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Until this month I was perfectly satisfied with playing R-Type, Twin Heli or Galaga '88 on my PC Engine. But then Gunhed came along and I'm afraid that's all over.

It's a space-borne blast with no apparent objective apart from laying waste nine long vertically-scrolling levels of star-baddies.

As usual, downed baddies release a weapons capsule which you can pick up to bolt goodies onto your ship. Nothing unusual, but in Gunhed these pods really let you kick the conkers off anything that gets in your way. The weediest weapon is a rapid fire laser, but a few pick-ups later you can have a defensive shield, two super-hard Multibots flying alongside you firing fireballs, multi-directional Destructor Waves, homing missiles, or a screen full of Field Thunder death beams.

Usually, being so tooled-up means it's dead easy to cream the opposition, and hence, you've got zero gameplay. Not with Gunhed. The difficulty level picks up quite slowly, but after level two things start to get a mite tough, and by the time you get to level eight where a myriad of beautifully drawn bubbles fly everywhere, the game will have your nerves in shreds.

The graphics throughout the game really are arcade quality. The sprites and backdrops are utterly stunning and the speed at which everything moves is exceptional. Nor has sound been forgotten, for Gunhed sports a load of superb soundtracks, marvellous effects and even speech to tell you what each pick-up does.

What more can I say to convince you? It's simply the best shoot-'em-up I've played outside of an arcade. Anyone on the quest for the ultimate shoot-'em-up - this is it! This is it!!

Urbleburbleburble. Utterly incredible, super-smooth, ultra-fast mega-blast that blows all other shoot-'em-ups out of the water. Buy it and kiss your joypad arm goodbye.