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Hmmm, they're about as "real" as Gordon the Gopher! The spooksome foursome lend their name to this one- or two-player re-released shoot-'em-up which pits you against the biggest collection of ghastly 'Things' seen outside The Evil Dead. Memorable the first time round for the fast full-colour graphics (which, being well-designed and thankfully clear, still look good) the basic idea is to progress through the four-way scrolling landscape, zapping the Things with your proton gun, then for extra points capturing the resultant ghosts with the proton beam attachment.

Naturally, some of the Things are too powerful for the gun, and equally naturally, the proton beam has only limited energy, so sniffing out the hidden power-up icons has a rather high priority. Battle through to the giant end-of-level nasty and then it's onto the next (multi-loaded) level. For one player it's good but not great, as rushing around blasting everything in sight can get pretty repetitive. What saves The Real Ghostbusters is the sheer variety of Things - there is nothing quite like legging it away from a couple of demons 'cos your gun is empty, rounding a corner and running into twenty or thirty slobbering zombies. For two players, let's ask our sample second player, my sister Rachel.

"In two-player mode the game is seventeen times better, with the best co-operation-or-competition element since Gauntlet. The program can get a bit confused at times though, jamming player one when player two hits an obstacle, and the multiload's more annoying than the music from an ice-cream van. Oh, and it wouldn't load in 128K mode and the control keys on the inlay are wrong."

Thank you, Rachel. So it's a big thumbs-up for The Real Ghostbusters there (the two-player part at least).

"Can I have my money now?" No. (Slap.) Ouch!