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Tired and battle-weary from recent fighting on the front line, Private Waring staggers back to barracks looking forward to a well-deserved rest. However, General Rod 'Montgomery' Lawton cancels all leave, and orders his battalion to enroll for "Action Service". Action Service takes place in a top-secret training camp rather than out on the field of battle. It's the prelude to a special mission, and only the creme de la creme will make it.

You'll need to train hard in the three tests: the physical, where you must negotiate different obstacles, clambering over walls, crawling through ditches etc; the risk section, which tests your ability handling incendiary devices: and close combat - beating up your rivals, then blasting them away with rubber bullets. A fourth section combines the three previous tests to make the most gruelling route of all.

On loading, the game looks quite promising. The main screen presents you with some well-drawn soldiers of Infogrames' usual high graphical standard. The game options are selected via a pointer that moves (slightly too quickly) over a silver control panel at the foot of the screen. An array of buttons on the panel access the various functions. These are unmarked and so constant reference to the manual is necessary.

Once you have worked out how to actually start the game, the main screen splits in half to reveal a minuscule playing area in the middle. The drill sergeant yells orders at you from the top of the screen, and awards or subtracts points depending on your success at negotiating the course. The panel, which displays your score and time, remains at the bottom. The soldier has a variety of moves, allowing quite complex actions. He runs along from left to right, the screen burst-scrolling as he reaches the edge. Sound is minimal. The tape stops to play a reasonable tune whilst loading, but the game itself is positively mute apart from one or two spot effects.

The manual is poor. For a start, it's written for the 16-bit machines, so it doesn't have the right loading instructions and lists the wrong playing keys. It even describes a video replay mode that isn't available on the CPC version! The playing instructions are slightly confused, and need to be re-read several times before they make any kind of sense.

Gameplay is disorientating, with each joystick action leading to another level of control. For instance, to shoot at something approaching from behind you press fire, then left, then fire, then down...

The gameplay is not fluent, either. Getting back to the normal standing position from any given action involves a variety of different joystick sequences. In the heat of battle you just get completely muddled and end up crawling bewilderedly along the floor instead of lobbing those grenades at the enemy.

The only skill involved in Action Service is knowing where the traps are, and not fumbling the fiddly joystick control. This makes it a memory game of the most tedious kind. It's pitifully easy to cheat too - you can easily complete the first two sections simply by crawling all the way! The worst of it is, you get more points doing that than you'd ever be likely to get by doing it properly.

Infogrames has been responsible for some excellent games in the past. Action Service, alas, is not destined to join them....

Over-ambitious is the only way to describe Action Service. The ideas are excellent, but the implementation is infuriating. Icon-driven games just don't work on the CPC.

Complete physical and risk routes.

Graphics 82%
P. Up to Infogrames' usual high standards.

Sonics 30%
P. The loading tune is OK.
N. Barely a squeak in the game.

Grab Factor 70%
P. It looks promising...
N. ...but it isn't.

Staying Power 27%
Unbearably annoying.

Overall 35%
P. Interesting idea, but that's about it.