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Hack, chop, slash and mutilate fans are in for a treat as the over the top violence of Barbarian II arrives on your Amstrad complete with all those little touches like head chomping dragons which go together to make a great game.

Unlike most computer games you choose the gender of the leading character. If you choose the princess rather than the barbarian you are in control of a sword wielding amazon who unfortunately bears little resemblance to the rather blubbery Maria featured on the package art work. Well there is only so much you can do with computer graphics these days.

Your task is to battle your way through three landscapes occupied by the minions of Drax thereby reaching the inner sanctum for the final conflict.

The first landscape you must battle your way through is the wilderness. This rather inhospitable zone comes complete with pits, lava streams and smoking volcanoes. As you move through the page flipping landscape in search of the exit to the next level and the magical objects needed to complete your mission, you are guided by a compass at the bottom of the screen. Theoretically this should help you produce a much needed map but due to the fact that regardless of your direction of travel you always move left to right things become a little confusing. Unfortunately you rarely have chance to work out your direction of travel due to the relentless attacks of the monsters.

These beasts of mayhem appear in a puff of green smoke and die in a similar way but this is where the similarity between the monsters ends.

Bald chickens squawk and launch themselves beak first into your character where the slightly larger ape men and dragons come at you with clubs and fangs. As the combat ensues you hack away at your opponents blood or various colours spurts from the wounds. The monsters are far from helpless as they are often better equipped for battle as they bosh, peck and bite the head off your hapless character. The head biting sequence is followed by a bulge sliding down the dragon's throat. You can of course respond with your own neck severing manoeuvre, providing of course the creature is person sized.

This is not one of those games that you are likely to solve in one session. The lack of a save game option means that you have to start from scratch every time but once you've put in a little sword practice you should be able to slice your way through the earlier levels with little difficulty.

After the wilderness you enter the realm of the orcs and trolls in the caverns and then on to dungeon where you must face pit things and gobblers. During the final conflict with Drax you must battle your way past the living idol and the great demon before confronting the master wizard.

Endless hours of monster bashing await those daring enough to take up the challenge.