This is the fourth in the Fun School series of educational games from Database, and follows a similar format to earlier releases. There are three programs in the range, featuring characters designed to appeal to different age groups. There's Teddy for the under-fives, Froggy for five to seven year olds and, er, Spyey for those between seven and eleven years of age. Each pack comprises of six games, all with a very definite educational slant. The idea is that your kiddie has fun while learning - they won't even realise. Sneaky, eh?

The basic format is the same throughout the three packages. The games are usually simple to control, in many cases just two keys, Space and Return, are used. In other games the cursor keys have been implemented and full keyboard skills are necessary in a couple of the spelling games for the older age groups.

Big, bold, bright graphics feature prominently in all games. The animation is excellent and has improved very noticeably from the earlier versions. Presentation is good on the whole, and after a while even the youngest child should be able to play with the computer unsupervised, thanks to logical and simple keyboard layout.

Most games have neat reward sequences for getting things right - there's nothing worse than educational pro-grams where a wrong answer provides more entertainment than a correct one. Even the manuals are excellent with great little stories that link the games together.

There are a couple of minor grumbles - a couple of typos have crept in. Ok, these find their way into the most vigilant writer's copy (you should know - ed) but for an educational program this shouldn't happen. Then again, whether the average five-year-old's going to notice a missing apostrophe is doubtful.

Some of games do get a bit tricky - especially the typing game in the Five to sevens pack and the quiz pro-gram in the over-sevens - I've no idea how long the Great Wall of China is. Maybe it's time I went back to school!

Fun School 4 contains a wealth of educational material, disguised as games that will appeal to even the fondest of shoot-em-up fans. Who said learning can't be fun?

Addition Oh no! Sums! Help Ted with the arithmetic before he and his chums can go out to play. The first level's fairly straightforward; you simply have to count the number of obects on the blackboard. Things get trickier higher levels where there's adding up to be done...

1. Teddy Paint
   Ah, this is more like it. It's picture-drawing time. Slap down the shapes on the screen to create your masterpiece. Well, not quite, but it's better than the purple and orange crayon scribble that young kiddies normally produce.
2. Fun Train
   A train circles round through a fairground ride, carrying a picture in its carriage. Does it match the picture behind it? Only Teddy can tell! This is all very well, but can't we have a go on the ride itself? Oh, please, please, please. I'll hold my breath until turn purple!
3. Teddy's House
   More painting, this time it's a spot of house decorating. Choose the colours to paint Ted's house. In later levels you're asked to select specific colours to paint the objects with. Just you wait 'til Daddy Bear gets home and sees what you've been up to...
4. Teddy's Karaoke
   Yo, kids! Get down to the acid groove. Ted's at a rave and has to sing along to the KLF. Well, not quite ted has to holler to the mike to the sound to such hardcore hits as Humpty Dumpty Sat On A Wall and the unforgetable Grand Old Duke Of York.
5. Teddy's Books
   Ted's had a big day, and the poor little mite's knackered. But Dad insists on reading a goodnight story before he'll be counting sheep (or kids or whatever bears eat). Teddy has to name the number of the book Dad's reading before he'll let him sleep.

1. Library
   Freddy Frog's been lumbered with sorting books in the local library to keep him quiet. Knew it was the wrong place to practise yodelling. There's a stack of books, and they all have to be placed into the correct order. As the levels get harder, more things need to be taken into account such as authors' names rather than simply book titles.
2. Shopkeeper
   It's down to Sainsbury's to get the week's shopping. The shopkeeper's a bit fussy about giving change and so you have to calculate the correct coinage to buy the various goods on sale. Ohh, the price offish nowadays...
3. Log Cabin
   It's time young Freddy settled down and built a log cabin to make little Freddys in. Only thing is, it's not hammer and nails that hold the logs in place, but sums instead! Answer the problems properly, and the frog throws the lumber into place. Get it wrong and tim-ber! it's time to try again.
4. Basketball
   This is more like it! It's fun in the gym, only the missing letter letter or number sequence has to be worked out to successful bag baskets. Get it wrong and you're given additional clues to help you work it out.
5. Opposites
   It's swimming time, the only problem is before Freddy's friends can take a dip he has to give the opposite answer to a word. He does this by hopping around lily pads looking for the correct answer. It gets decidedly difficult in the later stages, with plenty of similar words with similar meanings to choose from.

1. Proportions
   Count up the spies and answer questions about how many have shoes (or hair or false teeth) and work out the proportion. You can use percentages and fractions to help work it out, but have to resort to decimals to do the sums. It's actually trickier recognising who's wearing what, than doing the calculations. Later levels include hunting around the prof's lab to count objects there.
2. Spy Quiz
   It's a tough mission. The spy has to scale a wall and answer some pretty tricky questions to climb higher and higher to get the secret plans. And the questions get quite tough on later levels, even for grown-ups. Eeh, it's a wonder what they teach them kids at school nowadays. The questions do tend to repeat after a fairly short while, which is a pity.
3. Exchange rate
   A sort of Strip game, this, only in reverse. The young 'tec has to work out foreign money problems, converting currency between countries, in which case he gets to wear an additional part of his disguise. There's a calculator in case he gets stuck, but he can only use it a maximum of five times.
4. Timetable
   Typical! At the airport on the way to a secret destination (so secret that you don't know) and the plane's late (or early - now there's a first!). You have to work out when the flight's actually going to take off from the times on the departure board.
5. Spy Travels
   Uh oh, it's Geography time. But there's no getting out of it. if you're to be a secret agent then you're going to have to learn where the good guys live as opposed to the evil pinko commie scum. Various games teach you where's where as you travel the globe.
6. Desert Dates
   You're asked questions and have to chip open the stones of a pyramid with the correct dates. You have five hammers, for each wrong answer one gets broken. It gets more specific on higher levels, but it does suffer from repeating question syndrome.

P. Graphics certain to appeal to kids.
P. Educational yet fun!
P. Well-written manuals with entertaining stories.

N. Question and answer games repeat themselves.
N. Some games taxing, for adults.
N. A couple of typos.