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What do you see yourself as? A sex-driven bloodthirsty vampire with an appetite for innocent village maidens? Or perhaps an eccentric old duffer with a very odd Monty Python-style walk and a determination to hunt down evil vampires? (It's good to have a hobby.) It's a bit of a pointless question actually, as whichever role lights your candel, you can play it in Brides Of Dracula.

As you can no doubt tell from the pics, it's a split-screen affair, though perhaps less obvious is the fact that you can play it in simultaneous two player mode, with one of you as Van Helsing on the trail of the other's Prince of Darkness. In one player mode I chose the role of Drac and set out to find myself thirteen innocent maidens with the aim of knocking them over, ravaging their necks and then taking them back to the thirteen nearly arranged coffins I have waiting for them back at my castle. Up against me was that computerised killjoy, Van Helsing, himself on a mission to collect thirteen items (to make the game fair, y'see), again spread throughout the village, to have a chance of killing me.

Let's start with the bad points. Well, for a start, the graphics are amateurish and very 1980s, although there are a few arty touches to the teleport system. Much worse, though, is that fact that it's all so very plodding. Getting Drac to move is like spending a day watching paint dry, and dull old Van Helsing's not much better either, except you do get to laugh at his stupid walk. As for vamping those maidens, it's all very well, except that you have to go and get them one at a time, take them individually back to the castle, and then go down to town to get another one - how very, very repetitive.

Don't get the impression I've got a total downer on the game, though. It's actually quite a hoot - the way in which you vamp unsuspecting maidens is suitably tasteless, for instance. At one point I 'did' a blond haired maiden in long green dress, who promptly turned into a scantily clad young vampress with spikey black hair, who told me my wish was her command. Now that's what I call metamorphosis!

Humorous vampire antics do not a great game make, especially when it all boils down to a tediously slow split screen race. Briefly funny, but no way is this a good deal.