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Robin's got a problem. He can't decide whether to free the oppressed poor from the tyrannical grasp of the Sheriff of Nottingham, or go off chasing wenches with chainmail nighties. Luckily for you he choose the latter and transform Robin, hero of the people, into a man with his brains down his codpiece.

Robin Hood is another cutesy arcade adventure from the Codemasters stable. Nottingham's evil sheriff has abducted Marian and holds her captive in his castle. You play Robin and your joob is to rescue the dear maiden.

The action takes place over a series of medieval-looking levels with plenty of opportunity for baddie-bashing and pilfering en route. Each level has certain obstacles associated with it - the dungeon level has spiders, boiling lava and trolls, and there are various collectibles including chests, jewels and goblets which all help to boost your score. You also have to collect various keys on each level to help you gain access to the different doors and lifts which speed up your progress.

You're only given three lives and a health rating of three hearts to complete the game, but this soon withers away to nothing as you get dunked in lava, bitten by spiders and speared by trolls. You can occasionally collect extra hearts, but you soon find you've run out of lives and have to start all over again - this is when you realise there are no continues. This becomes a real drag as you wander through the same level fo rthe 20th time just to get to where you were before. Play Robin Hood for an hour or so and you realise baldness isn't hereditary, it's self-inflicted.

You get Robin about the different levels with a few simple moves on the joystick and pressing Fire enables you to fire arrows at your enemies. The graphics are nothing special, but they serve their purpose and the sprites are quite well-animated, although the sound effects and music are crap.

Robin Hood, originally released as part of the Super All Stars compilation reviewed in ST Format 43, offers platform addicts nothing new - however, it should soon endear itself to Dizzy fans. The gameplay is competent without being very inspiring, while the lack of continues can cause acute frustration and loss of hair.

Average arcade game with some cutesy sprites.

Die and you have to go back to the beginning.