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Strider is the ultimate warrior, and as such it's his job to free a futuristic world (some areas of which were based on modern Russian architecture) from an evil dictatorship by battling through five scrolling levels.

Strider fights the old fashioned way - he's not keen on clumsy random laser guns, and prefers to do battle with a samurai sword, which he draws and swings with frightening speed.

Many of Capcom's coin-ops sport huge sprites, and Strider is no exception. The graphics have been shrunk down in the transition from coin-op to Commodore, but their definition is of sufficient high quality to make them easily recognisable to those familiar with the original.

The quality of animation has also been trimmed, unfortunately, so Strider now shuffles instead of struts. This aside, it's good to see that both gameplay and sound have survived the conversion intact.

Strider plays at a slower pace, but since all the level maps and alien attack patterns have been converted faithfully, all the tricks and tactics that worked in the coin-op work just as well here. Sound, too, is authenticaly reproduced - it's not the tunes themselves that impress as such, more the coin-op quality 'instruments' used.

Coupled with some speech and cameo pictures which appear between levels, an authentic coin-op feel is created. Tiertex has done a commendable job of recreating all the thrills of the arcade original.