And then there's this. Two sides of state of the ark multi-game combat software. Quite which prehistoric peat bog these were dug up from is anyone's guess. Suffice to say that since two of these programs were originally reviewed in AA issues 1 and 2, and the third not long after that, the graphics and sonics capabilities of the CPC are hardly pushed to their limits here.

"Yeah, but what are the flippin' games like then matey!" you cry. Patience, people, patience...

Beach Head allegedly has six stages, but since the first of these merely consists of you moving the cursor to one of two points on the screen, let's ignore that one and call it five.

'The Hidden Passage' is an optional stage in which you have to try and steer each of your ten ships through a sea of mines and torpedoes. The advantage of going for this is that it'll mean surprising the enemy from behind, thereby facing less opposition in the next two stages. The disadvantage is that it's often a case of cross your fingers and hope, but it's probably the best of all the stages.

Stages Two and Three see you sitting behind the main guns. You have to fun down a load of planes, then blow up some ships, which is quite tricky. Then for the final two stages you drive a tank. You win by blowing up the fort at the end. There's plenty of variety, but interest wanes very quickly. When this first came out, six years ago, we thought it was the bee's knees. Looking at it now, it isn't even the bee's bottom!

Whilst its predecessor at least has the distinction of once being highly regarded, Beach Head II was never seen as anything but cat's droppings. Hold down the fire button at certain stages of the game to gain an unfeasibly large number of points for no good reason (a bug). Waggle the joystick left or right to control your little men, gun turret or helicopter, and prepare yourself for the exhilarating final section where you attack the evil Dictator with a sharpened stick (seriously!).

Or better still, give a five year old relative six random pages from the CPC manual and leave them alone for ten minutes. Then play whatever it is they've written. It'll be better than this.

The best game on the tape. The opening getting out of the hangar sequence remains one of the most frustrating and enjoyable memories of mid '80's CPCing. You've got "Asteroids Goes 3D" style controls and a very small hangar door to try and get your planes through. It's tricky with knobs on.

Get past that and you've got to attack the missile site, this time with simple left, right, climb and dive controls. There's a set time limit in which to blow up the silos, then it's back to the hangar and do it all again. Twice.

In the final sequence, you change from a plane into a commando and then fight a few robots. Graphics are unsurprisingly blocky and sonics lack sophistication, but if there's any reason at all to buy Multimixx 2, this is it.

Overall 43%
More badly dated than a calendar without any Thursdays.