Hero of the world

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

Apocalypse

Activision

PlayStation

Bruce Willis doesn't need a movie any more to play at saving the world.

In Apocalypse -- which gives him a 1998 global destruction double with his last flick Armageddon -- Willis is the wisecracking, machine-gunning hero of this frantically thrilling and futuristic shoot 'em up.

He's Trey Kincaid, a brilliant scientist in an age where a figure called the Reverend has become an American Rasputin who has declared science an offence against God. He is about to conjure up the Apocalypse, complete with four horsemen.

Kincaid has to burst out of prison, take on the bad Reverend's hoardes and generally save the world.

That involves much running, shooting a variety of weapons, jumping across gantries, rooftops and fiery pits, wading through sewers and even more shooting.

What good fun it is, too, one where the gung-ho thrill is spraying everything in sight with machine- gun/flamethrower/rocket fire at a sprint.

It's made all the more striking by its gloomy epic settings and visuals which sweep the point of view from behind Kincaid's shoulder to way above.

It runs at a fast and furious pace, it's neatly responsive and even if Bruce's action-man one-liners are hardly original and story so ropey you're glad it wasn't a movie first, the rest of this feels fresh.

Yes, as a game, Apocalypse is a revelation.

Tenchu Stealth Assassins

Activision

PlayStation

While it's an intriguing idea, a tactical combat game where you are a Ninja commando relying upon stealth and surprise rather than all-out slashpower, this title falls down in the delivery.

Your task is to play one of two assassins targeting various despots in old Japan with the aid of a large blade, grappling hook and ability to crawl along parapets, rooftops and the like.

Unfortunately it is not up to much graphically. It's clunky on the control front and the combat sequences are frustratingly unresponsive.

It gives good blood renderings but it's hard to find a pulse to the rest of this.

O.D.T.

Psygnosis

PlayStation

No, not a game based on the Otago Daily Times but a second-division action-adventure role-player.

You can choose one of four members of a crew whose craft has crash-landed in the forbidden zone.

They must find the bits to repair it throughout a series of up-and-down mazes, defeat the nasties that stand in their way, and escape ... Or Die Trying.

The trouble is, in an already crowded genre this one has neither the gameplay, the graphics, nor the character to make it worth considering above any of the others.

Overly Dreary Title, more like.

-- 7DAYS, 03/12/98