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Somewhere in the universe, barbarians are playing games that involve staying at home and feeding the cat. Chris Lloyd immerses himself in one with no cats at all - not even one small one.

He looks like Desperate Dan with a blonde wig on. Don't say that to his face though, since each character Hegor meets in this scrolling hack-n-slash generally needs hospital treatment.

The plot is the usual wibble for the genre. Your evil brother - whom you dispatched into the bottomless pit of dissolution in the original Barbarian - is about to be resurrected, and apparently only you can stop it. Sounds like a cue for a heroic quest if ever there was one. There follows six sprawling levels of mayhem, as you - armed only with a pair of furry shorts and a very silly little helmet - make a real nuisance of yourself with the minions of darkness.

Your heroic barbarian is completely joystick-controlled: you can punch, kick, duck and execute some amazing somersaulting leaps. It takes a little practice to get used to all the moves, but once you do, you can use some lovely positions. Control is precise, so there's no swearing that you pushed the joystick in the opposite direction as you jump straight onto a waiting spear point. Unarmed, you're a dangerous dude, and, with a sword, you're even more of a force to be reckoned with. There's none of this one-hit-and-it's-back-to-the-start nonsense - there's a green bar representing your fitness. The level of the bar - and your relative health - is eroded by the number and force of your opponents' blows - some of them hit harder than others.

The first level is a merry walk along forest paths. The screen scrolls left and right, occasionally the path turns into or out of the screen leading to another section. If you're going to be able to remember your way around the levels, you need quite a bit of spacial awareness and logic. On your travels, you soon come across weapons stashed in chests. As the game unfolds, the puzzles and traps get trickier and your enemies tougher and smarter. Fortunately, you can save your progress to disk at any point and come back to it later on.

The graphics are detailed and atmospheric, even though you do have a chin of barbarian proportions - and incredible robustness. The animation of Hegor is fluid and everything moves at a fair pace. Each level has a new set of backgrounds and sprites - the game really does look good. Loading is accomapnied by a sampled soundtrack and those with 1MByte or more get one of Psygnosis' impressive opening sequences. During the game you get sparse but suitable spot effects - a few sampled screams would liven it up no end, though. Extra brownie points are awarded for full use of extra memory and twin disk drives.

Leaping from platforms in a loincloth, finding objects and switches and throwing your weight around isn't original - not even vaguely. This game been written a dozen times before, rarely better though - Barbarian 2 looks good and plays better than any of its predecessors.

Things start in a fairly pedestrian way and gradually get harder. There are plenty of ledges to perch on, pressure pads to stamp on and forces of evil to get righteous with. It lacks the in-depth involvement of heavyweight simulations and god-games, as well as the frantic arcade quality of shoot-'em-ups. Eventually you will work your way to the end of the game, but the chances are that you'll have had a jolly good bash doing so.

1. Joystick controls much more accurate than Pit-Fighter.
2. Sound effects disappointing. See Revenge Of The Mutant Camels for a game that also assaults the eardrums.
3. Smaller sprites than First Samurai.
4. Much more gameplay than Psygnosis' original Barbarian and Palace's Barbarian.