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As you should all know by now, 30 or 40 computer game incarnations down the line, the samurai were the guards of the great shoguns in feudal Japan. We're also 30 or 40 down the line as far as Impressions wargames are concerned, making it only a matter of time before these two great lines in computer-gaming would eventually cross. And now, inevitably, they have. Set in 16th century Japan, Samurai: Way Of The Warrior sees you in the role of a shugun chap called Usaka San, caught up in the middle of a power struggle with a chap called Obinaka, who killed your father and stole his hand. Now, as they say, it's a matter of honour...

Well, I don't know about this honour business, but I do know that this is a wargame, and as wargames go it's par for the course. Disk accessing is occasionally a bit of a pain, although at least hard drive users are catered for. The game starts with you in control of five cities (Obinaka controls the other five) and allocates you a certain amount of money to spend on creating your armies. Once done, it's off to war. Spread out over the map are the ten cities - you must capture all your enemies by sending your armies (one square at a time) across to meet the opposition. This, it has to be said, takes an awfully long time, as the game is based on a turn by turn system.

The graphics are nicely drawn - at least to begin with. The intro has a slideshow of a samurai putting his togs on from next to nothing right up to full battle dress. It's not bad, so I expected fine things (or, at least, finer things than you expect in a wargame) from the actual battle sequences. Sadly, I was disappointed. Whenever two armies meet, a sub-game pops up with the armies at opposite ends of the screen - you have to scroll the screen to see them both. The sprites are big and blocky and move appallingly slowly but then again, this is a wargame. The sound on the other hand is a bit better, with a Japanese style tune and some good sampled speech. Not awful by the standards of the genre then, but equally, it's a long way off from anything you could really term 'jolly good'. Even the most battle-hardened wargamer won't get anything new from this.

Alright in the sound, graphics and general presentation departments, but in this kind of thing the game is everything, and here it isn't up to much at all. Buy only if you're really desperate for a wargame fix.