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Saving the Earth from ecological disaster is no mean feat - especially when the likes of the evil Zarm and his very right-off Eco-Villains are bent on building a doomsday machine (made out of squeezy bottles, double-sided sticky-tape and old aerosol cans and based on one prepared earlier on Blue Peter) which will mean certain environmental disaster for the world.

Unable to face the thought of dozens of Greenpeace members mooching around and saying "We told you so!", Captain Planet slips on his best green hat and prepares to kick smog-ridden ass. His fellow Planeteers are imprisoned on Hope Island so to save the world, free them and combine your powers to negotiate the Toxic Zones and shut down the pollution machines against a tough time limit.

Based on the popular cartoon series starring the ultra right-on, environmentally-friendly superhero.

Guide your Planeteer through the maze of traps in the various Toxic Zones, avoiding damage and destroying the doomsday machines.

The trusty Planeteers are all trapped in four Toxic Zones, under the beady eyes of Zarm's henchmen. Using the D-pad, highlight the crystals which serve as their prisons to find out where they're being kept and who is their captor. The Planeteers are:

1. Kwame: African born Kwame's fetish is saving open spaces and endangered species (Jeremy Beadle?). With his power of Earth, Kwame hurls one ball of soil (button A) or three balls at once (button B).

2. Linka: With an IQ larger than Bernard Manning's waist-line, Linka, a music and computer nut, hails from Russia. Wind is her bad (so don't stand too close to her). She fires one wind ball (button A) or three together (button B).

3. Wheeler: This is a tough street kid from Brooklyn who is considered a bit of a fire brand due to his quick temper. He's a whizz with fire and throws one fire ball with button A or three with button B.

4. Gi This Asian lass is into high tech, high style and rock 'n roll. She's more at home in the water and even talks to fish (although they don't answer back). Her water balls are threefold when using the super button.

5. Ma-Ti The baby of the group, Ma-Ti grew up in the care of a Kayapo Indian Shaman. He possesses the secret of the Rain Forests and special healing skills. His power, Heart, lets him communicate with the others across vast distances.

6. Gaia She's the Planeteers' source of wisdom, info and advice. As the spirit of Earth, her health depends on the health of the planet.

Much as they get slagged off, without the obligatory baddies there would be no game. So here they are, in all their technicolour glory:

1. Dr. Blight This nutty scientist gets her kicks from creating biological freaks that waste the environment. MAL, her super-computer, assists with obvious glee.

2. Duke Nukem A victim of his own catastrophic experiment, this is your very own 'glow-in-the-dark' mutant who's mad on radio-activity and turns up at every nuclear meltdown - to make things worse. His assistant is the dopey Leadsuit.

3. Hoggish Greedly This human's pig is eating the world out of house and home followed by his gutsy sidekick, Rigger.

4. Verminous Skumm A thoroughly unpleasant rat-like bully who thrives on filth and disease - particularly spreading them - together with his flunky, Squeak.

5. Zarm This malicious Earth spirit is the exact opposite of Gaia who plans to sink the world in pongy pollution.

You start your quest with four globes of energy which can be replenished along the way. When your last globe disappears, you're warped back to the Eco-alert screen and have to start again or choose another Zone. You also start with four power units which can be boosted with power pellets that leak from fallen enemies.

Beware, because when your power runs out your Super Blaster is uselss and you can only fire single shots every three seconds.

Your quest leads you through five treacherous toxic zones including Dr. Blight's Evil Computer where you must destroy five computer terminals while jumping between platforms and avoiding deadly laser beams.

Then there's Duke Nukem's Uranium Mine which splurges out radioactive substances which you must stop by smashing the mines and atomic cloning devices. In Hoggist Greedly's Undersea Oil Rig you must quell Greedly's appetite before he drinks the world's entire oil supply. Then it's onto Verminous Skumm's Sewer Hideout to shut down eight valves controlling the flow of deadly sewage before the final showdown on Zarm's Doomsday Barge.

Having played very mediocre versions of this game on other formats, I wasn't expecting miracles from this version - and, wow, was I right.

There isn't even a whisper of a miraclue in this game or, for that matter, much gameplay. On switching on, I was almost impressed by the presentation and going into the game I noted the graphics were not much worse than other shoot-'em-up puzzle games such as Toxic Crusader which, although cacky-looking, are mucho fun on the gameplay front which is what I expected from Captain Planet. How wrong I was.

The controls were horrendous with Planeteers who, in the immortal words of Simon and Garfunkel, kept slip-sliding away. All the time. Off everything!

With decent controls, this could have been a half-decent game but, as it stands, it's a waste of space and a waste of money. Steer clear.

Captain Planet wasn't what you could call an inspiring cartoon, but even then it was still better than this pant factory. The basic idea of a number of different puzzle levels, each with their own theme and tests on your gameplaying skills may sound interesting, but the execution is so abominably poor, it ruins what could have been an entertaining proposition.

The controls are very sloppy, the collision detection is terrible, your Planeteer constantly drops through platforms s/he should have landed on, and the puzzles themselves are laughably easy.

There are three very difficult things about Captain Planet however. One is getting your character to do what you want, the second is keeping your temper for long enough to complete more than one level, and the third is actually believing that anyone has the guts to ask money for this.

Presentation 53%
P. The zones are all vastly different and the presentation screens are very bright and cheerful.
N. No two-player option or continues - bah!

Graphics 47%
P. The sprites are large...
N. But are badly defined and the backgrounds are reminiscent of some Master System's games.

Sound 48%
P. Some fitting tunes.
N. The sound effects are tinny and laughable in their ineptitude.

Playability 28%
N. Frustrating beyond belief as you struggle to make your Planeteer obey the simplest instructions - in vain!

Lastability 22%
N. After just a few minutes wrestling with the obstinate controls you get an urge to hurl your Megadrive through the nearest window never mind pick up the joypad for another bash.

Overall 31%
A very average licence converted into an absolute shambles of a travesty on the Megadrive. Avoid at all costs.