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The development of this game was quite a battle. The Commodore version of Who Dares Wins was hit by a crossfire of injunctions from Elite, who claimed that the game bore distinct similarities to the arcade game Commando that they were producing under licence. Almost as soon as it appeared, Who Dares Wins was withdrawn and in the next breath replaced by the sequel, Who Dares Wins II, with the offending details altered.

Now the conversion has arrived on the Spectrum and the spirit, if not the minute detail, is that of the best selling Commando and Rambo. The mission is to single-handedly take on an entire army in order to rescue prisoners who have been pencilled in for the firing squad. To save them from being rubbed out, you must fight your way through eight fields of battle and capture eight command posts. You are armed with an infinite supply of ammunition for your automatic weapon and five grenades. Additional grenades can be picked up along the way through the enemy defences to the spot where the grenades have been air-dropped by parachute.

Five lives are allowed for you to complete your mission and if this seems generous at the start, it soon becomes apparent that you need every one of them as you face innumerable battallions, machine gun nests, tanks, snipers and mortar fire. Unless you have a knack for combat games, almost every bullet will have your name on it and it will turn into a certain suicide mission.

Freeing prisoners does have its rewards. If you can blast the one man firing squad before he shoots the captive, you earn a handsome bonus and a wave from the grateful prisoner (well, what did you expect, a medal?)

When you have successfully made it through all eight sectors, you are met with the dismaying message that all the territory you've captured has been grabbed again by the enemy due to your inept back-up forces. So it's back to the beginning again to face even stronger forces. Which just goes to show that if you want something doing, do it yourself.

This is a frenetic create-your-own-carnage game with enough action to satisfy those who revel in the alone-in-the-war-zone type of game. If you want something with a little more than mayhem and massacre, however, you won't find it here.