***** - Sean Connery

**** - Roger Moore

*** - David Niven

** - George Lazenby

* - Timothy Dalton

DIZZY IN MY HEAD

Just in case you're not completely sick of hearing about Code Masters' little egg hero Dizzy, here's one last little snippet. On top of this Christmas' coming compilation, the Codies finally release the hugely popular fourth adventure of the ovoid chap, Magicland Dizzy, on 16-bit formats in a couple of weeks' time. The cartoon-graphics-and-puzzle-solving style is exactly the same as before, but this effort is the most accomplished of the lot. If you take the proper charts as your yardstick (ie all prices together), then this is my top bet for the Christmas No. 1.

NO, REALLY...

Honestly, Empire's conversion of the Taito coin-op follow-up to Qix, Volfied, is just about finished now, seriously. Empire's programmers have been literally taking the arcade machine to pieces in order to dissect every last bit of information out of it, in an attempt at the truly definitive coin-op port. Early impressions suggest that they might just have managed it, too, but keep watching this space for monthly updates until the game finally hits the streets in time for Boxing Day (well, probably).

THE MOMENTARY RETURN OF....HERE IT COMES AGAIN!

This week: Games Which Don't Have Any Connecting Factor At All

The budget scene is as lively as it ever was in the run-up to the Christmas boom, and this month has seen the rebirth of two all-time classics from the Hit Squad. BUBBLE BOBBLE (****), the predecessor of Rainbow Islands, is possibly the best two-player arcade game ever, and on all formats the micro conversion is excellent, although without a lot of the coin-op's secret bonuses and so on. The Amiga and C64 versions are particulary worthy of note (the Speccy version suffers from a lack of music, which is pretty inexcusable on the 128K machine but there you go), but on every format this is a truly great game. The only problem with it is that the one-player game is a bit lacking, but at this price, no-one should let it stop them from owning a copy of this superb game.

Also from the Hit Squad comes BATMAN - THE MOVIE (***), which was Ocean's third (I think) attempt at a game featuring the caped crusader. It was also the first in what became a long line of formulaic movie licence games made up of small sub-sections relating to various parts of the film, but if you can forget for a moment that this is the game whose success is responsible for Nightbreed, Total Recall, Darkman and Terminator 2, then you'll find a conversion here that's really pretty spiffing. The platform sections were designed with a little more thought than you tend to see these days, and the driving sub-games are more than a match for many dedicated racing jobs, and generally it captures the movie's atmosphere admirably.

The label lets itself down somewhat with this month's other release, DRAGON NINJA (*). It's a copy of the coin-op which (on 16-bit versions) looks remarkably close to the real thing, but the programmers have somehow forgotten to include the 'jump' feature which makes things tricky to say the least. The ST version also suffers from incredible slowness, and while the 8-bit ports are a touch more playable, they look awful. Even if you're the world's biggest ninja fan (or indeed the world's biggest dragon fan), don't bother with this one. (All the games sell at £7.99 for 16-bit versions and £3.99 for 8-bit versions).

BEG, BORROW AND BURN SPECIAL

THREE WHEELERS

This week sees the software world rocked by the simultaneous release (more or less) of not one, not two, not four, not seventeen, not (Get on with it -reader's voice), eight hundred and twelve but three games all with a strong driving theme. Gremlin show up with the long-awaited Lotus Turbo Challenge 2, MicroProse weigh in with their technically stunning F1 Grand Prix, and US Gold add to the burden on the already-groaning shop shelves with the third game in the trillion-selling Out Run series, Out Run Europa. While the three are indeed all driving games, they all take radically different approaches to the theme.

BEG

F1 GRAND PRIX (MicroProse)

(Or MicroProse Grand Prix, or whatever the hell it's called this week). This effort goes for the Indy 500 line, with polygon graphics and a serious simulation feel. A single race in F1 GP, using the shortest option available, is still likely to take you a good 20 minutes to complete, and this might deter the fast-action fans amongst you, which would be a terrible shame because this is a terrifyingly good game. The tracks are all crammed with graphic detail, but everything still moves alarmingly quickly, and the minutiae of F1 racing have been captured to a level that's almost trainspotter-like. Flag men, pitstops where you even get your windscreen wiped with a chamois, drivers pushing their broken-down cars off the track in the middle of the race, the whole deal, as well as everything Indy 500 fans would expect in the way of action replays, camera angles etc. Geoff Cramond, author of the frankly over-rated Stunt Car Racer, has really gone to town this time, and while he was there he's bought a driving game which is a dead-on certainty to achieve well-deserved legendary status within minutes.

