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Just because you are a Ninja doesn't mean you can't use a machine gun.

Why you would want to race against a clock through strange alien terrain jumping on the heads of the all too human-looking aliens I do not know - but it is fun.

After years of dedicated training, learning the mystic arts of flame, throwing star and sub-machine gun, you set forth. Your task is obscure but you dare not fail.

Initially unarmed, you must jump on the heads of three of the enemy. Doing so liberates the throwing star weapon which can be used to kill even more enemy beings. It refers to those beings as aliens in the very brief scenario but it looks to me as if the programmer and the person who wrote the material on the inlay had two different games in mind.

Through successive killing of the enemy population, you can liberate more weapons in this order. The bomb - it looks suspiciously like an apple but does the job as it arcs in for destruction. The flame - this odd weapon has a range of about two millimetres but it lingers for a short time in the place it was triggered. Finally, the single-shot machine gun: it holds more prestige but proves to be just as fatal as all the other weapons.

There are two ways you can lose one of your five lives. One is by falling off the platforms into the abyss. The other is contact with one of the enemy beings after they have stopped flashing. They flash just after emerging from a doorway. This all sounds fun and it is but do not be carried away as the program has a few traps for the unwary.

Over-confidence is likely to lead to the bottom of the abyss, as it is very easy to get overexcited and jump at the wrong time and find yourself plummeting. Another thing to watch for are the enemy men who crowd on rock shelves denying you access; the only solution is to jump on their heads before they stop flashing and then get out fast.

As the action scrolls along you will find that the next platform is too high for you to reach. To solve this little problem you must jump up the rock formations until you have the height you require. In your travels you will also encounter flying objects. They can be shot if you have a weapon; if not they must be avoided. You can get a nasty surprise if you do not watch your back, for occasionally a fellow ninja will appear behind you and open up with his machine gun.

With eight levels for your ninja to summersault through, this program is worth a few pounds of anybody's money. It starts easy, ensuring that even a novice player can get to grips with it. A few more sound effects or even a tune would have been pleasant.