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Spook! It's this month's second opportunity to join the Drugs Enforcement Agency: narcotics police in the area, part two.

Narco Police is set in the future (February 23rd in the year 2003, about 2:10pm). More than 20% of the earth's population are hooked on drugs, and the evil drug barons (those evil drug barons again, eh?) are about to get a visit. They think they're safe enough on their Central American island, but they reckoned without the Narco Police who are, even as we speak, racing their way Xybots-style along some tunnels, their big guns primed and ready to fire.

You can see what the game is like from the screenshots; the only other thing to add is that it's a Dinamic game. Dinamic is a Spanish word which roughly translates into English as "unspeakably difficult". The continental software house is renowned for games which look and play fab (Army Moves, Navy Moves, etc) but which no-one has ever managed to get past level three on without a cheat.

Major irritations with this particular unspeakably difficult game include having bullets or hand grenades propelled towards you by hidden enemies. These enemies are so well hidden, in fact, that the first hint you get of their presence is when your chap screams and falls to the floor in a pool of blood. Yeah, cheers Dinamic!

The 3D scrolling is a bit of a departure from the Spaniards' usual horizontal shooting fare, and while the game is nothing special, compared to most of this month's releases it's a little corker. If only it wasn't so difficult... (I blame General Franco.)

Original release: February 1991
Original publisher: Dinamic
Original score: 68% (AA66)

Overall 56%
Over-difficult but reasonably fun shoot-em-up with a neat 3D perspective. The sound is crummy, by the way.