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It's monster-bashing time again, this time in the service of five Kreezers - harmless, cuddly creatures which have been sort of kidnapped by ghoulish monsters. I say sort of kidnapped, because when your captors plan to roast you for lunch "kidnapped" somehow doesn't seem quite the right word!

Frost Byte is a curious little game, originally released way back in 1987 by Mikro-Gen, a now virtually forgotten software house which once had hudge success on the Speccy with its Wally series. Unfortunately, an experiment with add-on hardware for the Speccy flopped spectacularly, so bye-bye Micro-Gen!

Frost Byte is a flick-screen arcade adventure with eight levels. Apart from some tarting up on the basic sprites, it's a straightforward Spectrum port with a rather dull, flat palette. Sound is limited to an okay title tune and unremarkable spot FX.

What *is* special is you, or rather the creature you control. A Kreezer, it seems, looks like nothing more than more than an overactive pasta tube. It walks by turning end over end, but while it can jump directly upwards, it can't leap diagonally. Instead, once airborne the little critter can 'walk' left or right - odd. More conventionally the Kreezer can pick up and use objects, including bullets which can be fired at the numerous baddies.

There's also pick-ups to boost speed, jumping power and the ability to survive bigger falls. It's pretty average stuff, there's even a countdown timer, but that odd pasta tube with its awkward controls proves to be good fun all the same.

Julian liked it a lot in Issue 27: "one of those obscure games which is enjoyed immensely by anyone who buys it, but never receives anything like the acclaim it deserves - simply because it's not based on some film or arcade game". The other two reviewers were more restrained, complaining about a control method which requires "an unreasonable degree of precision".

Overall, it got 78%, but nowadays the graphics look even more banal while flickscreen arcade adventures with pixel-perfect leaping aren't quite all the rage. Nevertheless, while I wouldn't say I enjoyed it immensely - it is very tough - it's still quite good fun and the control method isn't bad.