Anyone who calls themselves Death=Adder just has to be looking for trouble! Which is just as well because there are three vengeance-crazed warriors on his trail. The tale of their little disagreement is told in Golden Axe, the brilliant hack-and-slash special hot from the arcades.

The plot is as basic as any blood-caked sprite slasher could wish for. Out of the three heroes you can choose two to fight their way across a horizontally-scrolling landscape in a bid to rescue a princess. Using a series of basic fighting moves they must overcome, by force of arms, the Armies of Death=Adder.

Different Strokes
The limited number of sword strokes (three) is supplemented with some sundry close-combat illustrations of kneeing, pummelling and throwing of enemies, Golden Axe's charm however lies in the variety of ways, other than sword play, of dispatching the evil horde.

As the team leap over bridges and chasms the ordinary foot soldiers of Death=Adder throw themselves into the fray with amazing frequency. These kiddies are easily dispatched with blades but it's their friends, dragon riders and giants, who cause concern.

The lizard mounted cavalry are fun, their steeds come in three flavours: tail sweepers, flame breathers and fireball spitters. These monsters require riders to be dangerous and that's where the fun starts. If a rider is unseated in the heat of battle you can hop on and take control of the scaley tank - with the breath weapon included. It's a trick that carries the risk of getting toasted, but it can swing the battle decisively in your favour.

Gigantic Problems
Top of the Death=Adder nasty chart are the giants. Like the normal boys and girls you hack to bits (and indeed the three heroes) each one can take a set number of hits before dying. But, the larger they are the harder their weapons are. This means that one swipe from a giant's axe can result in central damage. What is more, like the double-checker buses their size reminds you of, they always seem to come in twos.

To balance out these rather chunky chaps Golden Axe sends midgets running at regular intervals. If you kick them in the head they proffer magic-potion bottles that become personalised smart bombs of apocalyptic proportions. Used at the right time even the heaviest foe can be sent into flickering oblivion without you even taking a scratch.

The most dangerous element of Golden Axe are the backgrounds. The heroes have to jump over the occasional gap in order to proceed. Yet the flawed, pseudo 3D makes jumping dangerous - as was the case in the arcade. There is a disconcertingly high chance of falling into oblivion, and losing one of your three lives, if you misjudge a leap and fall off or in-between the scenery.
This is the one graphical black mark against a game which otherwise has a strong visual appeal.

Is Death-Adder a Wimp?
The biggest chink in Golden Axe's armour is its staying power. The weakness lies in an unexpected area, normally it would fall down on the formula nature of plot and game design, but the mindlessly aggressive charm lasts surprisingly well. The problem is that the game is too easy. Anyone who crossed swords with its arcade parent will have no trouble in polishing off the Amiga version - provide they can find a cooperative partner.

Golden Axe is identical in spirit to Double Dragon, with two heroes forced to fight as a team in order to overcome masses of bad guys. The strong graphics of the arcade have travelled well, as has the games spirit. Only the ease with which the game can be beaten and the annoying landscapes, hold Golden Axe back from the mantle of classic conversion.

The Amiga conversion of Golden Axe has been six months in the making and, to Probe and Dementia's credit, it looks and plays extremely closely to its arcade parent and the Megadrive version. A one or two-player game, Golden Axe involves guiding three noble warriors across five horizontally-scrolling stages, whilst systematically slaughtering hordes of evil Orcs and warriors. The reason for your trail of destruction is an evil warlock called Death Adder, who, in the process of seizing control of the surrounding land, killed each hero's family.

You, of course, must avenge their deaths and free your country, but before the quest can begin you must choose which of the three heroes to take into battle. Each of the trio - an Elf, an axe-wielding Conan lookalike, and a female warrior - have different battle and magic attributes, and what one makes up for in strength, he or she will lose in magical powers - thus, a nice balance between the two should be selected.

Once this has been done, the game begins with our heroes walking or running from left to right. As you progress, the twisted servants of Death Adder start to attack in groups of two or three. Using a combination of the joystick's directional controls and the firebutton, each character can perform a number of easy-to-use aggressive moves, which include shoulder barging, throwing and, of course, using whatever weapon you are holding. Each enemy must be knocked down several times before they will give up. Too many hits from them will reduce your character's energy and will eventually cost one of your three lives.

Making your task slightly easier, though, are the aforementioned magic abilities, which, when activated, summon a hellish force which kills or weakens everyone in the vicinity and is an impressive visual showcase.

There's no doubting that Golden Axe is a good conversion: the graphics, animation and sound are almost identical to those of the coin-op, and it even sports all the arcade machine's intro screens. Despite all this, though, the gameplay is its main stumbling block, and whilst it is fun to play - especially in two-player mode - and the initial urge to explore is great, its lasting appeal is dubious. A good conversion, if a little short in the longevity stakes, but definitely one for die-hard fans of the coin-op.

Writing 'scenario blurbs' for the backs of computer game boxes must be money for old rope, don't you think? Especially when the game in question is a horizontally scrolling beat 'em up which is a conversion of a Japanese arcade game. Here's how they always go - somebody's been kidnapped and you have to go and rescue them. It's as simple as that - it's just the names that change. So let's check out the Golden Axe blurb and see if the writer has decided to opt for a new approach.

