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1993 is a dirty era in world history, with drugs, prostitution and similar unsavoury practices more rife than ever. Look on the bright side though, at least there's only one man controlling the lot. Snag is, the bloke in charge is President Bangler, who has the police and armed forces, as well as the entire criminal underworld in his grasp. Although he has crushed almost every uprising against him and his government, one rebel organisation, led by Mulk, continues the struggle against this vile ruler's despicable acts. A plan is drawn up to infiltrate the dictator's ranks, with the intention of assassinating Bangler, using two state-of-the-art robots: the Ninja Warriors.

Six seedy areas stand between the droids and Bangler, and these must be cleared of hostile forces before the President can be reached. Intelligence has informed Bangler of the threat to his life however, and extra troops have been drafted in to each area, with a super-strong guardian at the end of each one to ensure the quick demise of the robots.

Disguised as knife-wielding, shuriken-throwing ninja, the droids can withstand only a limited number of hits before they explode into shards of metal. And if that isn't enough, a self-destruct device has also been built into the robots, destroying them should they fail to complete each level within the given time limit.

Ninja Warriors began as one of those ultra-trendy triple-monitor coin-ops, and the elongated look of the arcade machine has been represented surprisingly well on the ST, the overall playing area being compressed into the middle third of the screen. Although this means a reduction in the size of the graphics, everything still looks remarkably similar to the original, especially the robots which lose parts of their skin when hit by bombs and bullets, uncovering their metallic frames underneath. Animation of all the sprites is first class, with a charming little spurt of blood when enemy soldiers are downed by a shuriken. Sound is also a delight, using a combination of crisp samples and bog-standard (but still very palatable to the ear) ST music throughout to great effect.

The simultaneous two-player option of the coin-op has been retained for the computer game, and rightly so; Ninja Warriors is mega-tough almost from the word go. Mention must also be made of the clever loading system which dumps the necessary data into memory as and when it is needed. Scrolling is held up now and again because of this constant interruption from the drive, but you're normally too busy hacking up scores of soldiers either side of you to notice.

Ninja Warriors is a tough game, but the great playability keeps you coming back for more. Highly recommended to beat-'em-up fans.

Ninja Warriors has transferred from coin-op to computer extraordinarily well. The graphics are small, but well-defined, and a novel loader ensures a wide variety of assailants throughout.

Play is tough, but it's a conversion that hack-'n-slash arcade fans will relish.

Slicker scrolling, better sound and better sprite definition than the ST make this a winner all the way. Ninja Warriors is one of the best beat-'em-ups available on the Amiga at the moment - check it out.