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First impressions were not helped by a couple of howlers in the instruction: they read, at one point, '...you can get more (ammunition) by depositing god in the bank'. Then shortly after, '...you can stop this by drinking a can of bear...' I should think that George Burns and the brewers of Hofmeister (respectively) would be amused, too.

Carping over such errors may seem petty - until you realise that the program contains more than a couple of howlers as well.

Swag is a basic 'shoot, run and hide' game. The object is to collect bags of diamonds to the value of £250,000 (which means, incidentally, that there is a limit past which no games master can travel). There are killer droids to be avoided and an opponent (either another player, in two-up mode, or the computer, in practice mode) for competition. If you hit a police car it follows you around until you can drink one of those 'bears'. There are one or two other wrinkles, but nothing to raise the game above the strictly ordinary. The bugs, if that's what they really were, were more annoying still.

In one-up mode, I did quite well, thank you, without laying a finger on the keyboard, just watching the screen while the program regularly clocked up my score. I ran out of bullets after having selected 'unlimited ammo' mode (Putting god in the bank made no difference either), and desperate for a can of 'bear'. I kept shooting police cars without liquid results.

Playing in two-up mode (I thought I might win against a stationary opponent) didn't produce results either, because the 'finds' simply stopped appearing after a time.

If you enjoy this type of game, check it out, but it's definitely a case of try before you buy.

Ron Keeley