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Your country needs you! Yes, you! You've been selected to undertake one of the most important missions in the Second World War. As a member of the crack Special Operations Corps, you're the only person who can pull it off. Information that could help swing the balance of power in the war is locked in a safe deep behind enemy lines. Your mission is to retrieve the information.

Your objective is split into seven sections. The first asks you to take control of a jeep which must be taken across a very long, bridge. Unfortunately, many sections of the bridge have been shot away leaving dangerous holes.

As you progress across the bridge, merrily jumping over holes, enemy forces will attack. Helicopters are the most frequent menace, firing missiles at you as they pass. If you're quick, you can accelerate and pass under the missile. Alternatively, you can jump over it. A more pre-emptive way of protecting yourself is to fire first. This is where the rear-mounted missile launcher comes in handy. By hitting the fire button you can launch three missiles in succession. You then have to wait for the launcher to reload, which takes about two seconds, before you can fire again.

Of the volley of three missiles, the first two launch into the air, knocking out any choppers in their path, while the third screams along the floor, destroying enemy trucks which crop up from time to time.

Having taken your jeep past the many dangers encountered on the bridge and making it to the hut at the end of the level, you're given a bonus before moving to the next section. The jeep is left behind and you jump into a helicopter, which has to make its way from right to left this time over more dangerous territory, starting with a barren desert backdrop.

The fire button again dispenses two different kinds of death. Rockets are launched from the nose of the chopper and fly horizontally, while Bombs are dropped from the undercarriage to destroy enemy fighters and gun installations respectively.

The land-based guns don't pose too much of a problem, as all they do is fire the occasional missile. The fighters, however, are a completely different kettle of fish and represent a real pain. They fly in from behind, firing like crazy, and it takes some very fast reactions to get rid of them. A quick spin over the sea follows, complete with submarines and boats to destroy.

Completion of the chopper sections gives you access to the final three, all of which must be completed on foot. The first has you negotiating a dismal swamp, riddled with deadly quicksand pits, and guerillas who don't hesitate to lob grenade or two at you. Both a machine gun and a limited supply of grenades are available to you here, so you can give just as good as you get. In Stage Five, you come across the barracks, outside the main building where the secret papers are held. More enemy soldiers and sharpshooters in watchtowers try to gun you down. But, apart from the change in scenery, the gameplay is almost identical to the previous section and, indeed, the final one, where the safe and the hidden plans are located. The enemy soldiers are more ferocious here, and also appear in greater numbers. Blast your way through them, reach the safe, get the plans and the day is yours.

Army Moves is a surprisingly poor release from Ocean/Imagine, especially when you consider the quality of their previous 16-bit exploits. It just goes to show that conversions from successful 8-bit games need more than a few cosmetic enhancements to make them work. Mind you, the graphics and sound are hardly representative of the capabilities of the Amiga, and as a result the weak gameplay is more obvious than it might have been. To make matters worse, Army Moves is extremely difficult and frustrating, and it gets to the stage where you feel like throwing your Amiga across the room when you almost reach the end of a level only to die and have to start it again from scratch.

Masochists are amply catered for here. The more discerning games players are advised to steer clear.

Almost identical in every aspect to the Amiga version, Army Moves on the ST also fails to make the grade. Surprisingly, both the graphics and sound seem marginally superior, with slightly better definitions on the sprites and a less irritating rendition of Colonel Bogie playing throughout.

It's a shame Ocean bothered to convert Army Moves - the time would have been better spent producing some original 16-bit product. The only compensation is that Ocean should learn from this mistake and at least we can expect to see some more palatable software in the near future.