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Feeling so hyped about something that it becomes bad for your health is something the Americans are strangely accustomed to by now. Let's face it, they get excited about anything. Until a certain hamburger chain arrived over here, a burger was just a burger. Now this same company claims that a visit to their shop makes your day.

If a race of people can be so obsessive over such a menial thing, imagine the distressing furor that erupts over a sport like football. As far removed from our beloved game of soccer as Mahatma Ghandi was from Hitler, American Football is the biggest noise in the spectrum of world sport - anybody who has watched coverage of this spectable on Channel 4 would testify to that.

Super High Impact from Arena is a celebration of the most striking aspects of this massive American phenomena. Ignoring he sportsmanlike conduct and camaraderie so prevalent in true-to-life football games, Arena have converted this wild and crazy Midway coin-op to the Megadrive. Be prepared to literally fight for recognition in this latest, skull-crushing American Football outing on the Megadrive. You have been warned.

Super High Impact is a conversion of the recent Midway coin-op.

Decide whether to play against the computer, challenge a friend or join forces to play the computer together, select your team and play a simplified version of American Football.

There's a lesson to be learned here and that is if a job's worth doing it's worth doing properly. Like, if your teams are going to flatten the offense, they may as well do some damage while they're at it. To let you know just how much pain your team has inflicted, should your team make a noticeably wicked tackle, Super High Impact displays a hit-o-meter. The team's work is rated from granny tackle to awesome with a chap who looks like Dave Lee Travis screaming the results out from the screen.

Players hate to be humiliated. If a team gets trashed by the defense, the fuses of a few short tempers are sure to burn out and a fight begins. More often than not, somebody shouts "eat this" and proceeds to lay into anyone wearing a different colour kit to themselves. At this point, everybody joins in. Including you.

Each team's fight meter is displayed on screen and the first to reach the top wins the battle. To ensure your team's victory it is necessary to hammer away at the A, B and C buttons as fast as possible, or else witness the hideous gloating of the other team and know that your team are all dweebs.

The way in which some of the players on the receiving end of a heavy tackle get taken down is quite worrying. In fact, it's a wonder that they ever recover. Players can consider themselves fortunate to get away with their helmet being knocked off when there is the possibility of an unceremonious disrobing at the hands of a rampant linebacker. Shoulder pads, shirt, shin pads and pants get strewn everywhere as the unfortunate lad is left wearing just his underwear in full view of the stadium's spectators.

You may remember the feature in John Madden's '92 where friends could team up to play against the computer. Well, it's included here too. Player one controls the offensive moves while player two is in charge of the defense. What this amounts to is that player one controls the quarter back and player two the receivers on offense, but player two gets to call the shots when choosing the best defense formations.

Super High Impact is very entertaining, but only for a short while. The extravagant presentation of the game is hard to ignore, even the ridiculous fight sequences, hit-o-meter and outrageous tackle routines are sure to raise a laugh. However, this says nothing about the depth of gameplay and its chances of sustaining interest past the first day.

The fact that the game has been converted over from the arcade says much about its style and presentation. Those looking for something to rival the realism and strategy of Electronic Arts' John Madden masterpiece won't find it here. Super High Impact contains some interesting features and is playable in a way meant purely for fun, but there is no place for any amount of skill.

There are no noticeable differences in the teams' strengths or weaknesses, so it's just a case of choosing the most appealing kit and getting on with the game. The choice of plays available is restricted to just thirteen offensive and defensive formations, none of which make any significant difference to the game once the ball is in play.

This comes as a relief when you consider that the choices of offense and defense are displayed side by side for both players to look at. Don't be fooled by the way this one looks or its easily accessible gameplay. Remember that you don't necessarily need to be an American Football expert to get the most out of John Madden's but the option is there to learn. With Super High Impact, there just isn't enough content to carry it beyond half an hour of pleasing aesthetic action. As such, it is best to avoid.

It only cost me 50p to find out that the arcade game was a very limited, highly simplified and not particularly enjoyable version of American Football. It takes £40 to find out the same thing about this! On the surface the game looks great. The visuals are very good, the sound is neat and there are some brilliant presentation touches that are very similar to the arcade game.

The problem is, though, that the gameplay is very poor indeed. There are only thirteen play actions, there's very little difference between the teams, the game difficulty is moronically low (even on the hardest setting!) and the action itself is simplistic beyond belief, with little skill required to score touchdowns or stop an opponent's offensive drive. Even with two players, the lack of excitement, variety and depth means that it only takes a couple of hours to get completely bored of this.

Super High Impact is all frills and no substance - if you want American Football action, try any Megadrive American football game other than this!

Presentation 89%
P. Arcade quality attract sequences and intermission screens. Reasonable choice of options.

Graphics 90%
P. Strikingly animated sprites that perform some amusing tricks and classy digitised images.
N. The sprites are a bit small which makes the action look cluttered.

Sound 86%
P. Stacks of sampled speech and rousing music to hype the game.
N. Some of the speech is grating.

Playability 61%
P. Very easy to play.
N. The amount of command over the team is severely restricted. Quite often a touchdown is achieved using no skil at all.

Lastability 32%
N. The extremely limited gameplay and lack of real control means this loses its appeal very swiftly indeed.

Overall 39%
A superbly presented American football game which is totally let down by its limited, dull and shallow action and non-existent gameplay.