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No doubt bored with the new breed of bland and gray politicians, the Spittng Image team created the puppets for this kids' TV show. In the game, these latex animal journos (what other type is there?) much search the sewers for the pages of their latest comic and the parts of the video printing press, accidentally blown up by Doc Croc.

Starting in the editorial office, you can switch between the four characters and choose which of four sewers to explore. Within an overall time limit, each character must collect three pages, which cannot be taken by any of the others.

And how do you reclaim the missing items? It is via some new and exciting game routine? No such luck - Round The Bend is just another platform game. Here the inevitable hazards include (and I quote), 'bats, cans, ninja teddies and various other things normally associated with sewers'. Well if that's what Zeppelin associate with sewers, I'm glad I don't have to clean their toilets!

Back to the game. As you spend the entire time jumping around and avoiding those strangely chosen hazards, you will be pleased to hear that the spine masking is generally very good, though a little dodgy near the characters' feet - take care when jumping. Also, there is no death sequence - you are just sent back to the offfice, wasting valuable time.

Gameplay is fast and exciting, but more than a little frustrating, especially when a bat flies towards you at breakneck speed, leaving you no time to react whatsoever. Eventually you will learn to time your jumps between bats, but the frustration level is high.

Once collected, the comic pages are sent to press via a short sub-game, with a different one for each page. Again, the gameplay is nothing new. All the sub-games we're found consist of running around and avoiding things. Their difficulty ranges from fairly straightforward to damn-near impossible.

In short, Round The Bend is technically competent and has some nice touches, but it's all been done before and would've looked more at home on Zeppelin's budget line-up.

Presentation 78%
Single load, instructions could be more comprehensive.

Graphics 85%
Well-drawn sprites and polished animation make the game very visually attractive.

Sound 51%
Unremarkable title tune and sparse FX.

Hookability 45%
Too frustrating.

Lastability 50%
Very repetitive after a while.

Overall 52%
What's there isn't bad, but it's been done too many times before.