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Pah, that Garfield, he's a boy inny? Chomping up Fern trees one minute and booting Odie up the bot the next, he just doesn't care does he? He certainly makes me chortle me socks off 'cos he's a right little devil. I love him to bits.

Well I did love him before The Edge decided to stuff him inside the Speccy and attempt to make a game out of him. Now, unfortunately I find him rather nauseating. I was really looking forward to this one, but blimey what a disappointment.

The first screen of this 'adventure' finds Garfy having a snooze in his box in John's kitchen. Above his head is a think bubble. Click the joystick to change the view inside the bubble. There are three views in all. First, there's the chocolate factory, second is the ski-slope and thirdly is the skating lake.

Garfield can take a visit to any of these three venues. So first he nips off to the skating lake. Here he has to skish about jumping over snow banks and around all the objects sitting on the ice (why there are objects on the ice is anybody's guess).

He must try to stay on his feet because if he slips over he'll lose energy. Loss of energy is indicated by a Garfield head in the left hand corner of the screen, which slowly sinks down as energy drops. It drops so slowly in fact, it's hardly noticeable.

His main object is to scramble across the ice from one side of the lake to the other. Sounds easy? Well let me tell you, it bloody well isn't. Maybe I'm crap at games but I found it almost impossible to keep poor Garfy under control. Anyway, on to the next bit, the chocolate factory.

In the factory there are these chickens, see. and they eat chocolate which whooshes around the pipes of the factory. Garfield has to move the choccy in the right direction through the pipes to reach these choccy munching chickens. There are arrows on the pipes which Garfy can change around by jumping up and pushing a button. There are bits of food lying around on the floor which Garfy can eat to build up his strength, but beware of Odie, for he is running around stealing the grub and therefore sapping you of energy. You can actually boot him up the bum, but I'm warning you it doesn't make much difference as he keeps coming back to bug you.

I found this level pretty annoying because Garfield seems to walk soooooo slowly. You're sitting there shouting, "faster, go faster Garfy for gawd's sake" and wiggling your joystick like a loon. Oh, I've had enough of this part of the game, what's next?

Oh yes, the ski-slope. This was about the best level of all. Garfield skishes down a snowy hill like a moggie possessed. Dotted about the hill are snow covered ramps and logs. He has to jump these or swerve around them. There are lads standing on either edge of the slope holding out pieces of pie. Garfy has to jump up with his mouth open as he passes to nab the pie to build up his strength.

Odie accompanies Garfield down the slope on what looks like an upside down dustbin lid, but I don't really understand why he's there because he doesn't aid Garfield in any way.

The thing that bugged me overall about this game is that you don't seem to have to accumulate points, no score appears at the bottom of the screen, and it seems to take weeks for your energy to run out. That aside, I thought the graphics were really brilliant, with both the Garfield and Odie characters staying true to the original cartoon.

I really wanted to like this game. The basic idea is fine, but it's just too slow and frankly not very interesting. There's more chance of me being knighted than getting addicted to Garfield Winter's Tale.

Label: The Edge Author: In-house Price: £8.95 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Alison Skeat

Nice graphics, shame about the rest.