Dark Rift

Another Nintendo 64 game that's due to pop its cheery head over the PC gaming fence and cry, 'How's it going? Hawight?' to Windows 95 desktops everywhere. But only those with 3D accelerator cards. A graphically majestic exercise in graceful thuggery, it features combatants with scary names, bloody huge weapons and clanking robotic limbs. Very much in the Battle Arena Toshinden mould, in that aside from the aforementioned weapons, it also features full 3D movement (most fighting games - including Tekken- lock you into a two-dimensional plane), which means that if you see fit, you can nip around your opponent and stab him right in the side. The graphics are reassuringly smooth, the animation not-half-bad, and as for the amount of colour on view, the word 'mmmmmm' scarcely does it justice. Any special moves in it? Duhhh, yes, there are, Sherlock - and very painful they look too. Our favourite is the one where a 'Predator' lookalike impales his victim on a great big curvy sword, then lifts it over his (spectacularly ugly) head, before slamming the unfortunate wretch down to the floor with a scornful air of disdain. What a rotten bastard, eh? You never see Sir Cliff Richard doing things like that. To little children. On national television. More's the pity.

The game is currently being developed by Vic Tokai, who are yet to release their first PC corker, but this might change all that. From what we've seen and played so far, Dark Rift is rather smart (but could do with a wee bit of tweaking if it wants to really tickle our collective fancies). If they bung Sir Cliff in as a hidden character, we'll give it 98% (100% if he gets to beat up children too).