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Remember Soldier One, the hardest commando in the world? Last month he single-handedly raided the evil General's island, blowing up a fleet of ships, half an army, and an entire fortress in the process. This really annoyed the General so he vowed revenge. He drew up a plan to finish our hero for once and for all - late one night, when Soldier One was having a kip, two of the evil General's henchmen sneaked into his room and stuffed a load of chloroform up his nose. Poor old One was so taken by surprise that he breathed it all in and slipped into a coma before he could even pull back his sheets. The henchmen wheeled him away and dumped him in the General's secret bunker...

Many hours later, Soldier One woke up, his head still muzzy from the chloroform. Sitting up, he fumbled in his pocket and discovered a crumpled note which said 'find the security code to the door and escape, but beware of the beasts'. Stuffing the note back in his pocket, One began his quest to find the security code.

Captured is a flick-screen arcade adventure in which you play the role of Soldier One. The bunker he's been thrown into is a strange place, full of platforms and horrible meanies which float about the place on preset courses. One can jump from platform to platform by pressing the fire button, and run left and right, logical movements of the joystick determining his direction.

When leaping about the place, he may sometimes make a misjudgement and fall to the floor, but luckily he's so hard that he survives - no matter how far he falls. What he isn't protected against is the meanies - if he touches one of these, he loses one of his five lives. His only defence against these dangerous marauding horrors is a laser weapon whch destroys everything on screen. The drawback with this is that there are only three charges in the weapon. Don't fret too much though, extra charges and extra lives can be found littered around the complex.

To escape from the bunker, Soldier One has to find and pick up the nine different parts of the security code (each code is picked up automatically if touched). Having done this, all that remains is for him to find the exit and make good his escape - all in a day's work for the world's hardest commando!

Platform games are nothing new under the sun, but usually they have something else going for them whether it be music, graphics or just damn good playability.

Captured has none of these qualities, it is a plain and simple jumping around game. And a fairly tricky one at that.

Once you've mastered the layout of each room, it becomes easy and downright dull. The graphics are nothing special, mostly consisting of uninspiring colours such as grey, brown and green which do little to enthuse.

When it comes down to it, Captured is nothing more than an unoriginal platform game, which will leave a lot of people unhappy.

Soldier One is back in yet another awful game. Captured is terrible and would cost you £9.95 for the pleasure of finding that out.

It isn't exactly a rip-off of one particular product (unlike Soldier One) but it isn't original either. Just a run of the mill platform game-cum-arcade adventure, the sort that Mastertronic do in an infinitely superior way for a fifth of the price.

Soldier One is just so unresponsive to control, and even the most apparently easy-looking tasks become a real bind. The final kick in the head is the music; it's awful and just doesn't stop - unless you turn the volume right down!

This is a really tacky platform game cum arcade adventure. Controlling Soldier One is a real pain as he slides about the place like he's treading on ice, and it's really annoying to see him career into a nasty, just because he didn't respond quickly enough to your joystick movement.

The game itself is very dull, there are no original features or gimmicks to keep you glued to your Commodore. The graphics are pretty bland and the sound falls into the same category - don't waste your money on it.

Presentation 41%
A reasonable title screen, but no extra frills or features.

Graphics 38%
Poor sprites and bland backdrops.

Sound 29%
Annoying tune plays throughout the game.

Hookability 37%
The main character is tricky to control and the game gets frustrating.

Lastability 32%
Little to keep you coming back to your C64.

Value For Money 29%
A budget price tag would be more fitting for a game of this quality.

Overall 34%
A very poor platform game cum arcade adventure.