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Michael Winner's Deathwish films are amongst the most objectionable movies ever made - stupid, plotless and morally repugnant, they have as much to do with justice and righteous revenge as the Nazi party.

It's just as well, then, that computer games are totally unsuited to the graphic depiction of extreme violence, and though the Gremlin gang have done their best, all we get is some pixelated strawberry jam every time Bronson whips out his rocket launcher. That doesn't raise Deathwish III very much in my estimation, but it does make it thankfully less explicit.

Plot is negligible. Vigilante Paul Kersey ('acted' in the films by stone-faced slug Charles Bronson) takes on the 'scum and filth' which abounds on the streets of New York. That doesn't mean, unfortunately, that he strides around manfully with his trusty pooper-scooper scraping up dog turds. Instead he dons a bullet-proof vest, loads up his pump-action shotgun, machine pistol and rocket launcher to 'turn the tables on the punks and creeps who certainly know how to dish out the violence but may not be so good at being on the receiving end'.

The streets that Kersey patrols are featureless and brick-walled, with only the occasional stunted fire hydrant to suggest that this is the Big Apple. Along the sidewalks stroll grannies, burglars, and armed cops and hoodlums. There are also some women of presumably easy virtue, judging by the way that they keep on adjusting their panti-hose.

Kersey gets a positive score for killing off the bad guys, and as the streets become littered with corpses, the white-coated medics haul them off to the infirmary. The medics, like the prostitutes, are immune to Kersey's persuasive social skills, but if the grannies and cops get in the way of the odd stray rocket, then points are subtracted. The most bloodthirsty amongst us can therefore go all out for the big minus score by shooting only innocent bystanders.

Finding your way around New York is a nightmare, with Kersey's point of view shifting at every tug of the joystick. A scrolling map display only makes things more confusing, as it too changes direction whenever Kersey does. After two hours of monotonous play I still hadn't got the hang of it.

The map also displays the whereabouts of extra weaponry and gang leaders, located inside the buildings. Entering a door will take Kersey into an apartment, furnished with tables and TVs which collapse into rubble when the shooting starts.

The buildings are populated inexplicably, with the same endless procession of pensioners and street walkers, and however many 'punks and creeps' get killed, there are always more on the way. If Kersey gets bored with close combat genocide, then he can take up position at a window, and from there pick off the passers-by at random, using a roving gunsight.

The whole game is utterly pointless, with no end in sight, just more and more people to maim and destroy. And though Kersey can run out of ammo, and will eventually die if he sustains too many injuries, his bulletproof armour makes it a lengthy job.

Like the game, the music is repetitive and irritating. If you opt for sound effects, you've rewarded with grunts, shots, thuds and a noise like an electric blender whenever a crook gets liquidised by the rocket launcher.

For all its gratuitous violence, Deathwish III isn't going to corrupt anyone, but merely bore them rigid. In every possible sense, it's a bloody mess.