Nuke 'em high, has taken on a whole new meaning. Someone is peddling a new designer drug on the streets of Detroit, known as Nuke, it is a narcotic so addictive that it makes crack look like sherbet. Luckily, for all those citizens of the Big D who don't like injecting chemicals straight into their jugular, Robocop is on the case.

Tin Head has found out where the evil drug lord and total nutter Cain is based. Level one sees Robo' bashing his way into the drug factory, confiscating Nuke and liberating hostages while he's about it. This takes the form familiar to Robocop 1 fans, with the action seen from the side. Later levels centre on target ranges and puzzles. The game follows the plot of the film, covering Robocop's memory loss, memory retrieval and final showdown with Cain - the drug pushers brain now having been transferred into a mutated ED 209 battlechasis - who has become known as Robocop 2.

Nuke Kids on the Block

Meanwhile, back at the factory, life is getting heavy, Robocop moves the way a robot should - slowly. Which is very authentic but dangerous. He can walk, crouch and fire, swinging his arm around to shoot in five different directions - he cannot shoot straight down however. Jumping between platforms and onto lifts is more difficult than it would be with a human sprite. It seems OCP could only find a set of diagonally-jumping motors when they knocked Robocop together. If Robo' wants to trash something directly in front of him then he can punch, but if, for some reason, a hostage is standing next to him, shooting is ill advised.

As the Man-in-the-Can powers through the 'side on levels', power-ups pop out of the scenery and drop from the sky. Bashing Coke machines generally earns Robocop a can of refreshing, health-giving, pop - that doesn't look at all like 'the real thing'. By shooting fuse boxes the iron-clad lawman receives canisters of Nuke that suspiciously refresh him.

In an interesting twist for part of the first level, picking up 'Coke cans' is actively discouraged, which is a problem as they fall like rain at this point. As Robo' flies skyward on a hover lift, collecting power-ups throws him off. Negative cans, which reverse motion and lose time, leave him on the lift but take their toll.

Face Death

Roboop is a tough game. The time limits are tight and the enemies are plentiful. Robocop is as vulnerable as ever, with only three lives which are represented by faces. Helmeted Robocops are lives you have left and bare-faced Murphy's show the number of deaths. His energy is represented by another 'Coke' can that gets crushed as his energy is eroded.

The diagonal jumping makes life harder than it should be, but they form a constant pattern that is brought into play on the latter stages of level one and the other three 'sideways' levels, allowing him to change direction whilst he is in flight.

The graphics for Robocop 2 are yards, nay miles, better than they were in Robo' 1. Here he's large, mean and metallic. The supporting cast have a familiar look about them. The foes are reminiscent of Batman in their behaviour, while Midnight Resistance overtones keep popping up. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as they are better looking than ever before, with more deadly moves.

Robocop Re-mix

A remixed movie tunes accompanies the game and in the heat of battle some hefty explosions are let rip. The relentless regeneration of enemies and the range of firepower-ups on offer (five way scatter guns, three-way shots) guarantees that there is no let-up on the noise front.

A powerful movie conversion, Robocop 2 does tough, exhibit some really annoying traits. The lack of restart points is highly frustrating, so too is his insistence on staying crouched until told otherwise. Worse still, on the sideways shoot-out levels, the rate at which the criminals regenerate is sickening. Robocop struggles from can to can seeking out his energy, but the villains are replaced almost instantly. Logically Robocop should suffer no damage from touching felons, if anything they should die. Yet despite his ultra-tough metal skin, any contact with a criminal loses him considerable amounts of his energy. It may be a computergame convention, but it doesn't suit the character.

On the reservations

These reservations aside, Robocop is a well thought out and coded game that should only be taken on by hardened walk-and-shoot veterans. The graphics are full of character and capture the dark, moody atmosphere of the movie, especially when the shooting starts. The structure, unfortunately, is slightly predictable, following very much the same pattern as Batman and Robocop 1, but then all three movies were remarkably similar too and software houses can only work with the material they are given, which is the problem with a licenced project.

Ocean have a sure-fire hit on their hands here. The game could stand up and be counted without the benefit of the licence which simply hammers home the game's good points. Fans of the film will not be displeased, as Robocop is littered with digitised stills and Robo-samples. Other players will have fun blasting and bashing the criminals on the streets of Detroit too. Ultimately however, the twitchy controls and other minor gripes combine to rob Robocop of the classic game mantle, reducing it to the status of merely good. This fact is made all the more annoying because it has obviously plenty of potential that is just simply not realised, which is a shame.

After almost two years in the soft-charts, the original RoboCop game has been decommissioned only to be superseded by a much-improved and long-awaited sequel. Developed by Special FX, it boasts seven levels: three platform shoot 'em ups, two puzzle games and a couple of hostage shoot outs. The game loosely ties in to the film and features digitised images taken directly from the movie between levels. Obviously programming began months before the film was released, so the team had to rely on a preliminary script, character pics and rough cuts from the movie.

The first level is a platform shoot 'em up and involves the player collecting canisters of Nuke, an addictive drug, before they fall into the hands of criminals. Ten need to be collected before you can move onto the next section. There are also a number of hostages to free. If you release ten of them you'll also get an extra life.

