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It gets worse, doesn't it? I mean, you do down the pup for a few bevvies and you get psychopath skinheads accosting you saying things like "I saw you bad mouthing me" when you weren't even talking to them. That's when you get a smack in the face. Usually, it gets you a bit wound up but you can ignore it. This time, however, they've just gone too far.

You'd only nipped out to the lav for a second and when you come back they've nabbed your girlfriend, Madonna! Well, this calls for immediate action. Off you run into the street to give chase.

Unfortunately, at this point you discover that all the town's skinheads are in one gang and they're all trying to stop you from reaching Madonna. No sooner do you step on the pavement than a string of thugs rush at you. You swiftly get rid of them by punching and kicking them over. Oh sorry, didn't I mention that you're a Martial Arts expert? Well, now I have.

There are quite a lot of skinheads around, so it's lucky for you that other fighting type people have dropped Nunchukkas on the pavement for you to use. Wham! Oooops! A skinhead punches you in the face and you lose your weapon.

Eventually you see the van that the gang have stashed Madonna in, but it's guarded by a big, nasty-looking brute that takes some beating before he'll lie down like a good boy, allowing you to follow the van to the skinheads' junkyard hangout. Here you must wend your way through wrecked cars, fighting off the skinheads. At the end of the yard, two mean brothers somersault all over the place trying to stamp on your head.

Once these bad sons of... er, you know... have been dealt with, the van speeds off again across the city bridge, along which the skinheads race their motorbikes.

Next is the fairground scene, with you battling through a carnival scene to get to the construction works, where you must walk along the girders belting the thugs to rescue the fair Madonna. And after all that, you can return home and let your hard-man espadrilles cool down.

On first sight, the arcade version of Vigilante seems far too difficult - after a few goes, however, you soon get into the swing of things.

The Amiga version on the other hand starts off incredibly difficult and stays that way. It's hardly fair that the enemy characters move about four times as fast as you so that you can only shuffle along the pavement a couple of steps before several hard man clatter into you.

This wouldn't be so bad if the defensive moves were a little more accessible, but after mashing the joystick around for ten minutes I still couldn't get a sensible move out of the thing.

It's a shame really, as it could have been brilliant, but it isn't - it's just all right.

Well, I disagree with Maff on this one, since I found the conversion of Vigilante to be very close to the coin-op original. The graphics are pretty accurate, if a bit small and squat, and the sound more or less mimics the arcade version (i.e. not very much of it, and that limited to *yaaa* and *ouf*!

As for the gameplay, the joystick handling and the logic on your opponents has been tweaked a lot since the first version we saw, and the whole thing isn't as hard as it was.

It'll still take you a long time to complete the first couple of levels, but it's definitely worth persevering; and if you were a fan of the coin-op, you should take a look at this - particularly at that brilliant price.

Presentation 48%
Nice title screen, but no options and a poor loader.

Graphics 81%
Nicely detailed sprites and backdrops with adequate animation.

Sound 74%
A decent enough tune plays throughout and the effects are well done, if a little repetitive.

Hookability 72%
Hard right from the kickoff.

Lastability 65%
You'll either persevere and really enjoy it or throw the joystick down in frustration.

Overall 77%
A good conversion of a reasonable fighting game - for the price, check it out.