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After a pretty poor 8-bit showing last year, US Gold have at last come up with the 16-bit conversions of Atari's superb avenue-annihilating coin-op. Programming is by Probe, but don't let that put you off, as the quality of their product has been visibly improving since they produced Savage for Firebird. ST Road Blasters is undoubtedly the best arcade conversion they've done to date, and this bodes well for their conversion of Irem's Mr. Heli, due out from Firebird later in the year.

But that's by the by. Road Blasters, in case you've never played it, is a 3D highway-bound blast, in which you have to carve up 52 stretches of road, as well as the occupants thereof. You control a spiffy red sports car, armed with a highly dangerous, forward-firing machine gun.

Stingers are cannonfodder. They just tootle down the highway taking up space and just asking to be turned into melting scrap! Hoo hoo! Motor cycles are just as vulnerable, but their size makes them a bit more difficult to hit. Rat Jeeps drive onto the screen in formation, then close ranks around you, but a swift finger on the fire button soon clears up any problems. The only autos immune to your guns are the armoured command cars. Not that they're invincible, mind you...

Periodically, a support plane flies overhead and drops a weapons pod for you to catch on the car's roof. These provide either nitro-injection to boost your top speed, electro-shielding, a rapid fire UZ cannon, or a cruise missile launcher which nukes everything in sight. Each pod has a limited life-span displayed at the bottom of the screen on a dashboard.

Fuel is also limited, and if your tanks run dry before you reach a refuelling checkpoint or the end of the road, you're done for. Luckily, your car has two fuel tanks, a main tank which can be filled up during the course of the journey by crossing a checkpoint or picking up fuel globes from the road, and a reserve tank, which is refilled as a bonus at the end of each level.

So that's pretty much everything from the arcade game, really. Oh, yes, gun turrets, mines, puddles and spiker mines are in there as well.

Now I'm a bit of a Road Blasters fan. I may not be particularly good at the arcade game, but the fast 3D blasting action certainly gets the adrenalin pumping through my veins, and I'm happy to report that this has been brought across pretty well in this conversion. The graphics are fast and smooth with big colourful sprites which are pretty good representations of their arcade counterparts.

Sound is quite good, considering this is an ST, and I was quite impressed by the spot FX which capture the dull "KARUMMPHA" of the distant cruise missile detonation, and the dull clang of bullets hitting command cars. There's a fairly average piece of music which plays during the five minute loading time (!), which for some reason the programmers tried to run alongside the in-game FX, to the detriment of both.

The only real problem with Road Blasters gameplay is that it's too easy. I've already said that I'm not brilliant at the arcade game, but I didn't have too many problems getting to the end of the game on level 52. Unlike the coin-op, you get five lives which you lose whenever you run out of fuel. This is effectively a five credit "continue" option which makes it easy to get a long way into the game quickly.

Fortunately, this is the sort of game you keep playing however far you've got into it. The levels are all pretty similar anyway, so the fun isn't derived from endurance, just from simple blasting, and so play remains enjoyable for the duration.

What more is there to say? If you're in the market for a good ST shoot-'em-up, motor on down to the software shop and check out Road Blasters.