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If you're the sort of person who would join the army or dress up in silly clothes and rush around a Zap Zone if only you could bring yourself to get out of your armchair, Fire Force is for you.

In Ice's latest combat sim, you are cast as a newly recruited US Navy Seal with a choice of four missions - assassinate the enemy commander, destroy a guerilla village, destroy an enemy missile base and free some POWs. Once you've selected your particular Navy Seal you are briefed with details depending on which mission you have chosen and are told about the surroundings of the mission which range from a jungle at night to a town in the middle of the day.

Before the mission starts you've got to choose your specialist weapons from an array that would make Norman Schwarzkopf chuckle happily to himself. Each weapon has a load factor and the maximum load that you can carry restricts the amount of other equipment you can take with you - so, choose carefully. When you've completed the first four missions there are eight more and your character gains promotion to a higher rank after successfully completing missions.

For some obscure reason the government sends you into the action all on your own. Your buddies drop you off and you must complete the mission and reach a certain grid-reference in a specified time - if you get there, your pals come along in their helicopter and pick you up. As you go through the battle zone, you can enter the enemy bunkers, tents and buildings which, although adding a bit of depth, is a bit annoying because trying to walk up and down stairs is a nightmare because the controls are decidedly dodgy. You also have the ability to search dead enemy soldiers and take their weapons and ammunition. They all carry guns but often they lay mines to give themselves extra protection which are quite hard to hop over - it's a pity you can't take these mines from dead enemy fighters.

The title music is a sampled army drum roll. It's good, for a while at least. The shooting sound effects aren't bad either with different noises for each weapon.

The controls are quite difficult to get the hang of - you use the joystick to control your character while the keyboard controls the weapon selections. Shooting diagonally is especially difficult because you have to hold down the Fire button, making you waste precious ammo. The graphics and the animation aren't particularly brilliant, although the death sequences are quite detailed.

The best part of the game is, without doubt, the killing. You can stab, cut throats, shoot or blow up the enemy. By far the best of these methods is the last. Blowing up tents, towers and oil drums is a lot of fun and is even better if you manage to hit an enemy soldier in the process - he ends up flying into the air! When you're choosing your weapons, the temptation is too great and you end up picking grenades instead of medical packs and ammunition just to see the enemy get blown into the air.

If you're into armchair violence, then Fire Force is what you've been waiting for. What really lets the game down as the sprites which wouldn't look out of place on an 8-bit and the controls with plague the gameplay. Everything about the game is very ordinary. The scenario and gameplay are very familiar, you're likely to have seen it all before.

1. Good effects and wide selection of weapons makes killing fun

1. Controlling the sprite is difficult and spoils much of the fun. The graphics are a bit on the dull side.