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For those totally un-"right on" drongos who haven't been following the cartoon capers of David Ike and His Fabulously Turquoise Flying Suits... sorry, I mean Captain Planet and the Planeteers, it features a team of environmentally sound, super-hard superheroes.

Set in a future age, the Earth's in serious danger of being destroyed by the activities of Hoggish Greedly, mad scientist Dr. Blight and aptly-named Verminous Skumm (now there's a bunch of dodgy-sounding dudes!). These wicked types are foolishly ignoring the cries of a dying planet in their relentless pursuit of wealth.

As we all know, the Cap'n and his band of environmental warriors are constantly fighting man's destruction of the natural world. All those money-grabbing industrialists have got a new force to consider as this right-on bunch of heroes smash their schemes. As if global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer, pollution and so forth aren't enough...!

In this shoot-'em-up, you control the hunky Captain Planet himself (unlike other versions of the game, in which you control all the characters in a platform romp). He controls all the forces of nature in his battle: Earth, Fire, Air, Water and Heart. Er, well actually he shoots twinkly stuff at the baddies. He brings relief to the rain forests, aid to the animals, sanctuary to the seas and peace to the planet (hoorah!).

He begins the game flying through space (as these superheroes invariably end up doing). As he tears forward to infinity, he has to dodge oncoming stars (which splat him into oblivion on impact - no surprise there) and grab clocks which give him extra time to rescue the world. This is just an introduction to the real assault on the villains. Once splattered on an approaching star, he takes his time bonus and returns to Earth.

First off, there's evil profiteer Sly Sludge to deal with. Known as 'the prince of pollution', he plans to destroy the protective atmosphere surrounding the Earth with his CFC-loaded missiles and ozone-unfriendly balloons. Why? So he can turn the whole planet into a holiday resort ('cause it'll be so hot!) Cor blimey, the lengths some people go!

Capn Planet's got to fly along collecting the balloons, being careful not to shoot them (else the harmful gas will escape) and dodging rockets and other nasties that scream past. With dramatic explosions on-screen (producing great showers of love hearts all over the place), stars parallax-scrolling by and all the other action, it's a sense of true psychedelic splendour (wow maaan!), enough to touch even the most environmentally unsound among us.

After a few hundred games (Yep, it's not easy!), you'll manage to defeat Sludge himself and deactivate the gigantic CFC warhead, but it's a painfully frustrating process getting this far. The amount of baddies is quite overwhelming - you've never seen so many little sprites out for your blood - and they move fast, too. Exhausting stuff... but it'll keep you trying until the wicked Sly Sludge has been defeated and the atmosphere saved.

Once Cap's sorted this little problem out, he finds himself floating around in space again. Then there's other battles of conscience to fight. Looten Plunder (great name!) is planning to capture dolphins. Why? To use them in his despicable experimentation, that's why. He's going to poison them with vast amounts of oil waste!

The task's much the same sort of thing as dealing with Mr Sludge but underwater. The barrage of enemy assault is just as fierce, but this time it's sea urchins and such like all over the screen, and the background's made up of little upward-scrolling bubbles (Cute, eh?).

The Captain's next goodly mission is to put a spanner in the works of dastardly Dr. Blight. He's planning to burn down a massive area of rain forest. Why? To go and build a dirty great Plutonium mine there. And you know what they make with Plutonium. Yes, those nasty nuclear bomb things.

To carry out this operation, Dr. Blight's using aeroplanes to drop great fire bombs on the forest in question. If the destruction of trees isn't enough, think of all the animals in the area getting burned to death! You've really got your work cut out in this game, haven't you?!

I'm not sure Captain Planet is going to convert us all into green-minded warriors of mother nature, but it's a damn good game. Uncompromisingly pretty and dangerously fast, it'll have you at it for ages. It's similar to some of Mindscape's previous offerings (is this an "echo-logical" trend?) but I doubt fans of fast and furious action will be disappointed.

Wow, man! My Speccy's exploded and the colours have gone mad! No, hold on. Am I playing the Amiga version? Nope, it's definitely the Spectrum and it's terrific! Anyone who has played games like Extreme and Dan Dare 3 will know what to expect from Captain Planet as it's been programmed by the same team. The trouble with Extreme was that the graphics were amazing but the game was only a couple of levels long! Every Captain Planet sprite and background is packed to bursting point with colours, and there's no clash to make things look untidy.

Unfortunately, the amount of things going on make it very difficult to keep up with the action, especially when there are rockets firing all over the shop. It's a bit like Bonfire Night around Ludlow!

This is one game that even the slickest of gamesplayers won't complete in a hurry. Having a storyline covering green issues is a great idea and coupled with the slick presentation and graphics, it's a thoroughly enjoyable blast.

Overall 88%
A rampant and addictive blast, and right-on too.

1. If you've mistakenly bought other Speccy 'mags', don't trash 'em. Cut them into little squares, put them on a nail in the wall of "the smallest room" and use them when nature calls!
2. Paint everything in your bedroom green - even yourself. You won't be able to find a ****ing thing, but you'll feel very green.
3. If you use tea bags, cut the top off old ones and empty out the soggy tea leaves. Then fill them with fallen flower petals, staple the top together and put them in your underwear drawer to keep everything smelling of roses - literally!
4. Don't use mild green Fairy Liquid or Palmolive to blow soap bubbles, use plain water instead. You won't get many bubbles but you'll have a damn good blow (missus)!
5. But the Captain Planet videos and comics to swot up on the latest eco news. They're a jolly wheeze and, when you're bored of them, you can make a small portable WC with them.
6. Don't tie parcels with lots of string. Just use one short piece of elastic: It'll help develop your muscles and the parcel can be opened with remarkable speed and ease.
7. Instead of pampering to the whims of fashion, learn a little origami and use an old newspaper to make a distinctive titfer (hat)!
8. Preserve the peat bogs in East Anglia. Rather than Growbags and such like, put horse manure in plastic bags and spread dung over your flowerbeds. Then hope your neighbours don't complain about the smell of sh- [Snip! - Ed]
9. Instead of putting your rubbish out for the binmen to collect or dropping it in the local tip, gather it into a large skip, take a trip to the Beeb studio and dump it over the Blue Peter team. This won't make any difference to the environment but it'll give a lot of people a good laugh.
10. If you see any litter in the street, pick it up. You never know, that small piece of paper might be a fiver!