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Well I wondered why I suddenly shivered with deja vu when I played this game, then I twigged. I had played it in the arcade. Do U.S. Gold deal only in arcade conversions, or do they ever come out with something original?

You play the part of Rygar: a fearless warrior who is pretty keen on fighting. You must control him as he roams across the lands of the 4.5 billion year old earth searching for a good fight. He will be confronted by reptiles, warriors and animals as well as surprisingly vicious flying flowers! You must kill them with your gun. The catchphrase with this game is "Let's fight" but it's no combat game. You are just firing constantly at oncoming nasties.

Quite often a little mound will appear on the floor which you can shoot. Once shot an object will appear which you can pick up by walking over it to increase your score. When you reach the end of each level your time remaining will be turned into a bonus score along with the number of beastie boys you have killed. Each subsequent level gets harder with more and faster nasties.

The graphics are comparable to the rest of U.S. Gold's conversions in that they are quite colourful but lacking in clarity. The controls are easy to master and the sweat will run from your pores in some of the harder situations. The sound effects are quite good. The most annoying feature is the collision detection. It cheats! It's so unfair.

I am definitely going to keep this one and I will play it quite often. I know what you're thinking but it's not because I'm tight, it's because I quite enjoyed it as a game. It's easy to get into with a good difficulty increment. Let's play.

There's a nice tune that plays throughout the game, but unfortunately there's little else going for it. Small graphics and no real incentive to play. It's far too easy and lacks variety. There are even silly features like being able to pause in mid-air after jumping, and then move forward again.

No visibility problems.

50,000 points.

Graphics 66%
P. Fast and furious animation.
N. Characters are small and indistinct.

Sonics 68%
P. Good sound effects

Grab Factor 53%
P. Easy controls.
N. Annoying collision detection.

Staying Power 61%
P. Many different screens.
N. No variation in action.

Overall 56%
P. Not a bad conversion from the arcade.