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Cor! What with helicopter mania set to sweep the country over the next few months, we were more than a little excited with the prospect of a full-blown helicopter romp on the Famicom. Indeed, the design guys seem to have got their act together, dishing up exactly the right sort of out-of-the-sun, Apocalypse Now imagery for the front of the box.

Unfortunately for both them and us, the people who have actually programmed the game seem to have been stuck in some sort of time warp for the last five years, and are perfectly content to dish up a game which makes Slap-Fight look sophisticated.

Now don't get us wrong, it's perfectly acceptable to produce a top-down scrolling shoot-out these days. But there does need to be some degree of innovation, doesn't there? Alas, there is none.

The player launches from his aircraft carrier in one of the most crappy and cynical scaling routines I've witnessed and has the pleasure of flying over a stripy sea with rocks (or are they clouds, it's tricky to tell) scrolling down at regular intervals. Then, surprise surprise, the player is assaulted from all directions from a bunch of clumsily drawn and utterly unimaginative planes.

It's unfortunate that Dimension Force just happens to come along after the cut-off date, but this sort of ghastly trash just doesn't cut it any more.