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Any platform game worth its salt features lifts that carry the hero either up and down the screen or horizontally across it. Fearless Freddie exploits such lifts, as you move between various platforms, rescuing various possessions before they become engulfed in flame.

In the true platform tradition, you must dodge the fireballs, collect the various objects, jump onto lifts and avoid landing in a burning cauldron. This is hardly original but the graphics are Quite nice and this could have made a good value game for the Dragon.

Unfortunately the whole execution of the program is exceedingly poor. The collision detection routines are among the worst that I have ever seen. Some of the objects are pretty large yet it did not always register when I walked over one of them. The Quality of some of the movement in the game left an awful lot to be desired too. This is rather a shame, as the setting and a few nice touches, such as the thermometer, indicated that the program had the potential of being extremely entertaining.

The program represents, for me, all that is bad with budget software. A number of software houses think that they can put out any half-baked game at £1.99 or £2.50. Just because the product is cheap doesn't mean that it shouldn't be fully debugged and tested.

A disappointing product made all the worse for the most appalling music that I have ever heard on a computer game. The tone-deaf renditions of Colonel Bogey and When the Saints were as painful to listen to as the game was to play.

C.G.