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Ahem. The President probably doesn't know about this, but there are American forces in Central America. Nothing official, you understand, just a few platoons of highly trained, elite, beweaponed crack troops. Good thing too, if you ask me, or the efficient war machine of Nicaragua might invade the defenceless US of A.

Anyway, as avid arcade addicts will know, the Commander In Chief US Forces (Central America (Not Here Really)), one General Alexander Bonn, has been captured in his own HQ. Oh, the ignominy of it. And by a band of revolutionaries, just to make things worse.

However, before he was overrun, he managed to dash to the wireless and send off an SOS, detailing his position and a request. for help.

You and your buddy turn your plane towards the HQ, but you're flying over rebel infested jungle and one of the charlies (wrong war, right idea) just manages to blow up your engine. The law of gravity is no respecter of the American Marines, and down you plummet into the jungle.

Luckily for you, you're unharmed, and both of you are ready for action. At this point strategy intervenes and you have to decide whether to go forwards together, or to split up and shoot your way there separately.

That done, you're ready for action. It isn't going to be easy as on the path through the jungle lie hundreds of the enemy, all armed, all anxious to kill and all a bit peeved after watching Rambo.

You've got a gun and some grenades, but not enough. Not enough bullets, either. They've got guns, grenades, mortars, bazookas and more. You've got to relieve them of some of that hardware if you want any hope whatsoever of getting to the General and saving the Western World from another embarrassing incident.

But they're strangely indisposed to leave such useful items just lying around. You'll just have to persuade them with a few chunks of well aimed cordite.

There are various fortifications to overcome. The guerrillas don't have much stomach for fighting, a few shots at them and they tend to merge back into the greenery. But they can come back after you've passed by and make things a little warm for you at your rear.

Different kinds of explosives have different radii of effect, and you'll soon get to know and love your favourite high explosive firework.

All this takes after the arcade game of the same name. Where that had two joysticks with twisty controls, this has the option of selecting almost any mix of two joysticks and the keyboard for the two player option. In this mode, cooperation can pay off as you stroll up the jungle path. By yourself, it's more difficult.

In any case, I'm quite sure that the General would love to see you. So off you go...

I was at the PCW show not so long ago, and Elite had the Ikari machine on freeplay. I spent quite a lot of time on it, and this version is pretty close to what I remember wasting an hour or so on then.

Strangely, it seems not dissimilar to Lightforce in action, but that's no problem. Like Lightforce it only seems difficult to start with. After a few hours playing, you realise that it is, in fact, impossible. But maybe if you play for just a little longer...

Yeah! the shoot-em-up is back in town and this is the best blast I've had in ages. I avoided this penny muncher in the arcades 'cause it munched too many of my pennies too quickly. The stay-at-home version works out much cheaper.

Learning what is ahead of you pays dividends, and the greatest dividend is a tank. After marching and blazing away with gun and grenades it is good to put your feet up and drive over the enemy.

Two players with tanks can make mincemeat of the foe - even without help from the pokes in this months hackers haunt.

The whine of bullets is loud in your ears as you embark on a Rambo-style adventure, running the gauntlet of revolutionaries to rescue some dumb American General. Can't say much for the storyline.

Still, as zapping games go, this one does - go, I mean. The graphics are good - I especially like the way you spin round when you're shot. And it was really sneaky having some of the baddies in camouflage.

It sounds like an impossible mission - in fact they tell you on the packaging that you lack the supplies to win, but somehow, you don't let a little detail like that affect you. You just start the game again.