"Take the challenge! (Nice start.) The evil Death Adder has kidnapped the King (ah-ha) and his daughter (blimey, both of them?) and is lurking in his lair with the precious Golden Axe (oh dear). Only you can rescue the rulers of the land of Yuria (never even heard of it) and set their people free.
But can you battle through the six levels of this action-packed quest? Probably not if you're a bit crap.) Use magic to blast your enemy; slash and hack with your trusty weapon (oo-er) - or climb onto the back of a fire-breathing Bizarrian to deal death to the foe. Hectic combat action awaits you..."

And that appears to be that. Pretty self-explanatory really, wouldn't you agree? But not exactly what I would call a gripping read. Anyway, it's my turn now. Er, for starters, what on earth is a fire-breathing Bizarrian? And how the devil do you use magic? And what sort of people/creatures will be trying to stop you reaching the final screen? All these questions will be duly answered if you can be bothered to read on.

Dunc: First off, especially for arcade friends who've been waiting for the home-computer version of Golden Axe to hit the streets, I'll say that Probe Software (the coders) have done rather a good job in keeping things pretty close to the original - but I'll add that the original itself never struck me as being particularly awe-inspiring in the first place, so maybe it wasn't all that hard.

Still, fans of the arcade version can now 'peel off' as they already know all about the gameplay and just needed to know if the conversion was crap or not. (It's not). So, as they disappear into the middle distance it's time for anyone who's left.

Okay, at the start of the game you get to choose to be one of three characters (and at any point a friend - if you have any - can join in, playing one of the two characters you've left). Character one is Ax Battler, who, as you probably guessed from his name, is a fierce barbarian. His 'speciality' is Volcano Magic (I'll get to the magic in a minute). Character two is Gillius Thunderhead, who's a dwarf. Apparently (so it says in the blurb) Gillius will commit suicide after killing Death Adder (he's obviously listened to too many Judas Priest albums). Oh, and his 'speciality' is Lightning Magic. Last but by no means least we come to Tyris Flare, the sprite with bosoms - the chick. She's an Amazon warrior queen and her 'speciality 'is Fire Magic.

Right, the magic then. As well as hacking with their weapons, each character can bring death or injury to everything currently on the screen by summoning magical forces. However, to do this they need to collect magic pots, which are obtained by kicking roaming elves up the botty (the elf drops a pot and disappears off the screen). Pots, basically, are power-ups for each character's particular form of magic. Get one pot and use a spell, and the results aren't particularly devastating. Get six, however, and it's carnage city. The elves, though, are few and far between, so you can't go totally bonkers with the magic spells - it's best to save them up and use your weapon for most of the fighting.

The fighting then. Well, as is usual in these things, there are hordes of different enemy sprites, but they only tend to come at you two at a time. Some are weedier than Joey 'New Kids On The Block' McIntyre, while others are about eight zillion times more vicious than Nigel Benn would be if you knocked his pint over and called him a poof.
In a nutshell the difficulty level's pitched quite nicely - progress isn't impossible, but it's not easy either.

In most beat 'em ups weapons dropped by the enemy are pickupable. In Golden Axe they can be sat upon and ridden - because for weapons, read Bizarrian.
Bizarrians are beasts of burdens, and there are several different breeds. Topple a Bizarrian rider from his saddle and you can mount the animal yourself and take control. You might be riding a real pedigree which can spurt fireballs from its mouth. Or you might be riding a moth-eaten mongrel that's only got a crappy club on the end of its tail. But either way, it's good news, as while 'on board' a Bizarrian you don't get hurt.

The Golden Axe action scrolls, in stages, from the right to the left - kill the residents of one screen and an arrow appears telling you that you can move on to the next. And that, basically is that.
Lots of different (and nicely drawn) backdrops are spread over the six levels, the animation of the sprites is quite acceptable if not mindblowing, and everything is easy to see and there's no confusion. So, the verdict.
Well, fans of the genre aren't going to be disappointed, lots to kill and, er, lots to skill. And spells too. But, as I said, I never reckoned the coin-op was fantastic in the first place - just sort of slightly better than average. Therefore I'll give the game, er, six. (Only joking).

The fun thing about coin-ops is that their scenarios are so vague, so forget all mention about Golden Axes and such like. According to the intro sequence, his majesty and the princess have been taken by the 'Death Adder', so you must revenge them as well as your relatives. The game begins in a temple where you must choose between barbarian Ax Battler, amazon woman Tyris Flare and dwarf Gilius Thunderhead. Each of these have lost their family members to the dreaded Death Adder and are dedicated to his overthrow.

From the temple their quest will take them across many bizarre lands, each teeming with Death Adder's minions, skeletons, amazon women, giant sumos armed with hammers, massive knights in armour and numerous other fiends will oppose you. Some ride dangerous beasts, such as fire-breathing dragons and 'chicken-leg' creatures with vicious swinging tails. If you can knock the riders off, you can mount the creatures yourself.

Each character has three lives, with each life having three energy units. Every so often thieves come on screen - hit these to grab their potions. Green thieves' potions restore energy, blue thieves' potions provide magical energy. Magic is a sort of smart bomb which can be activated at any time, the more potions the more powerful the effect - the graphics are also different. Tyris's fire magic transforms into a hugh flame-breathing dragon's head at full power! Gilius has lightning magic, while Ax uses explosives.