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There's one big problem doing computer game magazines at Christmas. None of the big games are ever ready - or, at least, ready if you insist on reviewing finished versions as we do (Quick digs at other mags inc) - in time for review in the pre-Christmas issues, so poor punters (like you) have to buy effectively blind, hoping that this or that big name is really as good as the software house responsible hopes you think it is. There's not much we can do about it, I'm afraid.

That being the case, you'll quite probably already know that (a) Robocop 3 comes with a 'free' and okayish hologram of the Delta City dick in the box, (b) that it uses a special Electronic Key (or 'dongle') which you need to lilnk to your computer before you can load the game up at all (the latest in high tech protection devices from Ocean - see True Stories for more details), and (c) that - hurrah! - the game's actually rather good. Bloody good in fact - arguably the best full price release Ocean have had in over a year, and a ground breaking product in its own right. More on that later.

First off though - and sorry about this Ocean - a bit of a whinge. The first one is to do with the dongle. Apart from a half-hearted sticker on the front and a scrappy piece of paper inside the box it doesn't mention the damn thing anywhere in the packaging, particularly the instruction manual where the loading instructions are exactly the same as for a normal game. Let's just hope nobody tries to load Robo 3 from the instructions given in the manual (where it not only fails to mention that you have to put this funny metal-and-plastic thing in your joystick port, but also refers to 'Disk A' and 'Disk B' when the things you get in the box are quite clearly lablled Disks 1, 2 and 3!). End of whinge.

The game, then. For starters, you can forget about the film. Yes, the game does have some plot similarities - particularly the fights with a superpowered Japanese ninja robot sent to test his mettle against our hero - but beyond that it's anybody's guess as to whether this really provides an experience similar to the movie or not. And frankly, who cares anyway? The staff at programmers DiD have apparently never seen the Frank Miller-scripted flick, and managed to get only the minimum of movie stills to look at for visual reference during the course of development, while publishers Ocean have made no attempt to tie the release in with the film's arrival in this country.

Linking things tightly to the film seems to have been of low priority with everyone concerned. "About time too!" it's tempting to comment when one remembers the low standard of recent movie games - to all intents and purposes what we have, here is a totally original product, and it should be treated as such.

Don't trust a quick synopsis of the game then. A quick glance at that would have you think this is built up of five sub-games in the established Ocean film game tradition, but nothing could be more deceiving. Yes, there are five distinct sub games - two of them shoot-'em-ups, one a beat-'em-up, plus driving and flying sections - but these aren't what you'd expect. Instead of some sort of platform effort there are solid 3D constructions - and fast, smooth 3D at that. They're not linear either - by which I mean, you aren't forced to perform tasks in a set order, but can wander around at will - so perhaps comparing them to the missions you get in flight sims would be more appropriate than likening them to the sequences in Batman The Movie, or whatever.

It's rarely, if ever, that 3D has to be used so effectively to depict anything other than high-tech weaponry either. Instead of appearing soulless and rather lacking in character - surely factors that prevented The Assembly Line's Cybercon 3 from being a bigger hit than it was - this very effectively plunges you directly into RoboCop's world. With this and F-29 Retaliator (a very shoot-'em-uppy flight sim) behind them, DiD seem determined to take solid 3D out of the realms of po-faced, 'serious' simulations, and into the more mainstream action arena, and in their hands the style seems to be taking to it like a duck to water.

The individual sub games, then, we'll deal with in a separate side-bar. Before we do that though we've first got to mention the presentation, which is, to make no bones about it, seriously excellent. The music is the first thing that hits you - moody, repetitive and quite simply brilliant. It sets the scene, it builds tension throughout the game - getting fast and more desperate as Robo's power fades - occasionally cutting out for silent patches, then building up again, sometimes even managing to act as an ironic counterpoint (something I remember, or think I remember from film crit classes) to the on-screen action. Music rarely gets much of a mention in Amiga Power reviews, so to justify a whole paragraph it must be something, eh?

That's only the beginning of it though. From the film-like titles to the disk swapping messages (for crying out loud!) the look and feel of the game is supremely atmospheric. In achieving this DiD have been helped by the look of the films, of course - the first two, and no doubt the third too, are constantly punctuated by sequences seen through RoboCop's own eyes, with gunsights flicking on and off, computer messages flashing across his visor and so on, and DiD reproduce this look to great effect. In the sequences where you see things from Robo's point of view - and though the external views are nice to look at, they're not really very playable - these visor messages usefully hold information about energy levels and so on, but DiD take the RoboCop look a step or two further. When RoboCop gets shot, the screen goes crackly and static-ridden for a moment, the controls failing to respond while his systems recover. When he crashes the car the windscreen smashes, bullet holes crack the glass, and thin lines flick across the entire visual display. These are tricks that worked superbly in the film, and do equally well here too, truly putting you in RoboCop's size 11 cast-iron shoes.

The main storytelling trick of the films, of course, was the TV news bulletins that constantly punctuated the action. And what do you know, the game uses them too - Jess Perkins and Casey Wong, our friendly Mediabreak hosts, introducing the sections of the game and commentating on the action. While they're a nice touch to the various individual action sequences, Jess and Casey really come into their own in the Interactive Movie version of the game, where they help move the action along quite nicely.

