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When Domark announced that they had the rights to The Living Daylights, I shuddered. I couldn't help remembering the computer game of View To A Kill, an ambitious idea which fell short enough of the mark to scar Domark's reputation.

Still in a world where you are only as good as your last game, Domark has climbed to the top of the charts. Split Personalities is still one of my favourite games, but that is not what has put Domark where it is today.

It was Trivial Pursuit (TP), the game which wrecked a thousand friendships. Board game conversions are usually naff, especially if there is no computer opponent and with TP such a feature is impossible. Domark handled this with such skill and artistry that ACU gave it the highest rating ever.

The Living Daylights belongs to the new school of Domark. A well designed, playable game, it manages to follow the plot of the film quite closely.

It would be impossible to review the game without explaining what happens in the film. Three double 0 agents are sent on a practice mission. They have to penetrate the defences of Gibraltar. The SAS are there to protect it.

Both sides are armed with paint-firing guns and any hit registers as a kill. The two other agents are knocked out quickly, but when Bond finds that the fake killing is not quite so fake he realises that there is a real baddie on the prowl.

It is Bond's defeat of the assassin, and his escape from a sticky fire and watery death which is the highlight of the film. The credits, with a totally unmemorable song by A-Ha, follow.

The title screen shows Bond and friends parachuting into Gibraltar. The game opens with a solo JB running past paint touting SAS men.

You control both his running and firing. Using a clever joystick control system you can move the cursor off the right hand edge of the screen. This causes Bond to run, pushing up makes him jump and down causes him to roll. As he runs 007 must look out for boulders and jump over them. The energy meter is depleted if the Secret Service sprite is shot or trips over a rock.

Shooting at SAS men is tricky, a bit like the Sniper game published in ACU a while back. Running away is not the answer, blasting the Fire button is much better. When he reaches the end of the screen, Bond must deal with the assassin. Here the targer practice on SAS men comes in handy.

Switch the paint pistol to a trusty Walther PPK. In an earlier exploit Bond would have gone for a flat, .25 Beretta with a skeleton grip, but after the silencer jammed it was banned by M who, dismissed it as "a ladies gun".

So in the game it's a Walther PPK, no doubt of 7.65mm calibre pulled from a Burns-Martin triple-draw holster, a feat achieved with some more clever joystick juggling, and move the cursor down to the bottom right to toggle between weapons. Then it is back to Q's Workshop to rearm.

It is here that Bond sees a Ghetto-Blaster, a shoulder, launched rocket disguised as a Brixton briefcase. But for the next assignment, 007 heads for the Lenin People's Music Conservatory. In the film he uses a custom-built Audi 200, because Audi paid for its appearance. In the game it is the magic of computing which transports him across the world.

You are outside the conservatory and have to help Koskov, a defecting Russian, escape. He is protected by KGB snipers and you must shoot them without killing innocent onlookers. Night glasses are needed to distinguish who's who.

The trip to the West is in a gas pipeline. In the film this is done covertly, a female distraction being used to prevent the pipeline foreman from noticing a senior Russian soldier climbing into a barrel.

Unfortunately, things are not quite so simple in the game. Guards throw pipes at you, so you'll need a hard hat, and low pipes can give you a dreadful headache - pull down on the joystick to tumble between them.

Once Koskov is rescued Bond takes him, and the Aston Martn Volante to a county mansion for debriefing. The KGB moves in to retrieve Koskov and sends Necros, a secret service man who has muscles in places where I don't even have places.

In an excellent bit of the game Necros throws TNT-laden milk bottles at Bond while a helicopter hovers overhead. Koskov is abducted.

In the film, Bond then rescues Kara and they escape in an Aston Martin saloon and a cello case. I bet music lovers get a good deal more upset about a bullet hole in a Stradivarius than car lovers do about the destruction of one of the world's most expensive cars. I feel that it was a mistake to skip these scenes from the game.

The escape is to Vienna. Kara is a Tiffany Case type character - the only girl in the film with whom Bond has a liaison. Perhaps they were having trouble selling anything with sordid scenes overseas! In Vienna, Necros is on the prowl, he may not be working for the KGB after all, but is just as deadly.

Bond is assigned to rescue Koskov, tracked down to Tangiers and after a rooftop chase; in the film he is caught. In a plot to buy drugs with diamonds Bond and Kara are flown to Afghanistan, where they smash the drug ring with the help of local rebels, and escape the clutches of the Russians who are in cohorts with the real baddie, Brad Whittaker.

It is in Whittaker's house that the final showdown takes place. Uncharacteristically for a Bond film there is no big final explosion, but then we've already had a few of those.

The game is well programmed by Design Design, now renamed Walking Circles Software. This shows in the energy meter which also featured in Dark Star and the truly wonderful Tankbusters.

The sprite animation is excellent; there must be a huge number of frames. The three level scroll is difficult to program, even with the screen shrunk, 12K is still a lot to shift.

I am not very good at shooting games but still enjoyed The Living Daylights. Perhaps seeing the film helped, as it is much easier to believe in a bunch of pixels sprinting across my bedroom if I've seen a film explaining what is going on.

It is good to see that film tie-ins don't have to be naff, you'd miss out but it would be perfectly possible to play the game without going to the movie.

The film is, like any other Bond film, primarily all action and little plot. Many a wiser film critic will ponder over the merits of the various James Bonds. A bit like thinking that Jon Pertwee was the best Dr. Who.

I am not too keen on the new man, Timothy Dalton. He is too short, too smooth and not Scottish enough. Some of the back-projection is too obvious for a modern film, but Maryam d'Abo, who plays Kara, and the Aston Martin are good enough reasons for going.

Perhaps Bond films have moved so far from the books that such a comparison is not fair, but I prefer Ian Fleming's Bond to Albert Broccoli's. That said, it is an all-action film - see it before you buy the game.

The game is great; buy it after you've seen the film.