Gunslinger is a version of the gunfight arcade game, Boot Hill, where two desperados face off across a dirt street in a one-horse town in the Wild West.

With only cacti and the occasional passing stagecoach for cover, the players zip up and down the screen, guns blazing.

The game is very much a battle of wits, with victory going to the player who can blast away with accuracy while dodging all the lead flying from the other direction. You can play against the computer or a human opponent and, as usual with such games, duelling with a friend is by far the more enjoyable option.

This is especially true in this game, where the computer is a murderously accurate shot, and you'll find you're getting through your five lives faster than they got through sheriffs in Dodge City. Each time you bite the dust, two strong men carry a stretcher across the screen, pick you up and then remove you to the strains of the Death March.

This is a dull version of an old and mediocre arcade game with no original touches worth mentioning. The sound is dreadful and most people won't find it appealing to hear the Death March for the umpteenth time ('because it was in the original'). Instead they'll turn the sound down, or stuff their ears with cotton wool or whatever else is handy.

The graphics, too, are nothing to write home about and, taken with the poor sound effects, I'm left wondering why the programmer needed an expansion!

On the bright side, the game loads very quickly and the cowboys are equally nifty, scurrying up and down with great smoothness. People who found the arcade game addictive will get a kick out of it. Personally, I'm aiming my kick in a different direction... so look out, Omega.

Apparently, this game is licensed to Omega from Anirog, famous for their 16K Vic games. The game is recognisable with its typical Anirog graphics: large, chunky, colourful and also, alas, jerky. The tune was excellent, some of the best music I've heard on the Vic, but the Death March left something to be desired.

In one-player mode, the computer-controlled cowboy was really too quick on the draw, making Butch Cassidy look like the Milky Bar Kid, and I frequently needed the attentions of the two stretcher bearers clad in black.

This has to be the first computer game to suffer an identity crisis. On the cover, it's called Gunslinger but on the title screen, High Noon!

A bad omen you may think, and you'd be right! The graphics are great, the sound is respectable but, with about fifty draws against the computer, I only managed to win once and even that was a fluke.

Remember the game Boot Hill? All it did in the arcades was sit and collect dust and cigarette ash. Well, Gunslinger is based on the same idea.