Ah, yes, I haven't mentioned that yet, have I? You see, perhaps the most important thing about the game is that it can be played in two ways. First up, you have the Arcade Action option. This allows you to play each of the games five main sequences as a standalone mission, with its own plot line and objectives.

This is fun as a training exercise and great for the impatient (like me), but things really start moving if you opt to play the whole thing as one big adventure instead. Here you get essentially the same sequences, but with more characters, different baddies, and attached to a solid, if much-twisting, plot line. Those familiar with the comics work of film scriptwriter Frank Miller (Batman: The Dark Knight, Elektra: Assassin, Give Me Liberty, etc) will have some idea of the sort of story elements you'll encounter - the Japanese buy-out of OCP, the computer that runs Detroit; the rise of ultraviolent 'splatterpunks' gangs; mercenaries from some futuristic Amazon war zone brought in as even-more-violent special police; social injustice on a massive scale; rival ninja robots on the rampage and so on.

In game terms it all moves at a cracking pace, and happily allows the player some degree of freedom in the order he executes his various tasks - you can abandon any one particular mission and go off to do something else at pretty much any point in the game, and your doing this will affect in some small way what the baddies do and how the plot unfolds. It comes closer to the concept of an interactive movie than anything we've seen yet - perhaps even more than things like Another World because it allows you more freedom of movement.

There's little else to say really, except what a great game! In two ways it's phenomenal - as a way of depicting a film in game form it simply eclipses all that's gone before, and as a way of using solid 3D to depict something other than hi-tech planes it breaks new ground too. Buy it unless (as its high Christmas chart placing would suggest) you've actually gone out and done so already.

1. Driving: The first section you come to in the Movie version of the game; this puts you behind the wheel of a squad car on a mission that takes place around the streets of Detroit. The play area is impressively large - a network of wide interstates and smaller roads dotted with buildings, road signs, other cars and distinctive landmarks (like toll gates and the police headquarters).

Whether you're playing this as an individual mission or part of the larger story, RoboCop must react fast to the missions given to him. One minute he'll be pursuing a stolen vehicle down the highway, the next a van load of terrorists armed with machine guns. The car is fast and steering (fairly) easy to master, while a neat little map of the streets mounted in his centre console allows you to follow the baddies around the map.

Generally, a very atmospheric rendition of driving round a city at night - good enough to rank as one of the year's better driving games, despite the fact that it's only one element of a larger product.

2. Street Fight: One of two fairly similar shoot-'em-up sequences, a 3D walk round a maze of back streets (effectively narrow corridors in the main), shooting vicious 'splatterpunks' and leaving innocent civilians well alone. It's vaguely reminiscent of walking down the corridors of Cybercon III (or Probe's new Alien III game), but perhaps better than both - the dark streets, shadowy environment and chance of danger lurking around every corner work extremely well, while the actual action - quickly moving your on-screen cross hairs into a position where they're aimed at an aggressor, then blasting them (often between the arms or legs of innocent civilians, as seen in the first film) - is as exciting as any ten Operation Wolf games, which it vaguely resembles.

It's easy to get lost, despite the impressively detailed nature of the individual streets and walls, but heading in the direction that the majority of baddies seem to be coming from generally seems to do the trick. Quite simply, a great shoot-'em-up.

3. Hostage Situation: Very similar to the street fight mission, only here your innocents are hostages (they're the ones standing with their hands up), while your surroundings are of the potted plants and computer terminals variety, as found in any large office building. Booby trapped doorways, grenade throwing terrorists and neat lift rides (you walk into the elevator, shoot the up arrow, and you're onto the next floor!) add to the feeling of menace. Just like Die Hard!

4. Flying: Without having seen the film I found the idea of a RoboCop flight sim slightly hard to imagine, but here it is and it works a treat. The area you get to buzz around - massive jet pack attached to your back - is fairly small, and getting shot down is exceptionally easy, but nipping between the towering sky scrapers of the Detroit city centre isn't something you're going to forget in a hurry. Perhaps the sequence of the game that made least impression on me, but that doesn't mean it's bad.

5. Close Quarter Combat: Now this really is Frank Miller stuff - Robocop and Otomo, an incredibly acrobatic ninja robot, must fight it out to the death. Robo has a range of clunky beat-'em-up moves and the opportunity to use his gun (high speed was never one of our hero's great virtues) while Otomo leaps about like a mad thing.

Set in Detroit (as the film is) it's tempting to see this as some sort of ironic comment on the decline of the US motor industry - Robo, a big, chunky Buick of a cyborg, quite literally getting rings run around him by the 16-valve, turbo-charged Otomo (but, erm, maybe not).

Uppers: After a few false starts here and there, solid 3D is finally proved very effective as a way of depicting people, cars, buildings and other down-to-earth objects. This is a spectacular film game, the individual sequences providing some of the best driving and shoot-'em-up action of the year, while the Movie Adventure version simply sets unprecedented standards for this sort of thing.

Downers: Though large for a film game, there probably still isn't as much here as a good number of the original 3D games. Buyers of the first two RoboCop games are really in for a shock too!

Right at the very tail end of 1991 came Ocean's best full pricer in ages and one of the games of the year. Impressive and deservedly a great success.