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There's a big difference between this game and the other two games in the Felix series; so stark in fact that you wonder whether his name was crammed in there for some reason. So, if you've played the other two and you're expecting more of the same, Evil Weevils may well surprise you. The Felix sprite here is tiny, and the evil weevils certainly don't look like weevils. Super-sized, super-speed sloths perhaps, their comparative size would make them 2ft taller than your average human! Thank goodness our hero can move a lot more quickly than they can!

Right, the game itself. It takes place in a factory and it could be termed a somewhat typical "ladders and levels" game... had the ladders not been replaced with pipes. Actually, I haven't seen this done in any other game and it's quite a genial idea considering both the "weevils" and balls drop from pipes at the top of the screen. It makes for a very different type of platformer indeed. In Felix In The Factory (and even standard platformers like Chuckie Egg) you can always "see" exactly where the bad guys are. Here you can't, so you need to keep an eye on the route you plan to take. If a ball of a weevil just rolled into the top of a pipe, it's probably not a good idea to scurry Felix into its bottom!

The aim of the game is to "disinfect" the factory by spraying each of the marauding weevils with pesticide. The problem is that you have to collect the pesticide *first*, which entails picking your way across the many levels of the factory to get to it. The levels are all conveyor belts and so making your way across them involves moving at different speeds, whilst being defenceless against the adversaries. Once you're armed, you then need to get into a position where a weevil will move in your direction. If you time it right, the spray will neutralise him. If you clear the screen of all weevils you will proceed to the next screen.

Other items appear at random, including a lever which reverses the direction of the belts (press Shift), the oxygen cylinder which keeps Felix's oxygen supply at a safe level (Where's this factory meant to be, outer space?) and the letters of the word "bonus", which award the obvious. There's also a flashing platform which transforms a regular weevil into a super-weevil which moves at double-speed, so prevent any weevil reaching that at all costs.

Controls are the standard ZX*? keys with Return to fire the pesticide. There's also a little-known 'emergency panic' feature (Ctrl key) which gives Felix invulnerability for a short time. I somehow missed its existence for many years!

One of the later Micro Power games, Felix Meets The Evil Weevils garnered something of a cult following. Personal Computer Games found it "an entertaining game", almost exclusively due to the weevils' "devlishly slippery" nature. Home Computing Weekly gushed "the addictive magic of a winner is obvious".

And it is quite an addictive game even now. If looking for a physical cassette of it, expect to pay around £3.