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When Double Dragon first appeared I was very, very generous and awarded it 51%. Despite the fact that this led to me being stoned in public (and not for the first time,) - by outraged fans of this coin-op conversion, I insist that time has certainly not improved this second-rate bash-'em-up, and you would be ill-advised to spend your money on it when you could get a large bag of jelly babies and the latest issue of The Golden Age of Ballooning for the same money.

The basic idea is fine; one (or two, hence the title) fearless ninja warriors battle their way through hordes of kung-fu thugs in order to rescue some bimbo who has thoughtlessly allowed herself to be kidnapped by the Big Boss (these women honestly, you can't rely on them, etc etc.)

As you hunt through the horizontally scrolling scenes of urban decay you can find boxes, rocks, oil-drums, knives, baseball bats and whips with which to fight off the knifemen, boxers, martial artists and whip-wielding bimbos you come up against. Without a weapon you have to rely on the usual selection of punches, kicks, elbow-blows and leaps to fight them off.

Trouble is, the graphics are complete ponk (people have heads shaped like potatoes, and the knives look like cucumbers), the animation and scrolling are jerky yawn-makingly slow, the use of colour is so ill-planned that there's constant colour-clash, and the fighting moves are unimaginative.

There are a couple of decent points - some of the background details are fairly good, and some of the baddies are nice. But on the whole, there are many better bash-'em-ups - for instance, Target Renegade walks over Double Dragon (then jumps up and down on its head).

Label: Mastertronic Plus Memory: 48K/128K Price: £2.99 Program By: Melbourne House Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

I don't like it and I don't care, I don't like it and I don't care, I don't like it and I don't care - if you like it, you're a banana.