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Guide Peter across twelve levels, slaying pirates, watching your energy bar, power meter and time limit.

Throughout the last century the name Pan has reverberated around nurseries, gardens and kitchens, bringing laughter and delight to children worldwide. Which Pan? Of course, a saucepan. You can cook dinner in it, play tennis if you've got two of them, or put them on your head and play army. Mind you, there's another pan which is pretty popular, the old duffer out of the Disney cartoon, Peter Pan.

The plot of Hook concerns Peter Pan having grown up into a stressed-out, hard-drinking businessman. What's more, he can't even remember anything about Never Land, and he doesn't even believe in himself, despite the fact his name is indeed Peter Pan, and his mother-in-law is called Wendy. Hook has heard of Pan's condition, and has decided to take revenge (despite having been eaten by a crocodile), kidnapping Pan's kids in this platform hack 'em up. It's your job to guide Peter across the platform landscapes of Never Land searching for your offspring, tracking down the nefarious Hook, and finishing him off once and for all.

Of course, anyone who's read the book or heard the story of Peter Pan knows about his magic fireball-spitting sword of doom. Well, anyone who's read the instructions to Hook knows about Pan's fireball-spitting sword of doom. See, when Pan were a lad and used to play pirate-baiting, a magic sword was just the accessory to have, as well as signifying his superiority over the other Lost Boys.

When Pan left Never Land, the sword fell into other hands, namely those of Rufio, the new leader of the Lost Boys. In order to reclaim his chopper Pan must fight in a duel against Rufio, the winner of which claims the weapon.

The blade itself is pretty darned snazzy, firing short-range high-power fireballs. The only problem is the slippery handgrip which causes Pete to drop the sword whenever he's hit.

However, the clever hacking implement generally waits further on in the level for Panners to recollect.

That Peter Pan is certainly an active chap. His spped and agility are fully exploited in this game. Along with the usual platform activities, such as jumping and swinging his sword, Pete repertoire also includes a number of other moves. For instance, keeping the A button depressed after an attack whilst pushing either left or right causes Pan to run, run like the wind, sprinting over the landscape as fast as his legs can carry him for as long as the direction is held.

Pressing A whilst sprinting also allows Pan to defend himself with his sword. Pressing B whilst Pan sprints launches him into a super-mega jump. Who says Robin Williams is clapped out?

Everyone knows how to fly in Never Land - it's just a simple mixture of belief and magic pixie dust. Sadly, while Pete has plenty of faith, his fairy pal Tinkerbell has the monopoly on the magic powder (which is probably why her voice is so high). However, Tink floats around at various points in each level waiting for our Petey.

Once they meet up she showers him with all the fairy angel pixie magic moonbeam dust he can carry. A quick double press of the B button sends him up into the air. Also, pressing A and up whilst in flight sends Pan soaring skywards at a greatly increased rate of knots.

However, his dust gets used up during flight, so Panhead has to be wary of his magic-moonbeam-fairy-pixie-gnome-all-power-dust-gauge at all times.

Fans of the film Hook (i.e. anyone under three and Tom Guise out of Megatech) should be ecstatic at the mere thought of playing Hook, especially if they're also film score maniacs. For yes, thanks to the power of CD technology the full orchestral score for the film has been lovingly adapted to fit the game.

Each level has a different theme, each of which sounds absolutely pitch perfect. There are loads of digitised graphical sequences from the film, along with an all-new computer-generated scan around Hook's pirate ship as it sails through the digitised skies of London!

Sadly though, licensing the actors' voices from the movie was too costly and, as such, the copious quantities of speech in the game are read out by rather less skilled actors!

Never Land, being a fantasy island run by greedy brats, is littered with free goodies hanging around just waiting to be picked up. The full selection of available pick-ups is listed here.

