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Prison, eh? Free clothes, free food and free lodgings yet they call it punishment! We law-abiding citizens have to work our butts off to make a crust. What a swizz!

Jack Deebs is one such free-loading burden on the honest proletariat, a habitual petty criminal whose idea of moral standing is confined to the South Bank at West Ham. The only problem with this 'no hassles (man)' prison lifestyle is that it can become a trifle boring! Jack has a talent for drawing cartoon strips, so in order to wile away the long hours spent in jug he creates an alternative cartoon reality called Cool World (sounds like my kind o' place), inhabited by creatures called Doodles. The Doodles come in many shapes and sizes, and in order to satisfy his hormonal cravings he creates Holli Would, a Doodle who bears a striking resemblance to Kim Basinger (schwing!). Having found solace in his creation, the story would've ended here (and made a very dull movie) had something curious not happened - Cool World came to life!

A number of vortexes opened up in the space-time continuum, acting like doors between this dimension and Cool World so now the pesky doodles are running amok! The problem's all to do with the theory of the cosmic balance being imperative to the stability of the universe. The doodles are entenng our world through the vortexes, stealing objects and taking them back to Cool World (the blighters), causing a dangerous imbalance which could lead to the entire universe self-destructing! In true rogue-with-a-heart-of-gold style, Jack vows to single-handedly force the doodles back from whence they came and retrieve the objects they stole, thereby preserving life as we know it, and probably trying to get off with Holli too (I haven't seen the film yet)!

With a plot like this, Ocean certainly had a job producing a game which followed the film with any degree of accuracy... That's why they've landed us with yet another platform shoot-em-up! Your task, as Jack, is to return equilibrium to the cosmos by using the vortexes to transfer yourself between Cool World and the real world, destroying Doodles and returning stolen objects. Stay in the real world shooting Doodles too long and the number of objects accumulating in Cool World becomes dangerously large. Remain in Cool World and the real world becomes overwhelmed with Doodles! What a dilemma!

The game's split into four levels, each representing a scene from the movie - Jack Deeb's house, the school, the comic shop and Ocean casino. Each, in turn, is connected by a number of vortexes to different sections of Cool World: Urchin Place, Gargoyle's Watchtower, Craps Alley and Stash's Night Club respectively.

The levels are colourful and smooth-scrolling throughout, and responsive controls give the game a good flowing feel. Though actual gameplay remains pretty much the same from level to level, distinctive graphics add plenty of variety. Jack himself is not particularly well defined but moves convincingly enough for this not to be a problem. The game style's been around for a long time, but still gives a fresh and original feel due to well thought out levels.

Frustration rears its ugly head at times when it gets very difficult to avoid the nasties (or it could just be my game playing!), but this does not detract too much from the overall appeal. The one real downer is the multi-load - when you die you have to reload almost the entire game! Thankfully, you're given a limited supply of continues so even this problem (which could've killed the game, as it's done for many others) isn't such a great flaw as you might expect. Even so, if you own a disk drive it's advisable to fork out the extra couple of quid for the disk version.

Soundwise, things are livened up by a catchy theme tune on the title screens and effective spot FX. The presentation's everything we've come to expect from the biggest software house currently producing for our beloved C64, with animated screens adorning the front end and little between level bits to link the sections together.

When I first loaded Cool World I wasn't best impressed, but a a few goes soon revealed it to be a highly playable game. At times it's frustrating and the multi-load's a bit of a pain, but it still muts the custard [Come again? - Ed]. Put it on your Christmas list now!

I'm glad drawings can't really spring to life. With my artistic abilities and vivid imagination, the world would be plunged into disaster! Cool World is nicely presented indeed, even if the multi-load's a bit ropey.

The animation of the main sprite's very good, the only problem being the screen doesn't follow him as well as it should. Leap off a high platform and half of Jack disappears from sight! The bad guys are really bad - being able to fire only one shot at a time's annoying, miss once and you sorely regret It. Cool? Perhaps...

Presentation 75%
Decent animation on title screens

Graphics 81%
Smooth, well-animated and colourful

Sound 82%
Groovy get-down tune and good sound FX

Hookability 72%
More appealling with every play

Lastability 83%
You won't complete this one in a hurry

Overall 79%