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If you were to take a leisurely stroll past the vast(?) offices of Commodore User, you would almost certainly be startled by the enthusiastic and meaningful sounds of "Nnyyoww!!" or "Rat-a-tat-tat! Take that, evil Cobra henchmen". Don't be alarmed it's probably only the Ed playing with the Action Force figures in his private jacuzzi - even though the rest of us have now grown out of these now [Yes, they now play with more educational and mature toys. Like He-Man! - Ed]

Anyway, the Ed flooded his jacuzzi and overheated his sauna when he saw a spanking new copy of the Action Force computer game on his desk. So excited did he get, he had to take a week off and I got to review the game. So what's all the excitement about?

The Action Force are a team of men who like to dress up in army greens. Their arch enemies are the evil Cobra force. These aren't real men actually, they are in fact six inch high plastic figures, like the Masters Of The Universe, but punier. In fact, they look very much like runt Action Men. In the computer game you take the role of Wild Bill (who is apparently a particularly tough member of the Action Force, and no relation to him of MicroProse fame).

Nevertheless, Wild Bill also happens to be a pilot. Your mission is to fly your helicopter around and blast enemy places out of the sky - though there is a little (but only a little!) more to it than that. Anyway, the purpose of annihilating the enemy with your Dragonfly (name of your chopper, cool, huh?) is to let one of your force's jeeps safely cross a Cobra-guarded battlezone.

This task would be as easy as passing water into an ocean, but the problem is that you can't just fly above the jeep annihilating anything that dares try to harm it. No, there are other nasty little land obstacles which must be dealt with in order to save your jeep. Overcoming these means you'll have to leave the jeep defenceless for certain lengths of time. One of the more common and bitchin' problems is the screwy bridges. In 'Actionforceland' or wherever this is set, the bridge constructions engineers need a good slap because they have a nasty tendency to build ten foot bridges over twenty foot gaps, which means you must shivvy over to one of the bridges, pick it up, and then fly back to the first bridge and cover the gap by putting down the borrowed bridge. Confused? Well, if that's not bad enough, once the jeep has gone over the bridge you just constructed you must then fly both bits of bridge to cover the next one!

There are also many other troubles that endanger the existence of your most valuable vehicle. I am practically kicking myself to know what's so special in that jeep that Wild Bill should want to risk his life for, but silly Virgin didn't tell me. All along the route your jeep travels are large poles emerging from the ground. Quite why they are there, God only knows, but all I know is that if the jeep touches certain poles it explodes. You must fly ahead of your jeep and blow those poles away, but which ones do you shoot?

There is also the minor problem of dying. Yes, the waterproof, shockproof, bratproof, even Edproof Action Force aren't totally invincible [My dreams are shattered! - Ed] Still, Wild Bill's state of the art chopper can take two hundred shots before going down, but when it goes it goes faster than Charlton Athletic. Two hundred shots may sound a lot but at the rate the enemy fire don't get into a state of misplaced self-confidence. There are also one or two oil-rig type structures which, if you touch them, in the immortal words of the Ed to go "Nnnyowwww, pow-smash!!" (in his oh-so literate way).

One of the buildings houses the dragonfly's fuel and ammo pads, this is found in the middle of each level and looks like a half-built office block. Simply land your chopper on either of the two pads and your fuel or ammo will be replenished. Be careful though as the enemy can and will blast this away.

Action Force is an average game - nothing to keep me from going out. The graphics are of the same high standard that Virgin set with games like Dan Dare and Rebel - and similar in style to these games as well. However, I can't advise anyone other than a marine or the most ardent Action Force fanatic to part with 'hard earned' for this one. It just doesn't have anything new or compulsive to offer.