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After a fairly quiet period, Creative Sparks budget range is trundling back into action with a few new titles. Kidnap, one of the first new releases, came as something of a surprise when I loaded it up. It's a platform game (remember those?) and, while just a few months ago, I might have snorted in derision and chucked it onto the heap of Jet Set Willy clones in the corner, the novelty of playing a simple ladders 'n platforms game after all the mega-complicated arcade/strategy/adventure epics of recent months made a pleasant change.

As with all platform games the 'plot' is pretty meaningless. Kidnap concerns an alien being called Kkrudd who goes around kidnapping babies and keeping them frozen in suspended animation in his home in outer space.

Kkrudd has captured thirty-two little nippers and these are hidden away in the thirty-two rooms of his home. You, as the only available Space Agent in the area, have been assigned the task of rescuing the little brats... er, sorry, the little darlings, but of course the rooms of Kkrudd's home are occupied by all the weird sprites and traps that we've come to know and love from earlier platform games.

Kidnap isn't the hardest platform game that I've ever played, and in most of the rooms it only took a few moments to work out how to reach the babies. But one nice touch is that in some rooms the baby can only be reached by going off screen and coming back on via an alternative route which isn't always easily found. The graphics are quite simple, though they are perfectly adequate for this type of game, and animation and use of colour are all quite good.

I suppose that platform games are ideal for budget software as the format and programming techniques are all well established by now. My only real doubts about this game are that it's not as challenging as it could be and that 32 rooms isn't a lot when you think that other games in this style have more than 100 rooms each. Still, for £1.99, it's reasonable value and should divert you for an hour or so.