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Right, let's get something straight - the reason Zeppelin changed the title for this budget re-release is because the TV show from which it was licensed was changed. Zeppelin are making no bones about the fact that Doc Croc's Outrageous Adventures was previously released as Round The Bend, and aren't trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes.

Ahem. Now we've got that sorted, let's have a look at the game. A sideways scrolling platformer, your task is to patrol the sewers (home of Doc Croc and company) looking for your magazine, which the rancid reptile has inadvertently blown to bits. On finding a page, you're presented with a short subgame, which inevitably involves getting from one corner of the (static) screen to another, avoiding anything that moves - succeed, and the page is yours.

Starting in the editorial office, you choose one of the four characters, and which of four sewer tunnels to explore. You can send any character into any tunnel, but each can only collect the pages for which he's responsible, and the only way to find out who gets what is through trial and error.

An interesting feature of Doc Croc's is that you can't actually 'die' as such. Collide with one of the sewer-slopping baddies and you're just returned to the office. Needless to say, starting that particular sewer again is very time-consuming, and the whole thing's against the clock!

Unfortunately when it comes to originality, that's about all the game has to offer. It's brilliantly programmed, but adds nothing new to the platform genre - no interesting devices, no secret rooms, no exciting artifacts... no nothing, really. Also, your character is under constant threat from irritating bats that zoom onto the screen at an incredible rate of knots, leaving you no time to react. You'll soon get the hang of it - once you've been caught a few times you'll suss out the attack patterns - but until you do, frustration is high.

Doc Croc's Outrageous Adventures isn't the most blindingly original platform outing, but it's certainly no turkey. When we gave it a tightfisted 52% in issue 79, our main bone of contention was that it was ridiculously overpriced. As a budget release, it's a worthy purchase.