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As a circus acrobat, Aero is accustomed to having his world turned upside-down. This is lucky because an evil character named Edgar Ektor plans to destroy Aero's successful career by setting up a series of deadly devices to fell his foe! However, confronted with every variation of circus apparatus known to the big top, Aero presumes the whole charade is intended for his delight and promptly sets out to enjoy himself, bearing in mind to thank whoever is responsible.

He's got it all wrong of course and Evil Edgar Ektor will stop at nothing to encourage Aero's doom. With such conflicting points of view, anything can happen! As the batty brave one prepares for the ride of his long-eared life Sunsoft invite one person to ride the swinging trapeze and get shot from the mouth of a cannon with him. Stand by for 'The greatest show on the Megadrive' (allededly)! Roll up, roll up!

For the most part Aero enjoys crushing his enemies by spiralling onto them with his Drill Attack. He's safer by far, however, when blinding them from a distance with stars. His supply is limited though, so keep an eye out for replenishments.

Aero is a new character devised by Sunsoft, whose exploits are based on the circus.

Take control of an acrobat named Aero enabling him to perform circus tricks with the aim of confounding the plans of the Evil Edgar Ektor.

Our heroic daredevil makes good use of the circus apparatus available to him - trampolines to bounce, the swinging trapeze to get from one ledge to another and see-saws to propel him skywards. Most daring by far is Aero's human (or bat) cannon-ball trick. Just about the safest form of transportation available to Aero are the balloons he occasionally encounters, but these, he believes, are for sissies.

Though Aero makes his debut trapped inside a platform game, he has some refreshing ways of making the most of this predicament. Controlling him is occasionally too exacting for comfort but Aero's action-oriented character makes for a surprisingly cool game.

In most platform titles, players are given some opportunity to familiarise themselves with the hero, but not in this one! Aero's environment immediately poses problems and while danger isn't exactly pressing, it's there waiting for the first clumsy mistake.

As the game progresses, reactions are tested to the limit. The one factor that spoils the show is the continue restart-point: After carefully attaining a latter stage of any given world and losing all Aero's lives the player is returned to the very first stage of that world - how annoying!

In spite of this, and there being some extremely hard acts to follow on the Megadrive, Aero's spectacular performance ought to catapult him into the top ten at least.

I've got to disagree with m'learned friend here. Everyone who saw Aero The Acrobat at the Chicago CES reckoned it was the hit of the show, but that must have been the Super Nintendo version because the cartridge I plugged into the Megadrive was a run-of-the-mill platform game withe very mediocre graphics and gameplay. It's reasonable, but it hardly grabs you by the gonads and pulls.

There are some nice touches to it, but I found myself getting frustrated with niggly things like indestructible clowns and that tended to overpower my enjoyment of the game. Inf act, the whole thing reminded me of Bubsy The Bobcat - a sort of semi-good game, with a few faults too many keeping it out of the Megadrive Games Big League.

Presentation 77%
P. Aero's snappy persona fills every available gap.
N. There are no gameplay options other than control customisation.

Graphics 83%
P. Lots of rich colours, great animation and lots of variation.
N. Some of the enemy sprites are disappointing and small.

Sound 81%
P. A pleasing selection of decent spot effects, more than the Super NES in fact.

Playability 81%
P. There are plenty of new ideas and a fair amount of challenge too.
N. Some may find the exacting nature of the gameplay a bit of a strain.

Lastability 79%
P. Loads to explore and the game is guaranteed to give a long-term challenge.
N. A lack of real freedom means you're unlikely to go back for more.

Overall 80%
A great new platform hero for the Megadrive who guarantees a few surprises but may not be everybody's cup of tea.