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All you C16 and Plus/4 owners out there must be licking your lips at the prospect of getting your hands on this the daddy of shoot-'em-ups.

The question though is how do you convert a game like Beach Head - which is itself four smaller games in one - to fit into 16K? This was the poser that US Gold set Anirog when they asked them to do the job. Sadly, Anirog couldn't work it out.

The problem is that the game just won't function properly. It would be foolhardy to expect it to measure up to the C64 version, but to be any good at all it should have at least kept the Fire button fun of the original.

Thus, when you come to shoot the planes down in the air attack scenario, the fun fails to operate at any elevation below 30 degrees. It is impossible also to traverse on the line of the plane, because you cannot shoot and manoeuvre at the same time! This means you get one shot at each aircraft.

I found the only way to score at all was to leave the gun in a fixed position in the centre of the screen and just wait for them to fly into my line of fire. Not much fun there.

These problems dog the game throughout. For example, in the second battle scenario - the sea battle - it was sometimes difficult to see who was firing at you. Safe to say, I struggled on the donkey level.

A great shame all of this because the graphics are fine. It looks great but just won't play. Anirog have tried to squeeze the proverbial quart into a pint pot.