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One thing war has always been good for is the computer games industry. While you were wasting those ruthless little terrorists in Ikari Warriors, did you spare a thought for their poor grey-haired mothers, sitting at home, waiting for their next letter from their boys at the front? You did? What a sentimental dope - they're only sprites for goodness sake.

Humanitarians need have no such worries in this, the sequel to Ikari Warriors, because this time the intrepid pair (that's you and a friend if you have one) are taking out honest-to-goodness monsters - three heads, blood sucking - the whole bit. The beasts hang out on the road of the title, and it's your pleasure to yomp your way up it, clearing it of nasties with your trusty machine gun and a sack of grenades.

You can also put your weapons to good use in a bit of urban demolition. Pillars and temples block the road, some of which harbour handy weapon upgrades - flame throwers, smart bombs, extra grenades and a monster paralysing goodie. Also on the landscape are trapdoors which can transport you to the lairs of bonus point fatties which split mini-monsters down the screen. Blast it and it's back on the road for more vertically-scrolling shoot-'em-up larks.

Control is via the standard eight-direction joysticking, but the thoughtful programmers have put in a toggle key, so that you can make your bloke keep his weapon pointed in the same direction until you de-toggle. This is handy when dealing death to fatties which always remain above you on screen. Alternatively, there are facilities for using the Cheetah 125+ stick (the one with the previously useless rotational control).

Novelties such as this lift Victory Road above the standard Ikari Warriors clone, but it still doesn't beat the original. Sound is this version's real downfall, consisting of a few feeble coughs and tweets which hardly convey the feeling of the battlefield. The tidy and colourful graphics help compensate for this though.

However, as I said, it doesn't offer anything over the Elite conversions of Ikari Warriors, and how long have you have that in your software collection?