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Basically, Road Blasters is a race cum shoot-'em-up and survival game - a bit like The Fury. Drive your pathetically armoured car along 50 stretches of twisty road taking you through five countries plus day and night times. The aim on each is to ensure you don't run out of fuel, get shot, crash into other cars and get to the checkpoint at the end of each section.

Various obstacles bar your way as you race from start to finish. First, and the one you will encounter the most, are the other vehicles. Yellow stingers are slow and try to bar your way, but can be shot out quite easily with one squeeze on the trigger. Purple command cars are just as slow, but it takes a little more than your puny little machine gun to take them out. Motorcycles are a piece of cake to remove from the road, though if you miss them they have a habit of swerving into you. Rat Jeeps take to hits to destroy and have a habit of ganging up, so it's best to take them out at a distance.

As well as the other vehicles, there are mines in the road which, if driven over, simply blow you up. At either side of the road gun turrets appear, and blow you away. These are a lot harder to avoid than the arcade, but more on that later. Finally, oil slicks lie in the road and, when driven over, cause you to spin smoothly through 360 degrees (very handy when there are gun turrets all around you, as you can keep firing as you spin around.) Unfortunately, it's the only bit that comes close to the arcade. In fact, it's the only bit worth seeing.

You are not alone in your quest to win the race; halfway along each stage there is a fuel bonus line. Cross it and your fuel goes back to maximum. Bubbles race along the track at random intervals (and they appear when you shoot specific cars) and these, when caught, replenish a little of your fuel. Occasionally, a little heaven-sent help will appear, in the guise of a weapons plane, which drops items like a UZ cannon, which doubles your firing rate, a nitro injector, which raises your top speed to almost 300mph, a cruise missile which causes all the cars within a specified distance to explode, and an electro-shield, which protected you from bullets, mines and other cars. The weapons are too goddamn hard to catch. It's all down to luck whether you are in the right position for them or not. Like the rest of the game, it's a lot harder than the arcade game.

One thing that made the coin-op easier to play was the correct sensation of steering the car. The wheel made all the difference, and you had total control over the vehicle as it skidded all over the road. The control method of the C64 version however is terrible. It's all a matter of luck whether you hit something that's not in the same lane as you (you can turn your car to shoot at an angle, by the way) and the car is impossible to steer. The feel isn't right for this kind of game, and you find yourself sliding everywhere. Happily, and I don't know whether US Gold have intended this to add to the playability a little, Road Blasters has got C64 Buggy Boy syndrome, which means that it steers itself around corners. As ex-Ed Eugene Lacey quipped when his nurse let him use a sharp instrument for the first time since he left CU (i.e. a joystick), "they've devised a new driving system: the car stays stationary and you make the road move. If you don't understand what he means take a look at the road used in Out Run, for verily it is the same.

Graphics do bear a resemblance to the original, as a glance at the screenshots here will show you, but what really screws the game up is the animation. The gradual update on the cars and other objects is done very jerkily, though the animation of the main car is quite nice. One point I thought was odd is why do the gun turrets stay yellow all the way up to the screen, and suddenly get a nice coat of red paint just before they exit the screen?

Sound is OK. There are some seriously fine explosion sound effects, and a tunette between sections that does tend to grind on the ears. Here's a funny thing though. Apparently the computer can only do one effect at a time, so when you collect a bubble (ping-g-g-g) you can't hear any explosions for a good few seconds. And there's no engine noise. Where's the squeal of tyres when you start a section? Where's the speech? Where's the sick bag?