It's a crying shame, I know, but unfortunately I could never join the U.S. army; I've got flat feet, you see. Oh, and a brain. That rules out Marines as well, I suppose. What's left, then? Navy SEALS? Not likely after playing this game; it's the worst recruitment ad they could ever have - you keep ending up dead. The "SEALS" bit stands for SEa, Air and Land. But there's no sea in the game. And not much air (apart from the stuff you breathe!). Navy "Ls" then. You play the part of a "meat-head with a mission", the mission being to storm a harbour, prime loads of detonators and run for it. That's just the first part of the game, though; next you have to knock out a communications tower and run for it. I can only assume that every other level involves detonators and running for it as I never really got that far (we'll discuss this later).

I'm human. Apologies 'n'all, but that's the way I am. If I get shot in the head, I die. If I get shot in the foot (if you really want to get pedantic about this), I don't die, but I still don't feel much like storming any fortresses. In Navy SEALS, unlike in most other games, your sprite can't catch four bullets in the head, be molested by a giant turtle, withstand a kipper around the kneecaps and still go on to complete a level. It's a decent surprise to finally play a game that happily admits the fact.

The downside to this is that you end up with a game that's buttock-clenchingly difficult. You've got three minutes to blow up a harbour. The quickest possible method takes about two and a half minutes. That's tight: So you've got 30 seconds to spare, and you're running round with about 20 enemies trying to stop you. One shot from them and you drop like a stone, losing valuable time, and probably restarting from the opposite end of the map (each detonator you set doubles as a restart point). That's not fair, but then life isn't fair, is it?

To combat this, you've got five blokes. That's not one bloke five times, but five separate blokes with five different faces. Great touch. Utterly pointless, but great. I'm not sure of their names, but ones along the lines of Joe, Mac, Jack, Hank and Chuck would be a fairly safe bet. On later levels, you have the option to continue, re-incarnating your five marines which is definitely a Good Thing; with a game this difficult, it'd be almost unplayable without this feature. The graphics, as you would expect, are well-drawn, very colourful and excellently animated. The scrolling is smooth and follows the player rather than flipping from one screen to the next.

Sonically, Navy SEALS can get a little repetitive. Yeah, in-game sound effects are nice, with no overstated or overbearing noises, but the tune is pig annoying to say the least. It should win awards for irritation on a subliminal level, but hey, there is a volume control, you know.

Grab factor and staying power? Well, it's almost impossible to predict how long your patience will last with this game; if you do stick around long enough to complete the first level, you'll be hooked. In fact, the only obstacle to overcome in order to enjoy this game is getting the hang of the controls. Once you get your blokey running around smoothly and you learn the timing of his moves, you'll do just fine and make decent progress.

So, how does all this translate into a final rating? Well, a slightly easier first level which allows you to get used to the controls would help matters, as would a bit of variation in activities and bad guys; the mark reflects these slight oversights in the design. But I reckon you should definitely try to get hold of Navy SEALS, and persevere to get a little further into the game because things really do take off.

Simon Forrester