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The jungle setting. The non-stop blood-fest action. The military hardware. The hero with the oddly-familiar name. It can be only one game - Arnie! Wrong - it's Arnie 2! Dave spots the differences...

When we last saw that Special Forces' one-man regiment known as Arnie, he was being airlifted out of jungle-based military complex having successfully complete his mission to blow away everything in sight. Things obviously haven't been going quite so swimmingly in the meantime. Arnie 2 opens with our hero escaping from a military prison camp based deep within a jungle. And pretty soon he's blasting away at everything in sight. Here we go again.

Like most Hollywood blockbuster sequels Arnie 2 is pretty much a case of more of the same, but with more of everything: more bullets, more bombs, more enemies, more missions (well, one), more action, more blisters on your thumb from yanking your joystick around like a madman for hours on end. But 'bigger' doesn't always mean 'better' [Says the man with the expanding stomach! - Ed]. Take a look at Ghostbusters 2 and Rambo 3... er, actually, don't! - just take my word for it. Then again, you get the occasional Terminator 2 or The Empire Strikes Back. So, Arnie 2: turkey or box office smash?

Right, so there are two missions this time, and the first is to get the hell out of a prison camp you've somehow wound up in. You've knocked out a guard (no doubt using the old tried-and-trusted, "Excuse me old chap, but did you realise your shoelace was undone?" routine) and swiped his pistol. It's not the most powerful of weapons, but, hey, you're a hero, so it'll do until you gun down someone who's got some heavier armament you can nick.

So off you trot, trying to avoid the guards and shooting at anything that moves (and a good few things that don't as well). The route out of the camp is a circuitous one, and there are dangers around every barracks; helicopters, armoured cars, men in look-out towers lobbing grenades, hordes of Beverly Hills 90210 fans who've mistaken you for Jason Priestly (they've been locked up for their own good) and mine fields.

Once you've escaped from the camp, it's on to the second mission. Somewhere in the jungle, enemy forces have built a 'mass destruction weapon' which you have to locate and destroy. Between you and your objective are the usual hordes of enemy soldiers, plus some rather B-movie-style spear-throwing pygmies. My advice? Blast the lot of 'em to kingdom come.

Mission Two is much bigger and much more hazardous. It's almost like the main course after Mission One's hors d'oeuvres. With paratroopers swooping in when you least expect them and soldiers in armoured boats taking pot shots in your direction you can never let your guard down for a moment. It's on this mission that Arnie 2 really takes off and proves to be a definite progression over the first games and not just a rehash with a few minor cosmetic changes.

Refinements to this sequel include being able to choose which weapons you want to use and when you want to use them. In the original game, if you picked up a new weapon you automatically switched to firing with that one until it had run out of ammo at which point it was discarded. In Arnie 2, however, you can swipe up to four extra weapons off the enemy and carry them around (and it doesn't even slow you down!). When you want to use one of them, you select it using the Space bar. This means you can save your heavier weaponry for when the need arises (i.e. a dirty great tank appears in your path).

In fact, it's quite possibly to complete the first mission without using any of the heavier weapons, because Arnie 2 is more of an avoid-'em-up than a shoot-'em-up. If you want to complete both missions, it's better to avoid danger where you can and blast only when you have to. The only drawback with this plan is that it's not obvious which soldiers are going to leave weapons behind when you blast them, so, at least for your first few goes on Arnie 2, you're going to indulge in some exploratory massacre.

The mechanics of the thing are prone to the jitters in places; sprites vanish like they've just picked up an invisibility bonus, helicopter fire lashes across the screen a few seconds after the helicopter has flown by, that sort of thing. But none of this hinders the gameplay - it's just a tad irritating. And the collision detection hasn't improved - make sure that you give everything a wide berth.

So is Arnie 2 better than its predecessor? Yes... just. It's not devastatingly different, but has enough of its own personality to make it worth buying even if you've got the original, and has that same "just one more go" addictiveness. It's not quite up to Corker standards, but it's as near to it as the Bills were to winning when Scott Norwood missed that field goal.

1. Two huge levels.
2. The action never lets up for moment.
3. Straightforward but engrossing gameplay.
4. There's a surprise around every corner.

1. There are a few minor graphical glitches.
2. The collision detection is a bit ropey.