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Apparently, this is one of Sega's slightly larger successes. If so, how come I've never heard of it? Anyway, that's not what I'm here for. What I am here for is to tell you just how mega brilliant AF really is.

The obvious comparison I have to make is just how similar to Spy Hunter the game really is. You have to drive along a top-to-bottom scrolling roadway at high speed, shooting other vehicles off the road and climbing aboard the occasional truck to gain extra weapons, such as a missile which you can use to shoot down the helicopters that pass overhead and bomb you. Sound familiar?

Of course, that's not the whole story. You actually start out as a motorbike, racing hell-for-leather across the tarmac with your only thoughts being on one of your four missions, and staying alive long enough to finish them.

As you drive along, you have to enhance your vehicle. This is done in two ways. Firstly, you climb aboard the weapons vans that appear at random intervals and give you, in order of appearance, double shots, a missile for shooting helicopters, rear fire and temporary invulnerability.

As you race along the road, capsules float down at you, each with a letter embossed upon them. There are six to collect, lettered from A to F, collect A, B, C and D and you are granted the ability to transform into a car which, although not as fast or manoeuvrable as a bike, is much more durable and isn't so easy to destroy. Collect any six, and at the end of the roadway you'll transform into a jet car and take to the skies, where you will fly to the subject of your mission and destroy it.

The scrolling is incredibly fast, much too fast in many cases, as is the joystick response. This sudden amazing playability takes a little bit of getting used to, but once it does, Action Fighter is a very fun game to play. At last we have a 16-bit version of Spy Hunter.

I never saw the coin-op, so I can't really make any comparisons to graphics or sound. However, the sprites and backdrops are a little on the simple side, probably because the game is, once again, an ST port. Sound is simple spot FX, there isn't anything really mind-blowing about it.

A fun game, and one well worth getting hold of if you just want something fast and destructive.