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The Lather Lads are back! It seems that at the end of their soapy adventures in Bubble Bobble, Bub and Bob were changed from bubble-blowing dinosaurs to rainbow-casting blokes in dungarees. However, even with Baron von Blubba defeated the world wasn't safe (was it ever anyway?).

The leader of that nefarious organisation, SHADOW, has captured the inhabitants of the seven Rainbow Islands and is undertaking a land reclamation project, whereby he claims the islanders' land and enslaves them. Are Bub and Bob going to stand by and let him get away with such a disagreeable plan? Pah! How could you even ask the question? Of course not!

Controlling Bub or Bob, you start a one-man assault on SHADOW's forces at Insect Island. To win back each island you have to fight your way to the top of four scrolling levels, jumping between platforms and casting rainbows which you can climb onto. Each round is timed, and if you dawdle, the island starts to sink into the sea, sending you to a watery grave.

Trying to slow your progress are hordes of SHADOW agents, who, despite their uncompromisingly cute appearance, are a merciless bunch and their touch spells instant death. On the first island they take the form of diabolical caterpillars, ladybirds, spiders, wasps and bees, while on the second, Combat Island, you're up against sweet little tanks, trucks, bombers and helicopters. At the very top of every island, there's a SHADOW boss which follows you around the screen and takes a heap of hits to kill.

Your weapon in this fray is (da-da-*daaaa*!) Rainbow Power. As well as creating insto-platforms, your rainbow power is also used as a weapon. By casting one over a creature you trap it, but to kill it, you have to time your cast to hit it with the end of your rainbow.

As in Bubble Bobble, zonked monsters turn into jummy collectables. Not that there isn't already a veritable grocery store full of stuff to pick up on the platforms - all sorts of fruit and veg, flowers, chocolate bars, ice creams and cakes. As well as these pure point-providers, you can also collect potions to give you double, triple and fast rainbows, speed-up boots and smart stars, which zonk everything either on-screen or for the rest of the level. At the end of each round you're also awarded a chest full of goodies to pick up for mega points.

Now then, I think that constitutes just about all the features of the arcade game. In fact I've asked around, and even the *real* fans of the coin-op in the C&VG office couldn't spot *any* difference at all between this and the real thing.

Incidentally, the author of this conversion is Andrew Braybrook - it's his first ST game, having moved on from the Commodore 64 where he produced such brilliant classics as Uridium and Paradroid. He's certainly back with a vengeance.

Anyway, the graphics are absolutely spot on. Both the sprites and the backgrounds are beautifully drawn with jolly colours, and they're really smoothly animated too. And while the ST sound chip can't quite match the quality of the arcade game, the music is a note-for-note copy.

But the programmer hasn't just concentrated on the looks and sounds of the game. The gameplay has been translated equally accurately, which means Rainbow Islands is tremendous fun and about as addictive as large chocolate doughnuts. Beneath its jolly exterior is a real malicious streak which challenges the expertise of even the toughest joystick jock, but it's one of those games that lets you get just that bit further with every game, so you can't resist coming back to it.

Rainbow Islands goes straight into the number one slot in PG's Coin-Op Conversion Chart, just above Ocean's New Zealand Story. It's just so corkingly good that Rainbow Islands is bound to lead Firebird to a very sizeable pot of gold.

Not just another coin-op conversion. Put your ST out of sight and you could believe you had the arcade game in your bedroom.