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Fancy a spot of ice-hockey; not the sort that today's nancy boys play, but real hard fighting hockey sometime in the future. Well, it's called Skate Wars and it's set in a space-age ice rink... Hold on to your pucks the action is about to begin.

The object of the game is to score more goals than your opponent. Simple enough?... Not when the opposition is openly trying to kick your head in to get hold of the puck!

Each team consists of one automatically-controlled goalie, one striker (controlled by your good self) and two substitutes, one of which can make an appearance if your striker is killed (!!!). As you've probably surmised, Skate Wars isn't the safest sport ever devised.

After each game, the rink becomes even more cluttered with obstacles, and as you're not allowed to touch them (do and you'll die) there's nothing else to do but run around them. But the biggest obstacle is the opposing player; he's not going to let you take control of the game easily - you'll need to give him a swift kicking to get him to relinquish the ball!

SU went a bit silly over Skate Wars when it was first released as a full-price game, and for the life of my I can't figure out why! All I found upon loading the tape was a dodgy, jerkily-scrolling playfield, average-to-poor sprites and low-quality gameplay that had me reaching for the reset button after only a few goes. It's hellishly difficult trying to wrestle the ball from the other player, because more often than not he gets up off the floor quicker than you and is hassling your goalie long before your buns rise from the ice.

Two-player mode is probably a lot better than tussling with the computer, but I personally wouldn't shame myself by asking a chum round for a game.

Label: Hit Squad Memory: 48K/128K Price: £3.99 Tape Reviewer: Paul Rand

Dull, pointless sports sim that you'll quickly tire of, there was a lot of hype over this game when it first came out but it wasn't really very good then and it hasn't stood the test of time either. Wake me up when it's all over...