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"You want to know how to get Al Capone? When he pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue! That's the Chicago way". Sound advice indeed. War has been declared on the streets of Chicago; the mob are out to rule the city and Elliot Ness has sworn to stop them. The scene is set for a showdown, Chicago style!

The only people with the courage to stand up to Capone are a crack squad of treasury agents assembled by Elliot Ness. They cannot be bought, cannot be frightened into submission, they have no family to threaten, no dark secrets to reveal and are very hard to kill. They are The Untouchables.

The action is joined as Elliot busts into a bootleg brewery. As well as illegal liquor, there's one of Capone's bookeepers skulking around. Al's been a bit of a silly boy and kept detailed records of all his underworld earnings. If you can capture him then you've the basis for a case to take before the grand jury, a court even 'Scarface' can't buy!

Taking control of Ness you must pursue the bookeeper and get ten vital pieces of evidence from him, tracking and shooting him into surrender as you charge around mounds of packing crates in the huge side-view ware-house. Naturally the Capone boys aren't keen to let their employer get carted off to pns', and do all in their power to stop you. So you've got to dash around these platforms dodging their bullets and collecting evidence - all within a very tight time limit. There are extra weapons and health packs available, but it's the time that will do you in.

Following the lead from the warehouse, Ness forms "the Untouchables" and heads off to Canada for a spot of horse riding, sight-seeing and smuggler nabbing. The mob are bringing a cache of whisky across the Canadian border and have to be stopped. Guns and guts are the only tools at your disposal, as the four new colleagues face up to a veritable army of hoodlums.

Fighting on a border bridge you have to smash the whole whisky consignment using your tommy gun. The mob simply have to waste you and the team. Fighting in a lying-down position, you roll from side to side blasting away at anything. You aim using a cut-out window in the scoretable, and can change between characters just by shooting into the top right of left hand corner. This is essential. because certain Untouchables need to survive as they play a key role later in the game.

Level Three will seem strangely familiar, as this was the section featured on last month's covertape. Ness and any surviving Untouchables have to fight their way to the railway station in a desperate bid to stop Capone's accountant escaping with the incriminating ledgers - the only things that can send 'Big Al' to the slammer. This is hard and tense gunfight, that can all too easily send the treasury boys to that big exchequer in the sky.

Now it's time for yet another switch of perspective as the view changes to overhead. Elliot, being the nice kind policeman type, he helps a mother haul her baby and pram up over the steps of the station just as the fire-fight breaks out. Being a butter-fingered policeman with no idea about public relations, he lets go of the pram and starts blasting away. The pram bounces off down the steps and and into the middle of the battle. Your job is to kill all the bad guys, keep from getting toasted yourself and stop the kiddie from catching too many slugs into the bargain. Touching a mobster begins to turn the kid's picture into the haunting face of Capone, and stopping a bullet hastens the process, so be vigilant.

One gangster survives and takes the bookkeeper hostage. Stone, the team's hot-shot, has ten seconds to kill the hostage taker before the bookkeeper gets a lead lobotomy. Sharp shooting city! This is the shortest of all the levels, but also the most decisive, so make those shots count if you want to see Capone behind bars.

Succeed, and you get the evidence required to haul Capone into the courtroom. He still has one card to play, however, in the form of hit-man Frank Nitty, who murdered your fellow agent Malone and who's still at large. He must be brought to book, so Elliot pursues him onto the roof of the courthouse, all guns blazing. Can you beat psychotic Nitty, or will Elliot's days end ingloriously in another alleyways-type shoot-out? Will it be a long drop for Nitty or a hail of hot lead for Ness? This is your battle, and you'll have to find out for yourself.

Graphically The Untouchables is initially disappointing, being uniformly monochrome blue. But the sheer variety of different styles used subsequently excuses this. The three shooting scenes are similar, but are nicely interspersed with a platform game, the over-head train station extravaganza and a "Robocop"-style hostage situation just for good measure. The attention to detail is obvious, with touches like the inter-level newspapers which either praise or ridicule your mob-busting exploits.

This mix means the gameplay is varied and intense enough to keep you plugging away until you complete each section, as you can be sure of something different next time round - failure doesn't send you back to the first level, either. Each level is accompanied by some wobbly '30s piano playing, but with a Music Off toggle you can learn to live with it. Sound effects are not The Untouchables' strong suit and leave you wanting more to back up the great - if very blue - graphics.

The tram station shoot-out is the temptation and created instead a much more subtle game that relies on reaction speed and memory as much Magnums.

Following hot on the heels of its excellent Batman licence, Ocean has come up with another film classic. The company has excelled in recent years at producing multi-style epics like Robocop and Batman. The Untouchables follows in the same vein, and is simply an excellent package of individual games that unite to tell a story in such a way that the pace never flags and the bullets never stop flying. Unless you want to end up on the wrong side of these enforcers, be pure, be vigilant...

It's very, well, blue. But once you get into it, the varied and innovative scenes keep you hooked.

Dark and moody, but playable.

Reach Level Two.

Graphics 76%
P. Huge variety of styles.
N. Very blue.

Sonics 68%
P. Tunes at every turn.
N. Iffy effects.

Grab Factor 91%
P. Brilliant but tough intro level.
P. Reach a level and you stay there.

Staying Power 95%
P. Six very different sections.
P. A very hard game to finish.

Overall 90%
An Oscar-winning film licence from Ocean.

Prohibition was brought in by the 18th Amendment to the American Constitution - The Volstead Act, 1919. It sought to ban the sale and transportation of any intoxicating liquor or beverages containing more than one half of one per cent alcohol. The law was finally repealed in 1931 by way of the 21st Amendment, when President Roosevelt declared "the nation needs a drink". The only obvious benefactors of the whole exercise were the gangsters, who introduced the words 'Bootleg' and 'Mafia' into the world's vocabulary.