'Who dares wins' is Code Masters' favourite motto. After all, they've dared to sell some pretty dire software at times, yet made a fortune in the process. True to their adventurous spirit, they've come up with SAS Combat Simulator (71%) (neat title, lads!). The good news is that this is one of their better releases. Most of the action is depicted by some decent overhead-view graphics, with your little soldier shooting and grenading swarming enemies. Starting on foot, he can find an armoured jeep and a tank to drive while he blasts or runs over enemy soldiers, and blows even trains to smithereens. After reaching the end of a stage, play switches to a side-view hand-to-hand combat section, with yet more soldiers for the violent hero to punch. Unfortunately this section is both repetitive and irritating as near-perfect timing is needed to dispatch countless foes. Even so, SAS Combat Simulator is a challenging shoot-'em-up with plenty of content.

BARGAIN BASEMENT

Chirpy, chirpy, cheap, cheap, chirpy, chirpy, cheap, cheap, chirpy, chirpy, cheap, cheap, BLAM! Nuff of that it's time for another trip to Cheapsville, with Marcus "mothballs-in-the-wallet" Berkmann!

Code Masters
£1.99
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann

Or Commando, by any other name, as you blast and shoot yourself through some benighted warzone in the knowledge that sooner or later your number (31) is up.

Instead of scrolling vertically, as all previous Commando 'tributes' have done, this at least has the wit to scroll horizontally, and the sprite too is satisfyingly large and visible. In fact this is really quite fun, even if it is more derivative than Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Your little fellow can move diagonally as well as in the normal four directions - good news, as his main task is to avoid the many bullets that his opponents fire at him. Fortunately, although the game itself is as fast as you'd wish it, the bullets are dead slow, so dodging them is not too tricky.

Also important is to avoid getting close to the enemy, as there's hand-to-hand combat in this game - find yourself next door to a gook and you're severely dead. In all there are four 'combat zones' (levels), which should keep anyone who's seen Platoon too many times very happy. The programmers have also picked up loads of tricks from Green Bert, Vindicator and such like, which makes SAS Combat Simulator (surely the most desperate Simulator title yet) rather a greatest hits of programmers' tricks, but it's no less fun for all that.

Still, I hope you'll excuse me if I return to Technician Ted...

Label: Codemasters
Author: Jason Falcus & Adrian Ludley
Price: £2.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

I can't stand this. You'd have thought we had made enough fun of Codemasters in the past, without them descending into self-parody. Not only do they have the cheek to call this an "SAS Simulator" - SIMULATOR. HAH! - but they also go as over-the-top as usual with self-penned reviews. "It's absolutely incredible how much gameplay there is!", says David Darling. No it isn't! There's a perfectly normal amount of gameplay, neither more nor less than you would expect.

So, having vented some of my not inconsiderable spleen, what's the game all about? Well, far from being an SAS Combat Simulator, which would presumably involve making sure that your black balaclava was colour-co-ordinated with your black boiler suit, black gasmask and black machine gun, before you set out to attack a choice of any three from ten foreign embassies... er, where was I? Oh yes, basically this is a horizontally-scrolling Commando-style game.

You start off armed with a rifle and hand grenades. It's the usual business; move from left to right, pressing the fire button to shoot down little potty soldiers, holding it down to launch a grenade. Graphics and sound could fairly be described as ho-hum, scrolling is OK and action fairly continuous.

Soon, though, things get silly. By running over a Codemasters logo (typical bit of modesty there, lads) you pick up extra weapons or lives. The first weapon is a jeep, but what a jeep! it can move forwards, backwards, up, down, even diagonally, without changing the way it's facing! WOW! While in the jeep you're protected from enemy bullets, but not from grenades. Baddies, meanwhile, fall spinning to the ground as your crush your way through them.

The end of each level is marked by a railway line. After flinging a grenade at the passing train you turn upwards, fight your way past the terrifying pillbox, and reach the end of the level.

Between levels you encounter the "hand-to-hand-combat simulator". Oh dear oh dear. This bit's awful. Here you have a side view rather than a top view, and your little SAS maniac makes his way from left to right, fighting off enemies by prodding them in the stomach with what looks like a fishfinger. Timing is the thing here; there's certainly no other element of skill involved. In due course you come to the end of this merry interval, and it's on to level two, which is the same as level one except that it's green.

If SASCS hadn't been called SASCS, and IF it wasn't so ridiculously hyped on the back, I wouldn't have been too unpleasant towards it. As a cut-price version of Fernandez Must Die, it's not a bad effort, with reasonable gameplay and sound making up for the slightly drab graphics. As it is take the standard advice and try before you buy - even at £2.99.

Spectrum, Amstrad: £2.99

Taking a Commando-style viewpoint, SAS Combat Simulator takes the player through four huge levels of enemy-infested landscape, on a clandestine mission to assassinate the rebel leader.

The SAS officer begins his mission on foot armed only with a gun and a limited supply of grenades. Collection of "Codemasters" logos is rewarded with a jeep or tank in which to cover ground more quickly; a bazooka with which to increase the death toll; rapid fire, ditto; and a smart bomb, double ditto.

The play area scrolls alternately horizontally and vertically, with an enemy stronghold at the end of each level. On reaching the enemy headquarters, the display switches to a Green Beret style side view, as the SAS officer indulges in hand-to-hand combat against hostile commandos.

Not the most original of games, but a pleasant mix of two game styles. Reasonably portrayed on the Spectrum - even more so on the Amstrad - and proving quite addictive, if lacking repeat appeal.