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If Megadrive owners have been feeling a little miffed over the PC Engine game, Gunhed, fret no longer - for now there's a shoot-'em-up for your machine along similar lines.

Tatsujin - or Truxxton as it's better known as in British arcades - is a vertically scrolling space shoot-'em-up in the best traditions, meaning progressively more powerful weapons, end-of-level guardians and more alien waves than you can comfortably handle.

The battle against the enemy is split into rounds, each round containing several stages. Extra armaments vary from multiple cannons to laser-lightning bolts and photon blasters. As well as weapons, speed-up tokens and smart bombs (of which you own three to begin with) can be picked up along the route by destroying the air and ground-based supply pods. You start with three lives, with a continue option available if you lose 'em all.

And here's us thinking that Gunhed was the be-all-and-end-all in console blasters! Tatsujin is an amazing shoot-'em-up combining the now-familiar aspects of this type of game and adding mega-smooth scrolling, ultra-fab graphics and well-hard music and sound effects to make a package which at the least matches the quality of the PC Engine title.

Using the smart bombs is a visual treat, as an enormous picture of a skull fills the screen, wiping enemy craft from the cosmos, but the sheer number of baddies hassling you at any one time (i.e. loads) ensures that you haven't enough time to sit in awe for too long.

Not much else to be said really, except that if you're on the lookout for a top-class shooters, Tatsujin's the one for you, me old chums.