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Double Dragon the first had two things in its favour as a good old-fashioned kick-'em-up: two player action and a variety of weapons. Simultaneous two player games aren't that uncommon, but Double Dragon had something that most didn't - *you could beat up the other player*!

But surely, you might say, you have enough problems fighting your enemies, never mind your friends? Maybe so, but it did make the game more fun and if you got annoyed you could take it out on your computerised ally rather than belting your friend around the head with your ST.

Being able to pick up weapons was an added bonus - it allowed you to give the bad guys a taste of their own medicine.

You'll be glade to know that both of these features have been carried over into the sequel - Double Dragon II. The action begins immediately with you pitted against the first of many foes on your quest to fulfil five missions of progressive difficulty.

Your foes come in many shapes and sizes - with some very hefty adversaries towards the end of the levels. The three most common thugs that you'll meet are Patch, the acrobat and the girl.

Patch is the toughest of the tough and is pretty useful (if not very pretty) with his feet. The acrobat somersaults around the screen and is of medium strength. And of course you have to watch out for the girl.

Your first real opponent is the big thug in the middle of mission one - he must be about nine feet tall! When he puts his size twelve boot in your ribs you certainly know it. Later on you meet a sumo wrestler in armour who has personality problems and nasty tendency of picking you up and pummelling you without mercy. One guy that really takes some beating is the man in green on the fourth level - he knows what he's doing with have you eating dust faster than you can say "Oh, you seem to have beaten me to a pulp."

And that's all - you beat your way through a horde of tough guys with only your wits and reactions to save you from a hideous death.

Each level is made up of many detailed and colourful backgrounds which scroll as you progress through the game. The sprites are huge and as beautifully drawn as the backgrounds. Animation leaves a little to be desired - but the general appearance and presentation is very good. Sound effects are done well - especially the groans and yells when someone dies. The thud of flesh against flesh sounds solid too. Music tolerable, but nothing to dance about.

Double Dragon II is a great game to while away an hour or so, but it suffers from the same deficiency as its predecessor - it's too easy to complete. The problem lies in credits - you have five credits to complete the game with, which is effectively fifteen lives.

Credits work fine in the arcades - people have to put in more cash to complete the game and so the arcade makes more money. Computer games are bought though, and they can be played forever without paying another penny. If it costs you nothing to play then you can continue for hours and become an expect. Completing a game on the day that you buy it means you've wasted a lot of money.

That said, Double Dragon II is great fun as a two-player game, because it calls for co-operation and sharing of weapons to get anywhere. The problem lies in the one player game, in which you have only hordes of bad guys to smash into the ground and more lives up your sleeve than the proverbial cat.