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Sigh - superheroes never get any peace, do they? As soon as he's finished off the evil Red Lord, the powers-that-be send Strider on another difficult and dangerous mission - he didn't even get time to wash his tights!

Strider 2 has our cartwheeling buddy rescuing a world leader, kidnapped by a bunch of aliens. Exactly who this leader is hasn't been stated, but Zzap! 64 can exclusively reveal that it's not Dan Quayle - if it were, the authorities would pay to get rid of him!

Standing between Strider and the pathetic politician are five baddy-filled levels: a space ship, two towers, underground caverns, a generating station, and finally the alien's base. Armed with a plasma sword and a two-bit peashooter, he's going to have to wield 'em effectively as there are no power-ups to improve 'em. To compensate for his feeble fire-power, Strider is endowed with incredible gymnastic abilities, enabling him to perform huge mid-air cartwheels, climb walls, and generally out-Olga-Korbutt Olga Korbutt!

Although gameplay leans heavily on its illustrious coin-op predecessor, Strider 2 is not the game it should've been. It has a very linear, two-dimensional feel to it - walk along, slash a baddy, walk a bit further, hack another, etc. The nail-biting tension of the first Strider outing has gone, leaving a mega-monotonous plod-along in its wake. The aliens limp across the screen in the most predictable waves I've seen in ages, though perhaps 'waves' is the wrong word - 'orderly queues' would be nearer the mark.

On finding the big end-of-level bar-steward, our hero turns into a robot - honest! Strength depends on how many energy pods you collected en route, and believe me, you'll need all the strength you can get. You can no longer jump, and sluggish movement makes tactical butchery impossible - you just stand toe-to-toe and exchange blows, and the first one to fall over loses!

Beat-'em-ups should be about finding a weakness in your opponent's armour, seeking out the best place from which to launch an attack, landing your blows and scarpering before he can deliver his, etc. Next to the likes of Target Renegade, Strider 2 is just a button-bashing exercise.

The graphics are awful; virtually all the sprites drawn entirely in blue. The imaginative mix of Japanese, Islamic and European backdrops are gone, leaving a very average world that lacks bit and atmosphere. the main sprite animates well when leaping, but how he yields his sword without moving his hands is beyond me.

Sound is interesting enough, but the background muzak's been ripped straight from the original - couldn't they afford a new one?

Worst of all, to get the game to run at a reasonable speed the action is limited to the upper half of the screen, the rest being taken up by the control panel! This not only means that you're only getting half a game for your dosh, but it also makes it embarrassingly difficult - with such a small playing area you have very little time to react to anything, even the boring baddies offered here. And when you die, you're unceremoniously deposited right at the beginning of the level! Strider 2 is a missed opportunity.