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Kevin awoke one fine Christmas morn to find that his house was empty, his family all gone to Paris without him. What a terrible state of affairs, but then his family is so big, occasionally leaving a kid behind while they jet off to Europe is just par for the course, and Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) is such a revoltingly smug brat that you'd want to leave him behind anyway.

An-e-e-way. There he is having a good laugh, putting on shaving lotion and doing all sorts of fab grown up things like staying up late and going to the shops, when he suddenly notices the Wet Bandits, a pair of crooks who are relieving all the houses in the neighbourhood of their contents while the residents are away. This, of course, is not a good thing, so Kevin decides to stop them from getting away with the goods by laying a series of traps which should hold them up just long enough for the rozzers to get to the scene.

Home Alone was a box office smash at the cinema when it was first released in 1990. The sequel, Home Alone II, is out soon.

Help Kevin to thwart the looting attempts of the Wet Bandits. Assemble traps and weapons to scare them off until the police arrive to take them both away.

In his attempts to undo the Wet Bandits' plans for neighbourhood abomination, Kevin prepares a few surprises to greet them as they break and enter. Anyone who remembers the film might recall the scenes of slapstick hilarity where the Wet Bandits were utterly bombarded by Kevin's dastardly traps and trickery. In the game, Kevin gets to lay down such delights as blow-torches, sticky tar and even a selection of Kevin's prize toys on which the clumsy crooks come a-cropper. Kevin has to watch his step too, because he is just as vulnerable to a quick trip to accident central as anyone. So remember where you put them, or else!

Inside the house are located various bits and bobs that Kevin uses to construct an inventory of weapons. For example, a combination of the hair dryer, rubber bands and snowballs produces a Snowball Bazooka. Whereas a collection of Crossbow, balloons and glue lends itself nicely to form a Glue Rifle. Once equipped, these weapons are a sure way of driving the thieves away from any house and thus to save the day.

Now that Kevin's parents are away, he does whatever he pleases. Like tearing up the town with his new sledge for starters, followed by crashing into the beautifully varnished front door. In the meanwhile, he slithers about the frozen land in search of snowmen to demolish beneath which items are hidden.

Kevin uncovers snowballs, coals and Super Balls by doing this which he is able to use as ammunition against the two crooks. Such sledge abuse is also a good way of following the Wet Bandits' van around.

These are the very crooks that Kevin is up against. They're known as the Wet Bandits because of their reputation for flooding houses after looting them. Unfortunately for them, their skills of burglary leave a little to be desired. Parking a huge van outside a house is enough to arouse anyone's suspicions, so therefore it isn't difficult to assert where the Wet Bandits are about to strike next. D'oh!

1. Difficulty Settings:
   Two
2. Sound Test:
   Listen to all of the game's music
3. Continues:
   Carry on at will until the ETA reaches zero
4. Lives:
   Kevin

Kevin's sledge and "slapstick" adventures left me cold. Once the fine blizzard of pretty characters and backdrops has cleared, there isn't much worthy of mention.

No doubt the lives of many thousand Macaulay Culkin fans will be brightened should they receive this game for Christmas, yet dullness is sure to prevail in a very short time. The sledge scenes are very uninspiring as are the tedious, slapstick excursions in each of the houses.

I really couldn't give a hoot as to how many houses got flooded by the Wet Bandits, nor how many times they pinned Kevin to the wall.

Then, finally, when the police arrived I was neither happy nor sad - just glad that the torture was over.

There is a small amount of fun to be had in devising a new and interesting weapon to blow the baddies away; turning them into snowmen is quite a laugh (ha, ha) but that, as they say, is it. Buy Home Alone and that's exactly where you'll end up, just you watch.

Home Alone has plenty of potential as a decent console game, but sadly this one falls well short of it. The main problem is the lack of action. The motor-sledge section could have been entertaining, but the control method is confusing (surely a rotational steering method would have made more sense!) and there isn't enough to do.

The snowmen are too spread too and other than hunting them down, there's nothing at all to hold your interest. Once inside the houses, hazards are few and far between. Perhaps the odd cat or security robot might give you some grief, but other than that, it's just a case of wandering around waiting for the Wet Bandits to find you. When you do finally encounter the Bandits, it's nigh on impossible to assemble a decent weapon unless you've got about a zillion different items collected from all the houses in the game.

Slow, dull and repetitive, perhaps this ought to be called Leave Alone.

Presentation 55%
N. Completely hopeless title screen that amounts to the title 'Home Alone', plus a few copyright credits against a black background!

Graphics 72%
P. The one redeeming factor of the cart is that the graphics are fairly well drawn and animated.
N. Everything moves about slowly and doesn't hold much interest.

Sound 56%
P. The tune for the Blueprint screen is quite good.
N. All the others, along with the sound effects, are poor.

Playability 46%
P. The slapstick element provides some fun at first...
N. ...but it soon gets very boring.

Lastability 42%
P. Fans of the film may want to include this in their Home Alone file.
N. Lack of interesting gameplay dooms Home Alone from the start.

Overall 43%
Those expecting fun and excitement will be disappointed. Home Alone is a dull and tedious game with little going for it.