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Behind all the exploitation of Maria Whittaker in Barbarian lurks a very playable game. However, Martech's Vixen seems to have been produced by ploughing 95% of the game budget into getting Corrine Russell to pose pathetically around a selection of plastic plants and spending the rest programming just anything to stick in the box.

Vixen the game is set on the jungle planet Granath, where the human inhabitants live in fear of the dinosaurs that dominate the land. All but one, a powerful lone female complete with synthetic whip and high-heeled shoes. Abandoned as a child and raised by a clan of magical foxes (can you believe this?), the Vixen is bestowed with magical powers, but more of that later. Vixie's quest is to penetrate the many levels of the dino's domain. Not surprisingly this is done by running in true Thundercats/Rolling Thunder through the jungle, cracking evil monsters about the head with her magical whip.

The characters that attack Vixie are all based on a dinosaur-type theme and range from shuffling green lizards and blue crawling spiders to the big T-Rex himself. Vixie's life force doesn't come in the form of an energy bar, so any contact with a meanie will result in the loss of a life. As mentioned earlier, Vixen is protected from such attacks 'cause she's got a magical bullwhip wot she can send lashing out [Nice grasp of English, Gaz! - Ed] disposing of any meanies in the immediately vicinity with nothing more than a quick stab of the fire button. To make things easier, the sprite collision is quite generous so a nasty has to get very close before it hits you, allowing you plenty of time to whip it.

Along the way, Vixie will come across quite a few different objects that will aid her on her mission, most notably balls that hang on chains from palm trees [Must be Christmas! - Ed]. It doesn't sound like an invaluable mission aid at first, but if Vixen cracks her whip at it, it turns into a foxhead which can be collected. If she collects enough of these to fill a 'foxtime' bar at the top of the screen, when she completes a level by crawling into a cave at the end she mutates into a fox (wow) and enters a bonus level that's completely free of nasties (hounds, huntsmen, etc) but rife in bonus points in the shape of gems, mega gems are also on offer. When Vixie collects one of these it appears at the top of the screen and is used to increase your scoring potential once you get back overground.

Apart from a few extra factors like mega whips (kill all the nasties in one shot) and the obligatory holes in the ground to be jumped, there's not a lot more to Vixen. Just like Thundercats and Rolling Thunder it's a simple and basic formula, but it differs from those two as it actually manages to be slightly playable. Even though, for the most part, the graphics are quite basic and the scrolling just a bit jerky, the Vixen herself has supposedly been digitised and as such the animation as she runs and crawls is really quite effective. This is complemented by an enjoyable jungle soundtrack complete with sampled bongos to produce quite an enjoyable atmosphere. The gameplay however, sometimes tends to be frustrating as jumping over holes in the ground is not the easiest thing in the world to do, due to the sluggish stick control.

Rolling Thunder, Vixen and Thundercats all often the same kind of thing. Vixen deserves to be your last choice because of its stupid sexism.