BORROW

LOTUS TURBO ETC (Gremlin)

Lotus Turbo etc is a sequel to the popular Lotus Turbo Esprit Challenge with a number of dinky new features added, such as the chance to drive two separate Lotus cars (the Esprit and the Elan), the ability to have up to four players at once through a modem link-up, and a wide range of weather conditions for drivers to race through. The most pleasing improvement for me though, is the use of the full screen in one-player mode, which lends the whole thing a much grander and more impressive air. Lotus 2 shares its predecessor's immense playability, but the only significant difference between the games in play is the environmental element - beautifully-realised snow makes the cars slide around, fog and darkness affects your visibility, desert sand slows cars down, and deviating from the road in the swamplands can result in your vehicle sinking into a marsh. Now while I'm a great believer in the old maxim 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it', I'm far from convinced that Gremlin have done enough in Lotus 2 to make it worth buying if you already own the original. If you don't have the first game, then don't miss this, but otherwise see it first.

BURN

OUT RUN EUROPA (US Gold)

Okay, so 'burn' is a bit of a strong word for this acceptable enough little game, but in the light of the competition Out Run Europa looks like a relic from a bygone age. The Out Run connection is an extremely tenuous one, as this game puts you in a whole series of vehicles from a motorbike to a jetski, and the action takes place all over the continent, even including the Channel! The game looks very pretty, with small but detailed graphics and a fair turn of speed, but it suffers from the twin flaws of being irritatingly difficult and almost uncontrollable. You don't get anything like the realistic handling of Lotus 2 and particularly F1 GP, and as your bike or whatever careers ridiculously across the narrow tracks, you spend more time crashing than riding. You also can't go faster than some of the enemy vehicles, which causes some really annoying moments when they bash you around the road or even completely obscure your bike from view, and generally the overall design leaves a lot to be desired. It's almost a decent game, but in this market it's going to be completely crushed.

THE BLUES BROTHERS (Titus, £25.99 on Amiga and ST)

Titus. The Blues Brothers. What a combination, eh? A couple of fat old rockers and the software house responsible for some of the most appalling software ever to disgrace any machine anywhere in the world ever (Crazy Cars, Crazy Cars 2, Dick Tracy, Fire And Forget, that really duff one about the speedboats, the list is endless). I approached this game with all the enthusiasm of a BMX Bandits fan going to a Guns'n'Roses gig, but (regular readers won't be in the least surprised to discover) I was to be proved utterly wrong by one of the most completely excellent games it's been my pleasure to review since I started this column.

The Blues Brothers is a very console-esque platform arcade romp, distinguished by fast, addictive gameplay, hilarious animation, excellent music and gorgeous cartoon graphics. In look, feel and play it's something very close to perfect, and if you're a committed fan of Jake and Elwood (which I'm not by any stretch of the imagination) you may well form the opinion that this is the best game you've ever played. There isn't anything particularly devastating in the design or anything, but the level of execution in every area is just wonderful, and it makes this game so enjoyable to play that I actually came into work early several times this week just to sneak in a few quick games.

You might notice that I'm not telling you much about the actual game here, but there's a reason for that. A simple review is easy to dismiss, but pop into your friendly local software shop and take a look at this game for yourself. If you can walk back out without a copy of your own, then make your next stop a psychiatrist, bacause there's something wrong with your head. *****

PLAYING TIPS

ELF (Ocean, Amiga and ST)

This funny little platform arcade adventure with the rather over-fussy graphics didn't do much for me when it was released a couple of months ago, but if you're a fan, you'll probably find this wee cheat quite handy. All you do is type 'CHOROPOO' at any time and you'll suddenly have 99 pets. Quite what use 99 pets are going to be, is a question only Elf fans will be able to satisfactorily answer.

BRAT (Imageworks, Amiga)

To skip a level in this 'interesting' Lemmings-inspired scrolling maze thing, hold down 1, the full stop key, the slash key and the asterisk. Stuart's Top Tip Of The Week - do it twelve times in a row and save yourself a lot of grief.

COPYCAT CORNER

Fanatical disciples of this column may also be familiar with my scrawlings for NCE's sister mag Amiga Power (the best-selling Amiga games magazine in the country, fact fans). If so, they may just remember a review of a game called Challenge Golf which I wrote in Issue Four of said organ. Imagine their surprise, then, to open this month's CU Amiga and see that very same review, practically word-for-word, reprinted on p.24-25 in their so-called 'Readers Reviews' section (courtesy of one Peeyush Durani of Romford). Games Week says: Thanks for the compliment to my journalistic skills, everyone, but do your own slagging next time.