Out Now's big question this month is "How the hell did this happen?". While hardly touted as something iconoclastic in the platform field, US Gold might have been expected to haev received more in return for their considerable investment than Johnny Bazookatone delivers. As a Saturn game it's a bit of a shambles from beginning to end.

The plot is a convoluted affair involving music stolen from the world by an Elvis-cum-Satan figure, and the Johnny B hero figure whose task is to sidle around the vast levels scooping up the musical notes and the little green midgets. The game is non-linear to an extent, allowing you to approach scenes in varying orders if you find the connecting areas.

Where it starts to go wrong is the initial visual impression. The game looks muddy, sombre and indistinct. This is partly a problem with the graphics ideas, and also with the execution: the backdrops must have looked great in hi-res, but digitised and simplified by memory restrictions on the Saturn and they look mince.

Surprisingly the music also comes in for a panning, considering how the game concept is supposed to hang off it. Well, the opening 'theme' sounds like the music to some daytime TV show like 'Kilroy' and the rest of the level tunes show no particular merit - meandering sax solos are not the best types of musical accompaniment for video games.

Plus, let's not forget to stress how mind-numbingly dull it is to play. We could explain this at length in terms of poor controls, overlong featureless levels and muddled game logic, but it's not worth it. And a final tilt at the mags who were sad enough to rate this game in the 90s.

Anyone who thinks that this compares with the work AM2 are doing should consider seriously if they are fit to work in the video game press.