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Well, following nicely in the skidmarks of Fire & Forget comes Fire & Forget II. Now, since F&F number one was a bit average, you'd expect some major improvements in F&F number two. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The sequel is just as dull and unplayable as the original.

The plot drivels on about international peace conferences and imminent attack from a terrorist convoy. However, as you've already guessed, this is nothing more than one of those drive along and shoot everything games.

Cocooned in your super-duper Thunder Master II land and air attack vehicle, your main priority is to blast your way through the ranks of armoured terrorist vehicles and reach the head of the convoy. You then have to destroy the lead vehicle and the weapon it carries.

The Thunder Master II is armed with forward-firing 'ionic phasers' (small grey blobs) and homing missiles (even smaller grey blobs). You have an unlimited supply of bio - er... ionic phasers, although your small stock of homing missiles has to be constantly topped up by picking them up from the road. Likewise, fuel and kerosene supplies are replenished by picking up cannisters from the highway (a practice which usually results in major explosions - don't try this at home kids). Fuel keeps the Thunder Master's wheels a-turning, while kerosene gets the TMII airborne! With your tanks full of this, hit take-off speed and the battle can continue in the air.

And that's all there is to it: lots of rushing around, a bit of flying occasionally and plenty of shooting. Er, yep, that really is it.

Unfortunately, it very much a case of the vehicle standing still, while the road whizzes past underneath. You don't even need to steer if you don't want to, since the car follows the road like it's on rails. The lack of roadside graphics mean that there is little sensation of speed. The road swings from left to right to give the impression of curving but this only serves to make targeting the opposition even more difficult. There is some parallax on the scenery and sky but it adds nothing to the gameplay.

Fire & Forget II is more a case of "fire and hope" since all it remains for you to do is press and hold the fire button and steer to avoid the enemy (easier said than done since they approach at breakneck speed and the collision detection is ropey in the extreme). Flying adds some much-needed variety but is really just more of the same.

Once you've played through the first few levels, seen the same old graphics and had random death visited upon you several times, the interest level plummets. It's dull, poorly designed and tedious to play. You may as well forget this one too.

1. Almost no visual variety: roadways, backgrounds and alien attackers all stay much the same.
2. The gameplay remains unchanged throughout, with only minor differences between levels.
3. Collision detection is bad, while shooting is inaccurate - simply hold the fire button down and hope.
4. There is a range of soundtracks but the tunes are all grim.
5. 3D sprite update is very poor - they appear rather than approach.
6. Requires no driving skills: the car seems to be on autopilot.

1. Visually, the aerial combat sequence is handled nicely.
2. Slippery parallax on the scenery and sky, with smooth-moving road.
3. Non-stop action.