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"Ah, another fabbo footy game," thought Phil King, drooling over the latest Codies title. But hell, was he in for a surprise?! The wizard-wonder Stryker knows little about the pleasures of putting balls in nets - but enough of his personal life...

"Och, Greavesie, it's a good match: the wily warlock Stryker versus Trogan the Diabolical."

"Yeah, Saint, that Trogan's a funny old character, ain't 'e? 'E's diabolical but 'e's still a danger in the box, or anywhere for that matter."

"Aye, Jimmy. They say he's risen from the dead."

"Just been transferred from Arsenal then?"

"Aye. And now his army of evil minions are swarming across the land."

"Yeah, them Millwall fans are almost as wild as my psychedelic shirts. You'd have to be a right mug to enter into Trogan's den with the wrong scarf on."

"But I think it's time something was done to stop this rabble."

"Yeah, and only the crack Stryker can help. 'E's been goin' through a bad spell recently, but now 'e's 'eadin' straight for 'is goal: to banish evil from the land, like."

...And so, as you join us, Stryker has just entered the crypt and is starting off with a quick kick around. Curiously enough, Trogan's cronies can be booted into touch with some nifty footwork - or just punched in the gob (while the ref's not looking!). The flickscreen underground levels are inhabited by loads of energy-draining scum including devious dwarfs, Mandy Smith-lookalikes (skeletons), skulls, and even the odd mutant frog (Michel Platini?) to splat.

Alternatively, Stryker can turn on the magic: firing magic missiles, rockets, razor discs and fireballs at foes. But first he must collect the right spells, some of them hidden inside blocks which crumble when walloped. These also contain magic mushrooms, temporary invulnerability, and energy restoring sacks.

Special powers don't half come in useful for seeing off the only-slightly bigger superbaddies - mind you, they move predictably and are dead easy to defeat. Piece of cake... mmmmm, I love a nice Battenburg.

A pity the game isn't so scrummy. It's by the programmers of Gremlin's Switchblade, and vaguely resembles that game. The graphics aren't up to much though: the doddery Stryker sprite ambles through drab, greyish scenery. With little new to see, there's scant reward for exploring further. Even the baddies are boring with low intelligence and minimal animation - well, exactly how *do* you animate a skull?! And the superbaddies aren't exactly super, either.

What we've got here is a messy-looking, bog-standard arcade adventure with lacks all of Switchblade's best features and retains the worst - especially the repetitive baddie-bashing, which simply requires rapid pressing of the Fire button. Whatever happened to skilful play, eh? What a load of rubbish!

Stryker's one funny old game that only manages to score *own*-goals. 30%

And I thought Commodore Power was boring... Stryker is the worst game I've seen in a long while! Wander round, kill a baddie, grab a power-up, kill another baddie... Yawn.

Not only is the gameplay extremely repetitive, it's also poorly executed - your sprite jumps with very little consistency, so it's damned near impossible to judge leaps properly. Also, if you land on what you're trying to jump over, you're thrown back as if you landed on a conveyor belt!

It's pretty easy once you've got the hang of it, but you won't see the end screen - you'll fall asleep long before then! 34%

Presentation 44% Joystick or keyboard, okay loading screen.

Graphics 22% Dull colour scheme, dire animation... it looks like Stu.

Sound 39% Mediocre music or sparse FX don't add up to much!

Hookability 33% Bashing loads of baddies becomes irritating.

Lastability 27% There's very little to see and do, just like Ludlow!

Overall 32%