1. Cherries
   Pan may be eternally youthful and all that, but he's still capable of being hacked to bits. Cherries refill one leaf of Panny's energy bar every time they're picked up, thus delaying that death moment.
2. Apple
   Apples do the very same job as cherries, except these doctor-warding off fruits refill Pan's entire energy bar.
3. Leaves
   At the start of the game Pete has two leaves to his energy bar. Every time a loose leaf is picked up another hit is added to his life total. However, Pan may never have more than four leaves to his name, no matter how many he picks up.
4. 1-Up
   Hurrah! The power-up everyone wants - a tasty extra life! What's more, 1-Ups are replaced every time Pan dies, to all intents and purposes giving the player infinite attempts at certain sections of the game.
5. Sheba's Tiara
   Stolen from the Queen of Sheba ship years ago by Hook and his pirates, there's a goodly quantity of these tiaras scattered around Never Land. Each one is worth 100 points.
6. Ring Of Honour
   Presented to Hook's favourite pirates as a sign of his respect, the only way to part a pirate and his ruby ring of honour is to run him through with some cold steel, don't you know. Nobbing one of these is worth 500 points.
7. Regal Necklace
   More ill-gotten pirate gains. Snaffle one of these and treat yourself to an extra 1,000 points.
8. King's Crown
   Being the scurvy sea-dog he is, Hook once robbed the one and only Alexander the Great of all the crowns he had collected whilst conquering the world. Reclaim a bit of Alex's headgear and 10,000 points are yours.

For all its kiddy image, Hook was visually a pretty impressive film, and it's good to see that a lot has been made of the colourful set style and digitised movie images.

However, for true film-style atmosphere put the sound through the headphones. The soundtrack to Hook is absolutely stunning, a full orchestral affair which captures the tone of the game excellently.

The speech is also great, very clear with a little reverb adding that "cinema acoustics" effect, although the acting is pretty useless. However, CD sounds are supposed to be impressive, that's nothing new - what about the game?

Well, that's where Hook stumbles. It would actually be a really good platform adventure game, but for a few small difficulties. For starters it's a bit slow, and the controls certainly aren't as responsive as they could be.

The other minus point concerns the frustrating "Ha ha, now you die!" no-way-out situations the game seems to throw at you at least once per level. Things like the mermaid on level five who grabs hold of you and guides you straight into all the bombs you've been trying so hard to avoid.

Hook isn't a bad game, it's actually quite good fun when it's not getting under your skin, and it's certainly one of the better CD releaqses in comparison to garbage like Earnest Evans, but there are better platform games available for the standard Megadrive.

Schlenegg! The first thing you notice about Hook is the fantastic orchestral score. Strings swirl and horns honk as you guide your computerised charge through his quest. But so what? CD's are supposed to be able to do that.

The next thing that grabs your attention is the number of full-motion video cut-screens peppering the game. But, whilst being hugely impressive, these do absolutely nothing to enhance the actual gameplay. The game itself is not that bad, but then I quite enjoyed Hook on the Super NES when it was released a year ago, of which this is a direct reproduction - right down to the annoying bits, like the swarms of killer bees that get you every time (remember that bit from the film?) and the way Pan dawdles through the levels.

That's not to say this is a bad game though - once you get the hang of controlling Pan, especially his flying skills, and used to the sedate pace, it's quite a laugh. Graphically, it's pretty good too, but the in-game graphics are certainly nothing the Megadrive couldn't do on its own.

But therein lies my biggest grumble. All the fancy decorations aside, this is just a standard platformer and I can't help thinking it would be cheaper to wait for the inevitable Megadrive-dedicated version whilst playing one of your Dad's classical CDs. Nice game, but a shameful misuse of the Mega CD's capabilities. Not, I hope, the shape of things to come.

Presentation 92%
P. Loads of digitised cut-screens, stunning intro, big map set-up and loads of really really impressive presentational touches.
N. No options. Gnnnh!

Graphics 90%
P. Very colourful indeed and highly detailed. Animation is also great and some of the backgrounds are very impressive.
N. Sprites are a bit small.

Sound 97%
P. Yoinks! Absolutely cracking orchestral soundtracks and loads of very clear sampled speech.
N. The effects are a bit neglected.

Playability 76%
P. Well planned levels, plenty of variety and loads to do.
N. Controls are a little slow and it can be very frustrating in places.

Lastability 73%
P. Once you've completed it there's reason to go back and see it all again just for thrills.
N. It won't take all that long to beat.

Overall 72%
Visually and aurally Hook is tremendous, but underneath there is a very average game bursting to get out. A real waste of the Mega CD's enormous potential.