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This former arcade rarity could have you fooled. These ducks may be cute but dafty they most definitely are not. The ducks in question here are imaginatively named Bin and Pin, a pair who seemingly owe more in terms of genetic make up to Woody Woodpecker than to dear old uncle Donald, each sporting a quiff as fine as that of any 50's Teddyboy.

Making up the two halves of this most elite flying squad, these are ducks with a mission, to find the kidnapped Lucy and to lick the enemy all in the course of a half dozen levels of action. Enemy, what enemy I here you ask. Enough to make anyone quack, Bin and Pin find themselves faced with such awe inspiring foe as bouncing sausage dogs, gangs of field mice, pogoing alligators, moles in hard hats, jet propelled cows making the most of all that methane, and pigs on trolleys. Yes, that's right, pigs on trolleys and they're heading straight for you! It's enough to bring a duck down but, unless you're unlucky, certainly not out because this feathered friend packs a decidedly unfriendly punch and as soon as the enemy gets within striking distance it's THWACK right on the jaw before they can lay a paw on the energy bars without which the Dynamite Dux are as dead as dodos. It's a shame that the game only has one combat move but the assortment of weapons available to collect goes a long way towards making up for this. Forget the shotgun, these guys have a flame thrower tucked under their wings!

In so far as coin-op accuracy goes, Dux is spot on. The graphics are nothing short of identical, with brightly coloured sprites and backdrops giving the game a real coin-op feel. Even the way different weapons behave is done as cutely as possible. Now, how on earth can you make a lethal flamethrower seem cute you might ask? With great difficulty, but Activision have still managed to do it, and do it well.

The sound is perfect too. Arcade voices complement the arcade soundtrack and the spot FX are exactly duplicates. So what went wrong? The gameplay.
Dynamite Dux is just a very badly designed game. You move far too slowly for an action game, and the fact that you can only make one fighting move is extraordinarily limiting. Also, it's impossible to accurately pinpoint where the aliens actually are, due to the lack of any shadow. Even the end of level guardians aren't much good, simply because you are too slow to avoid them, and most of them expand to fill the entire screen. Unfairly difficult.
There you have it. It's a game which sports great graphics and sound and it's an accurate conversion. It's simply that the original arcade game wasn't too hot to start with.

Tony Dillon