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Having travelled the toy world and comic strip, Mask joins the growing number of conversions in the software market, courtesy of Gremlin Graphics.

In this specially designed scenario, the Mask headquarters at Boulder Hill has been ambushed by the evil forces of Venom. All but one of Mask's agents have been thrown into a time vortex, sending them to other areas of time and space. The player takes the role of Matt Trakker, the surviving Mask agent, in his quest to rescue all seven of his comrades from the four different time/space zones.

Matt undertakes the mission in his Thunder Hawk vehicle, a gull-winged car which flies over small obstacles and fires bullets. This is displayed on a multi-directionally scrolling screen which also shows the assorted beings who continually attempted to harm the chronologically displayed Mask agents. These range from dinosaurs and giant turtles in the prehistoric zone to UFOs in the far future.

To complete a level, Matt finds the stranded agents and their Masks - the source of their powers. In order to do this, he follows a specific pattern for each agent: first, locate a scanner and the four pieces of security key necessary to operate it, and second: use the working scanner to lead him to the otherwise hidden agent who can then be picked up. The agent's Mask container is now collected, allowing Matt to drive back to the time vortex for transportation to the next time zone, which is loaded separately.

Once Matt has reformed the entire Mask team, he leads an attack on the Venom base, the destruction of which finally enables the Mask agents to return home.

Ignoring any connections with toys or TV shows, Mask as a game provides quite a decent challenge, and is surprisingly entertaining. Admittedly, the game's theme is fairly simple, but it still managed to keep me enthralled for some time.

The mixture of blasting, exploring and collecting puzzle pieces is captivating, and the gameplay is varied enough to actually justify its pursuance - something that can hardly be said of many of the recent tie-ins. Control of Matt's car is quite convincing as it careers around the screen, although this can make parts of the landscape a little difficult to negotiate.

Otherwise, the whole game feels fairly polished and can be considered a moderately worthy purchase.

Gremlin have decided to jump on the tie-in bandwagon, but thankfully Mask isn't too bad a game.

It's playable, and as it's quite hard to die, you can enjoy yourself zooming round the levels, blasting and collecting. The graphics aren't outstanding, but there are no serious flaws, and the sound is offensive.

The annoyance with Mask, and so many of the toy conversions recently, is that there has been little effort to make the game anything but average. This is the over-familiar eight-way scrolling format, with nothing original to commend it.

The game's producers are relying on the appeal of the toys and/or comics to ensure large sales amongst the younger market. A long time ago, Zoids proved that toy tie-ins can be original and entertaining, but it seems that nobody remembers that now.

Presentation 64%
The overly brief instructions includes a short Mask cartoon strip. Informative screen display during play.

Graphics 66%
Mediocre sprites, but fairly impressive scrolling and scenery.

Sound 56%
Poor spot effects and reasonable tune.

Hookability 69%
The first level is easily completable, which provides a strong enough lure to attempt the others.

Lastability 63%
If you can stick with the gameplay, there are four tricky levels to overcome.

Overall 63%
An average toy conversion, with just enough gameplay to make it worthwhile.