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Your mission, Chris, should you choose to accept it... well, no, we all know that this budget re-release is nothing to do with Peter Graves and the Impossible Mission force, but the Department will certainly disavow any knowledge of your actions if you're captured or killed.

Sequel to the original platforms-and-hacking exercise Impossible Mission, IM2 looks suspiciously similar; there are dozens of chambers, each containing a number of walkways, hydraulic platforms, computer terminals, bits of furniture, and killer robots. Again you play the secret agent whose aim is to crack the computer codes, avoid the killer robots and foil the plans of the evil Dr Atombender.

Once again, you have a pocket computer display showing a map of the chambers of Atombender's complex which you have explored; and a system of elevators and passageways to get you from one to the other. As well, you have to turn to face items of furniture and "search" them by pressing the fire button; the trick is to do it before getting burned down by a patrolling robot, and without plummeting down a bottomless crevasse.

But this time, there are more objects to find, all of which can be used when you log on to a terminal. Platform symbols will reset the positions of platforms in any chamber, while horizontal platform symbols wilt move floor segments left or right. Electric plugs temporarily deactivate robots, while light bulbs turn on the lights in a darkened room, time bombs blow open safes, and mines blow holes in floors (and robots).

Passcode numbers are essential for getting into separate towers; the eventual aim is to locate all of Atombender's safes, blow them open, and take musical codes which have to be assembled into a complete tune in the master control room.

Sounds complicated? - it is. But it you couldn't get enough of IM 1, IM 2 will satisfy even the most demanding superspy.

The best aspect of the original game was the truly hoopy animation as your agent cartwheels through the air avoiding the robots. The quality of the animation in IM2 is equally good, but this might not make such a spectacular impression as it did a couple of years ago.

Concentrate instead on the depth of gameplay and the joystick-wrenching challenges as each chamber becomes more fiendish than the next.

Don't miss out on this one, or you'll self-destruct in ten seconds.

Label: Kixx Price: £2.99 Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

Choose to accept this mission if you think you're up to it.