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Arnold does it again! He's played a brutish barbarian with an Austrian accent. He's played a brutish cyborg with an Austrian accent. And now, to top the lot, a brutish Russian police officer, with an Austrian accent. The man's acting talent exceeds the width of his biceps.

Red Heat, the film, was Mr. Muscle's next release after The Running Man, and marked Arnie's first attempt to team up with a comic, the second being with Danny Devito in Twins.

The cop is Ivan Danko, an officer from Moscow homicide, the perpetrator, an international drug trafficker named Viktor Rostavili; the place, a Moscow steam bath; the first stage a horizontal beat-'em-up.

Ivan has been caught short by a hit squad of Rostavili's men, his only means of defence are a powerful punch and a lethal head butt (not to mention the fact that Arnie never dies). In the best tradition, the opposition start with an upper hand, some members of the squad are armed with guns while bits of falling masonry also sap Arnie's strength.

Should Arnie survive this, he is then transported to Chicago where he teams up with James Belushi - but that's in the film. Here Danko is on his own, though this time he has a gun. From there he has to battle through three more levels until he reaches the lair of the "clean hands", the local drug dealers, and finally on to Rostavili himself.

Between each level is a bonus stage, in many ways similar to the Intermediate levels on Robocop. Several games are produced randomly inviting Danko to do anything from patching together a dollar bill or going all out with this gun. Apart from breaking the game up a little bit more, they also serve to top up Arnie's energy and bullet level just as he runs short.

Red Heat introduces a new playing perspective, whereby only the middle third of the screen is actually used, the top third blank, and the bottom third containing a distance to end of level gauge in the form of the Red Heat logo.

The graphics are really big considering the size of the playing area, with all characters viewed from the waist up. For once you actually do get a feeling of depth to people too, they're well animated as well. Congratulations are due to Ivan Davies and Andy Rixon the artists.

The sound effects are music are again Joe Dunn pieces and although they're good they're certainly not outstanding.

Red Heat isn't the best game ever to come out of Ocean, but it's by no means the worst. A very enjoyable, playable arcade game, marred slightly by a lack of variety on the main levels.