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Abe is something of a celebrity in the PlayStation world, having appeared in the Oddworld titles Abe's Oddysee and Abe's Exoddus. Abe's Mission: Escape is an interpretation of these games for the Spectrum and has been put together by a rather large number of people in Eastern Europe. Written originally by Brothers in Russia, it was then translated into Czech and English by Wixet and Zoom in collaboration with Sweet Factory of CI5. Finally, Zilog provided a handy bug fix when the original release didn't work properly. Quite a piece of joint work, then.

In Abe's Mission: Escape, our hero has to flee his place of employment - the RaptureFarms meat-processing plant - when he finds out that the workforce of this troubled company are to become the new ingredients for the New'n'tasty line of Scrab Cakes and Paramite Pies. Yum. A true hero, Abe wouldn't think of leaving his colleagues behind to become meat products, so he plans a way of freeing them all too.

There are lots of impressive things about this game: brilliant graphics; great music; superb animation - Abe can walk, run, jump, tiptoe and even roll his way around the processing plant. Overall it plays like a game you'd have paid a tenner for back in the 80s - and you'd have had your money's worth.

One tiny thing to be aware of is that the game requires your 128 to be put into 'USR 0' mode before it's loaded. It's easy - just type 'USR 0' in 128 BASIC and hit ENTER. When the Spectrum resets to the 48K screen, load the game in the usual way.

A slick, professional platform adventure. Superbly implemented. Fans should check it out.