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Virgin have yet to produce any genuinely outstanding games but after their initial crop of certified stinkers, Dr. Franky seems positively glowing. Martin Wheeler's game manages to remind you of several arcade prototypes without drawing too closely on any one.

The task is to manoeuvre the inane, bespectacled doc through various dungeons (nine screens in all), each abrim with grim-faced ghouls who obliterate him on touch. He can also be topped by falling brick walls or run down by what looks like a miner's caboose but if he manages to pocket the white phial on the top left of each screen and get it to his dozing monster he can move on to the next stage.

A simple three-key control lets him go left, right or jump - and since every screen is a maze of potholes and trapdoors our man often goes on a kind of ingenuous hopscotch. The monsters are pretty smart though and the 'magic hammers' which dot the screens are seldom of any use.

Sparse sound and detailed, if rather familiar, graphics makes this scientific Kong (its closest counterpart) an amusing if unremarkable proposition.