Shootout at the Urban Corral

It is not comforting to think that the War on Drugs will still be with us 60 years from now. And it is even less assuring to think the battle will be waged with evermore technologically advanced killing machines.

But those are the unstated messages of Accolade’s “Hoverforce,” an action game in which you fight an army of Alterants (mutant drug lords) from the cockpit of your state-of-the-art HoverKill 1000 urban assault hovercraft.

That’s it: the thinnest veneer of a story imposed, like an afterthought, on some terrific sound, class graphics and stunning action.

This is a very well done aim-and-shoot game that takes place just above the crime infested (though oddly uncrowded) streets of MetaCity in the year 2050. You are a member of the elite Red Wasp Unit charged with ridding the city of the Alterant hoodlums selling the mind-crippling drug Aftershock.

Your HoverKill 1000 careens through the urban canyons at about Mach 17 1/2 as you lay down the kind of lethal fire that the LAPD only dreams about.

The contest becomes more difficult as you progress through the game levels, but the changes are really superficial. “Hoverforce” is about 97% surface and, although plenty of fun for a while, ultimately unsatisfying because the narrative just doesn’t live up to the action and the pictures. The manual, which provides the great bulk of what story is there, leaves out as much as it tells you.

You’re left pretty much flying blind through a cybernetic free-fire zone.

Just say no.

HOVERFORCE Rating: **

IBM & compatibles, Tandy, Amiga; 640K, requires 570K free RAM. List: $49.95.

Computer games are rated on a five-star system, from one star for poor to five for excellent.