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What do you get if take a piece of R-Type, a hint of St. Dragon, and a smidgeon of the movie Never Ending Story? No, we don't know either. Tell you what, why don't you stop worrying about all that and read a review of Dragon Breed?

Well, 1991 looks all set to be the year of the dragon, with flying lizards featuring in three major new games. First of these is Activision's conversion of the Irem coin-op. That's right, Irem of R-Type fame and Activision of Atomic Robo-Kid fame. Hmmm, good pedigree - let's see if it wins best of breed (groan).

The fantasy storyline is, briefly, stop the King of Darkness from filling the Kingdom of Agamen with black power. But let's not beat about the bush - Dragon Breed is a scrolling shoot-'em-up. However, since rip-snorting space-fighters haven't yet made their way to this particular corner of the Universe, your coming battle will have to be fought astride one of the friendly dragons which have!

You begin the game with your character, Kayas, sat behind the head of one these multi-segmented flying lizards, which is steered across the landscape. The background scrolls past (with a bit of parallax occasionally thrown in for good measure) and push-scrolls up and down to reveal the top and bottom of the scene (like a horizontal Flying Shark). The scenery on all six levels is beautifully presented, with colourful multicolour foreground graphics and detailed hi-res backdrops. Very snazzy.

The aim is, amazingly enough, to get as far as you can without getting your little chum Kayas blown into small gobbets of fleshy substance. This is achieved by some neat flying - using the dragon's body to fend off unwanted attacks - and hefty use of the fire button. Kayas wields a mean blaster and the dragon also unleashes his (or her - could be a girlie dragon!) own brand of firepower.

At points along the route, Kayas has to dismount and make his way on foot, while the dragon floats above and follows Kayas' lead. This aspect of the game played quite an important role in the coin-op, where sometimes it was the only way to get certain power-ups. Here, though, it only plays a major role only on the final level. Shame - it adds an interesting slant to the action.

The major sights of the journey come in the shape of some spectacular end-of-level guardians. These tentacle-waving, missile shooting monsters are simply amazing. They're everything a guardian should be: incredibly large (a screen-and-a-half high in some cases) nicely animated and generally tough to beat.

There might only be six levels, but each one is long and arduous, and contains a variety of different enemies and hazards. They're also very tricky indeed; hardened blasting freaks only need apply!

Dragon Breed is wonderfully programmed by Ash 'n Dave (demo coders extraordinaire - check out some of their PD demos, they're awesome!) and there are some skill sounds courtesy of Martin Walker (again). Love the meaty sampled drum intro, alien death screams and flutey sounds on level 2!

Generally, Dragon Breed is a very impressive piece of software, with lots of clever techy stuff going on. The number of sprites needed to build the dragon and create the large enemies means that it flickers slightly, but this is easily forgiven. Less easily ignored are the occasional bugs which throw up the odd character block or sprite. And most annoying is the sudden and inexplicable death which is visited upon you, suddenly and inexplicably. This tends to happen during guardian battles, and is especially frustrating!

The gameplay roams through familiar shoot-'em territory, and suffers from patchy gameplay where areas of intense activity are followed by periods of 'stroll off and make a coffee'. Having said that, the game is so visually and sonically impressive, so playable and such a good conversion that if you're a shoot-'em-up fan, this belongs in your collection. Simple as that.

1. Hefty level multiload - tape users beware! Long waits ahead...
2. Irksome or even fatal glitches.

1. Stunning graphics, from the mammoth guardians to the huge numbers of sprites to the clever colour switching.
2. Innovative power-ups make for a more interesting shoot-'em-up than normal.
3. Amazing soundtracks and effects, with pseudo sampled screams and moody tunes.
4. There's plenty of variety between levels.
5. Highly playable and largely faithful to the coin-op original from which it's been converted.
6. Novel control of the dragon adds interest to the gameplay.