour, are an almost exact reproduction of those in the original arcade game.

But though the scenery varies in each stage, the action is the same throughout - a never-ending stream of enemy soldiers who pour onto the screen from all directions, leaping, kicking, shooting and generally trying to ruin your health. But, being a 'highly trained combat machine' you too are capable of a fair bit of slaughter. Your figure can move left/right, jump forwards or backwards to avoid mines, bullets and so on, duck below leaping enemy soldier and climb/jump onto bridges, trucks and any other useful parts of the scenery.

To begin with you are armed only with a knife, but as you skewer your way through the enemy ranks you will be able to capture some of their weapons for your own use. Flame throwers, grenades and rocket launchers are all up for grabs and these dispose of the enemy in spectacular style, with bursts of flame and disintegrating skeletons littering the screen as you go on your merry way.

On the whole, Green Beret manages to avoid any of the nationalistic chest thumping that made Rmbo and Raid Over Moscow controversial, but one unfortunately tacky little detail is the use of Soviet hammer and sickle symbols to indicate the number of lives left. Changing this would have been a sensible move and wouldn't have had any effect on the game itself as it serves absolutely no purpose in the actual gameplay.

With its single-minded concentration on killing everyone in sight, Green Beret is one of those games that you'll find either completely absorbing and addictive or just too narrow in scope to hold your attention for very long. It all depends on what you like in your games, but either way Green Beret is a faithful conversion of the arcade original.