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What with Amiga Barbarian, Amstrad Shanghai Karate and this martial arts offering for the C64 all new this month, it looks as if the combat game isn't played out as everyone seemed to assume.

Of those three, Samurai Warrior is perhaps the most interesting, because it's the first combat game to successfully incorporate elements of arcade adventure. It's also the first to star a bunny rabbit.

Samurai Warrior is based on the comic character Usagi Yojimbo. You won't find his adventures in the Beano; as far as I remember, the comic is by a Japanese American and is available only through comix specialists. If the game catches on, though, maybe the comic will too.

It's the seventeenth century in good old Japan, and the land is torn by the petty squabbles of rival shoguns,. Usagi Yojimbo is a ronin, a wandering warrior, sworn to rescue his friend Lord Noriyuki from the evil Lord Hikiji. So much for the spring roll - on to the chop suey.

Samurai Warrioor takes place against a scrolling background of forests and pathways. The characters are cleverly animated in a cartoon style, and the fighting sequences are smoothly done, and require considerable skill to master.

Your battling bunny operates in two modes, Peaceful and Fighting, according to whether or not his sword is drawn. Thus, with two modes each with sixteen actions, control of the character is pretty complex. In peaceful mode you can jump, turn, walk, hand over money, draw your sword, bow and so on; once you have drawn your sword, you can run, jump, charge, swipe, cut, parry and, once your opponent is sliced into sushi, sheathe your sword again.

It's important to be in the right mode, because some of the characters are peaceful and will help you with clues if you show the proper respect by bowing to them.

Offend them by approaching with your sword drawn, and you risk a nasty fight and the loss of Karma points.

Complemented by great oriental music and some skilful graphics, Samurai Warrior is a very confusing game; confusing in the sense that it's the game that Fist II should have been, but wasn't.

It's clever, funny and challenging all at once, and breathes new life into the martial arts genre as well as appealing to lovers of more complex arcade adventures.