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This game, I wish it wouldn't keep changing its blimmin' name. First it was to be called 'Imperial Wizard', then 'Striker in the Crypts of Chaos' and now it seems to have settled on Stryker In The Crypt Of Trogan. Next I suppose it'll be called 'Stryker In the Goalmouth of Death' or 'Stryker and the Matchbox from Hell'.

Plot? You really want to hear the plot? Okay, well here goes... Trogan the Diabolical is an extremely anti-social man. His dinner-parties are poorly attended, his milkman refuses to come right up to the door and his neighbours are forever complaining about the massed armies of evil blackness, which he's got camped in his garden.

Only one person is brave enough to file an official complaint about Trogan. Yes, it's that meddlesome old fool, Stryker. What he's got to do is enter Trogan's nasty, dank Crypt, find the bloke and, er, kill him.

Trogan doesn't live alone, though. He's got thousands of skeletons, disembodied skulls and other things wandering around his house. It's a bit like The Trap Door, actually. And our man Stryker has to fight his way through it all.

If you've seen Switchblade, you'll instantly recognise Stryker. It was written by the same team of programmers who, obviously happy with the reception Switchblade got, have done a pretty similar game for Codemasters. The style and general layout are much the same. Only the graphics are different. And, I'm sorry to say, they're not as good. Switchblade was cleaner, brighter and clearer. Stryker himself is a muddy sort of purple and the Crypt is a pooey brown/black colour. It doesn't lift your spirts much, that's for sure.

Presumably, the Coders have gone for the 'depressing underworld look deliberately, but the effect is to mask many of the rather nicely-drawn sprites until they look rather grim and sad. It pains me to have to say all this because good use of colour can really give a game style and pizazz [Whatever that is - Ed]. Here it just looks drab.

Moving Stryker isn't particularly wonderful, either. He skates around, doing sloppy rectangular jumps and falling off platforms. He doesn't respond to the joystick very well, and you tend to lose loads of lives because he hasn't done what you want (or, if he has, it's too late). Tres infuriating, non?

It's a pity, this, because Stryker is huge, and packed with all sorts of goodies, baddies and indifferenties. It's got all the makings of an ace exploring game, and would have been great value for money. But you won't really want to get into it because the blimmin' character is so difficult to control properly. You want to fight the baddies, not the control system of your own character.

1. Colours are a bit dim and dull.
2. Moving Stryker around is far too finicky, and kills you too often.
3. The health bars at the bottom of the screen are badly done.
4. The baddies always behave in the same way - there's no intelligence of any kind.
5. Have to wade through boring overground bit each time you play.

1. It's certainly big, with loads of explorable caverns.
2. A nice variety of power-ups and nifty weaponry.
3. Middle and end-of-level baddies are nicely done, and tough to beat too.
4. Sound is pretty atmospheric and nicely gloomy.