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The time is many, many, many years ago. The place is Yuria - and with a name like that, it's no wonder that people take the pee. The man currently giving this land the most stick is the evil Death-Adder.

It was bad enough that he conquered Yuria and killed loads of people, but now he's gone too far. He's kidnapped the King and the Princess and is holding them in his castle. Worse still, Death-Adder's in possession of the "golden axe", the magical emblem of Yuria. Now he reckons he's going to kill the royalty and smash the axe unless everyone bows down and says he's best. With the King's armies dispersed, who will save the day?

You will, of course. There are three different characters to choose from, all with a score to settle with Death-Adder. First up is Gilius Thunderhead, a Dwarf who lost his twin brother to Death-Adder's boys. So close to his bro was Gilius that he wants to kill Death-Adder and then himself! Next we have Ax-Battler, a battle-hardened Barbarian, who returned from a fight to witness his mother's execution at the hand's of Death-Adder's soldiers. Finally, there's Tyris-Flare, an Amazon Warrior Queen and the last of her tribe who were all mercilessly slaughtered by Death-Adder.

Not only do all three have a score to settle, they are all remarkably adept in the way of combat. They can run and jump like a wild horse, and swing a sword or axe with the best of them. But that's not all. There are many more available moves besides, all easily accessed from a single joystick. Some of them are down to proximity - the distance between you and a bad person determines the move you perform, be it an overhead slash or a kick. You can even pick up 'em up and chuck 'em! Better still, why not jump up in the air and drop with your weapon pointing down to inflict maximum pain on anyone below.

But before you get the opportunity to put these supreme fighting skills to the test, a familiar face stumbles onto the screen. It's Alex, bodyguard to the King and Princess. He's managed to escape from the castle, and he tells you of his master's plight... before dropping dead right before your eyes. It's payback time.

Golden Axe comprises five different 'scenarios', split into six 'levels' (just for the record, the arcade original has five levels, but in these conversions the fifth is effectively split into two levels due to memory restrictions).

But, wherever you are in Yuria, progress is made in the same way. It's all quite neat. During combat, the screen stops scrolling. When the fighting's over, a 'GO!' prompt is given, complete with aural warning. Now you 'push' the scrolling until more bad guys are encountered. And so it goes on.

You start in the Woods outside Turtle village. Reach the end and you are shown a map of Yuria, just so you know where you are going. Passing through Turtle Village, you cross Turtle Island (which is on the back of a giant turtle) to reach Eagle Island (which is on the back of a giant eagle and features gaping chasms to negotiate). Now all that stands between you and a confrontation with Death-Adder is the Castle Approach and the Castle itself...

So it's here at last, eh? The home computer conversion of the beat-'em-up that's kept arcade-goers and Sega MegaDrive console owners as happy as sandboys for ages. It is not surprising really, as Golden Axe is basically a version of everyone's favourite beat-'em-up, Double Dragon, but with bells on the size of Big Ben. And the good news is, that all the elements that make the Real Thing so much fun are all here in this conversion: the simplistic but entertaining gameplay, the great feel - even the arcade original's elaborate end sequence (which didn't appear on the MegaDrive version).

The fighting's straight-forward, but not so simple as to make the going too repetitive. It's all down to timing, which means if the more elaborate moves prove too much you can always resort to using a few basic moves to see you through. The only minor gripe is the frequent disk-accessing, although to be fair it doesn't actually affect the flow of the action to the point of frustration. What a diamond conversion. A better bout of combat you are unlikely to have seen this year. Unmissable.

What you see here isn't quite what you can expect to get, although the differences aren't likely to drastically affect the playability. This version's got 16 less colours, and a panel of sorts "to make scrolling easier". Music is provided via the hardware, but the tunes aren't quite as good anyway, so it should sound too bad. All the sound effects are sampled, exactly same as Amiga, only they will be "a little bit clickier". There's no STE support, for the simple reason that Dementia "ran out of time. It wouldn't be too difficult to make the scroll smooth - obviously there's the hardware scroll to make it easier."

It doesn't look as though Virgin is going to be producing a version for this machine and its compatible chums. That said, it may yet happen. We will keep you posted.