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You are a small scaly fish with fins and a natty little tail. Tres chic.

Tres chic my toenail. It just takes one look at Ken D Fish to convince me that I'd prefer to live the rest of my life without any kind of tail whatsoever hanging off my back - especially not one with spotty scales, thank you very much. Count yourself lucky that you only get to see pictures of him - that smell would put you off for life. Phwoar!

Still, if you can't beat 'em, eat 'em, that's what I always say. And if you can't eat 'em... well, you might as well throw in yer lot with the gurnards, haddocks, pickerels and gudgeons of this world and have a go. Use your imagination and throw yerself headfirst into this fishy stuff an' all that an' everyfin' (geddit?). I'm a dab hand (hur, hur) at that.

If you didn't see the Amiga review or wouldn't be seen dead reading anything to do with that nasty machine anyway (no sirreee, not if you put a shotgun to my head and shouted moo moo) then here's another butcher's at what it's all about.

You - bright, bold, brilliant, star of the Department of International Espionage (yes, that's you, honest salmon) and otherwise known as agent 10, are having a bit of a holiday. In fact, you're just swimming around on your back in a goldfish bowl, when you receive an interdimensional summons from that bigwig bloke who runs the tank - Admiral Sir Playfair Panchax, the man himself.

The low-down is this: a band of deadly interdimensional terrorists - The Seven Deadly Fins - has stolen the vital components of a vital irrigation machine all set to bring water and life to the dying planet Aquaria. Your mission (and you decide to accept it, or else) is to warp to the four relevant areas and recover all the right bits. Easy.

Well, not that easy really, not while you're a fish. Now there's a fing. Lucky for you that the adventure is divided into four parts (three mini ones, and one biggy) in all of which you're allowed arms. In the fourth one, you don't have legs (just a fishy tail) but in an underwater sort of world, it's absolutely wunnerful to see what you can do with that.

You've got to complete the mini sagas (set in a recording studio, a wood inhabited by the insane interdimensional espionage agent, Micky Blowtorch, and deep in the bowels - oo-er - of a ruined abbey) before you've got enough interdimensional experience to get into the big one - and then you're really in the swimbladder.

Fancy a trip to Padlington? A night down a guppy pub? A day at the museum? Shopping for just the right gear? A peek in your fishofax for the address of the best local snifter? Well, me old mullet, courtesy of your very own Aquaria travelcard, valid till Thursday, except on Dogger Bank holidays, you can do all that and loads, loads more. Better tread carefully though, or you may end up mashed and battered in somebody's cocktail glass - and then you wouldn't half look a prawn.

The parser's up to the usual Magnetic Scrolls standards (well, aren't most big release parsers nowadays?) and lets you type in all the usual alternatives and options (there's all that shifting graphics up and down the screen, turning the graphics off and on mularkey) but what really makes this so much fun to play is the action. It's packed tighter than a tin of sardines in tomato juice and if you like your jokes fishy (well, what else can you do with Ken D Fish - not eat him?) there's more than enough to keep the giggles messing up your gills.

Aha, me hearties - what about the price? Personally, I thought Corruption was pretty bad at 18 quid but £19.99 - a bit stiff! You don't even get the kind of juicy billygoat graphics that made Guild of Thieves and The Pawn a great run for your money. These are just 'quite nice', really - not worth waiting all that disk accessing for, if you ask me.

Hang about though, 'cos the gameplay is definitely worth it, and if you haven't got the dosh right now, scrape a lot of slime around in the bottom of your piggy bank until you find it. If it weren't for the shock, horror, hand me a dram of lizard's blood price and the pretty average stone the crows graphics, I'd be awarding this a Sizzler. As it is, it's getting a Chuck Vomit thumbs up. And that's not bad coming from me - especially when it's a net full of fish. Gloop, gloop.