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RanXerox is the robot star of several adults-only graphic novels and inhabits a very violent future world. In the game, a lethal disease is sweeping the world, and Ranx's girlfriend - Lubna - is being prevented from seeing him by her rich parents. Starting in Rome, Ranx must first deliver the X03 vaccine to the dying American President in New York City, then return to Rome and liberate his sweetheart.

The game is a horizontally scrolling arcade adventure. The psychotic Ranx can kick and punch opponents, but to make progress he must interact with characters in more civilized ways. Pressing Space brings down an options menu so you can save to disk (overwriting any previous Save), examine Ranx's health, repair him (with collected spare parts!) and discuss. The latter option gives a sub-menu - communication is limited to icons for question, threaten, laughter and insult. You can also offer money or collected items.

To earn money Ranx can kick open parking meters (but watch out for police!), and to keep his batteries topped up, rip open street lamps.

For a few games I was strangely fascinated by the depraved violence, beating people into bloody pulps. However, apart from some grotesque graphics and good sampled sound Ranx is a very ordinary beat-'em-up/arcade adventure.

Character interaction is severely limited as Ranx's communication system isn't exactly sophisticated - rather like the game as a whole.

Ranx's principal appeal is an uninspired mix of gore and occasional female nudity. Reducing people to chunks of flesh is the point of most games, but few are so explicit and the number of women you can kill is disturbing.

Nevertheless, there's obviously a sick fascination in getting further to see the next sicko graphic. But after a while the graphics begin to repeat, and the basic crudity of gameplay becomes annoying.

Ranx is irritatingly sluggish to control and there's also the old trick of not many locations being covered up by a high difficulty level.

Presentation 61%
Quite a lot of disk accessing. Save/load.

Graphics 68%
Attractive push-scroll backgrounds, reasonable animation and plenty of gore.

Sound 80%
Good rack intro, some good sampled FX...

Hookability 61%
A little awkward to begin with, but sickos are likely to persist.

Lastability 58%
It's not that big and toughness may put you off.

Overall 59%
Sick and weird, but ultimately dull.