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Tengen really are the nostalgia kings. While other softcos are converting the latest state-of-the-art coin-ops to Sega's 16-bitter, Tengen are quite content to release conversions of games you could probably buy in their original arcade cabinets for about the same price. Just recently we had Pacmania, now we've got Road Blasters and there are plenty more 'blasts from the past' in the pipeline.

Road Blasters comes as a welcome relief from the stacks of scrolling shoot-'em-ups and platform games. (Just why is the Megadrive so curiously lacking in the driving game department? The only other one I can think of is Super Monaco GP.) As the name suggests, the player drives along a road and... um... blasts things.

The accent is definitely on the blasting. The player's car, which sits at the bottom-middle of the screen, accelerates to top speed automatically and the player simply has to steer it left and right, strafing unsafe road users and roadside gun turrets with his bonnet-mounted machine gun. Super mega whopper weapons are occasionally dropped off (literally) by a jet that swoops down and hovers over the car briefly.

Your appreciation of Road Blasters on the Megadrive will be near identical to that of the coin-op - they're identical. Personally, I find the action repetitive and too mindless to be enjoyable for longer than about fifteen minutes, but there are probably many who disagree and think this is the best game ever. At least, that's what Tengen must be hoping.