Throughout the level, there are numerous perps running around, armed to the teeth with guns, bazookas and mortars who need to be taken out. Power-up icons are scattered around the level as well as a number of mystery icons which may aid a player's progress or cause real problems by reversing the joystick controls. There's also a time limit, and if you fail to reach the end of the stage within it, you are placed back at the start of the level. Another obstacle is a hover-board which must be used to access higher levels of the building.

The puzzle sections involve RoboCop in a race against time as he attempts to regain his memory (robbed from him in the film by a loopy psychologist). This is done by collecting Robo's memory chips on a graphic representation of a circuit board. However, rogue chips block a player's progress and you can't double back or pass through the same location twice. There are four sections to get through, each one harder than the last. It works well, but once it's completed it's a bit of a pain to have to go through the whole process again.

Next up is the first shooting gallery level which involves calibrating Robo's gunsights by shooting criminals (but not their hostages) as they appear at windows. It's very similar to sequences in the first game and is great fun although it's hard to distinguish the shapes as they appear at windows and the controls are sluggish. The more targets you hit, the less shots you'll need to polish off the bad guys in subsequent levels. If you fair badly, though, you'll get a second chance later on.

Robo can then move on to the second platform game. Set in the Tokka Gowa brewery, the gameplay is similar to the first level with more hostages and Nuke to collect. There's also acid baths to avoid, crumbling floors, rolling barrels to jump over, and electronic eyes set at ankle height which trigger explosives if activated. Thankfully, there are a number of power-up icons to collect, including rapid fire, scatter shot and three-way fire. To negotiate the acid baths the player has to manoeuvre Robo onto an overhead crane which is easy once you've got the jump timed exactly right. When the player has reached the roof, it's a face off with the human Cain who's easily blown away.

After another puzzle section and firing range shoot out, the final level pits Robo against an assortment of characters from the movie, including Hob, a 12-year old sadistic killer, ED-209, and the eponymous RoboCop2. There's also heavy duty hardware on display such as minitanks, missile launchers, cybermaniacs and heat seeking missiles. The ED-209 sprites are great, and really look the part as they lumber across the screen. Unfortunately the Robo2 sprite is dreadful. The sprite is small, static and looks nothing like the movie incarnation. After confronting the new, improved Cain, it's a matter of blasting him back through the levels and blowing him to pieces. This takes a fair bit of fire power, but there's no great difficulty and it comes as a massive anti-climax.

Although there's no in-game soundtrack, the sonics are more than adequate. Graphics-wise, the RoboCop sprite moves in a similar style to his movie counterpart. The colour palette is subtly used and fairly impressive, with 16 colours used on the RoboCop sprite, and a further 16 used on the backgrounds.

RoboCop 2 is a mish-mash of game styles. However, the gameplay is addictive and there's certainly a lot going on. It's destined to be the Christmas number one whatever I say, but it's nice to see a half decent product up there for once. The best licensed product of the year? You betcha!

The lethal new drug Nuke has swept Old Detroit with devastating effect and the police are on strike - only RoboCop is on the beat. Unfortunately Robo's creators, OCP Corporation, want a crime wave to force the city bankruptcy so they can take it over! The awesome Robo 2 is eventually sent to ensure no-one saves Detroit.

This heavy metal battle is completely different on C64 and Amiga. On the Amiga, Robo's first battle takes place in the Nuke laboratories. Collect 10 Nuke capsules to shut down the Labs. Drug baron Cain has unlimited and heavily armed henchmen, plus a Laser wielding woman to fry Robo's circuits if he's not careful. Coke vending machines top up energy while power-up capsules temporarily give rapid, three- and five-way fire and other extras (some bad). There's also ten hostages to rescue for an extra life.

The blast-'em-up, multi-way scrolling action continues into a Brewery. This is Cain's last scene before being turned into Robocop 2, who makes his debut at the OCP Civic Centrum level where Robo takes on Harley-riding thugs, robot defences, laser forcefields, ED-209s and finally, Robo 2 in a fight to the bitter end.

Between the three blast-'em levels are two logic puzzles and two shooting galleries. To piece together his memories, Robo must remove faulty chips from increasingly complex memory banks without backtracking (earning a continue-play if successful). Completing the shooting gallery boosts Robo's firepower lethality.

On the C64, the plot remains much the same although the action is spread over 14 horizontal-scroll levels, involving leaping from platform to platform, dodging bullets and avoiding the slightest contact with anything. A hover pad can be used to jet around, platforms can be moved and ceiling magnets are useful for crossing chasms. Robo faces not only gun-toting criminals but also giant grinders, Jet thrusters, lasers, crushers and a whole lot more besides.

The basic aim is to collect Nuke capsules and arrest special criminals. Failure to achieve at least a 60% rate of either on a level leads to a shooting gallery where Robo has to shoot a selected number of criminal targets to progress. Failure takes Robo back to the start of the previous stage. There are also secret bonus stages with dozens of extra Nuke capsules. Best of all there's two sub-games where extra lives and millions of points can be won. In the first, Robo has to piece together his memory in a sliding block puzzle, while In the second (a Mastermind-style sub-game) Robo is attempting to open a safe. The main part of the game, the side-on view combat, features the same settings as the Amiga game, plus the sewers, but they're laid out completely differently and made much bigger - each locale is divided into several levels. There's static screen one-on-one combat with Cain, and later, Robo 2.