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The best thing about The Empire Strikes Back was definitely those Ack-Ack walkers - the big blighters with the distinctive striding action. No-one's really come up with the software equivalent, at least not on the ST, but Under Pressure tries very hard.

The hero of the piece is a robot called - er, nothing at all, who walks about in a very Ack-Ackish way. He does a lot of walking, this robot, because it's the only way he can get around. He also does a lot of shooting, because it's the only way he can kill things. And that's about all he does, walking and shooting. Occasionally other things shoot at him too - big mutant flowers, strange metal objects, dragons and suchlike. If he shoots these nasties they might drop a shell, which, when picked up, goes towards helping the robot get a new piece of equipment, like a bigger gun or a shield. Now and again the robot has to jump off a platform onto another, or avoid a trap.

The robot is big, no doubt about it - he strides about confidently and fairly smoothly. Unfortunately he never turns around, so to walk backwards he just goes in the opposite direction. The other graphics are large and detailed too, and for once the sound effects are hefty enough to back them up.

Very nice looking, but it's so booooooring. The robot moves and jumps much too slowly for you to become involved, and it needs at least half a screen's run-up in order to launch itself. In fact, everything's way too big - there's no room at all for movement on the screen.

With a few improvements, this might have been a really good game, for example, by making the sprites smaller and the levels more convoluted. As it is, you might be breod, you might be frustrated, but you certainly won't be Under Pressure.

1. Innovative, large graphcis, but not nearly frantic enough to challenge games like R-Type II or Llamatron.
2. Bigger and more colourful sprites than in almost any other game you'll have seen.