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That contemptible bounder, Count Chameleon, master of disguise and enemy of the establishment, has developed the dastardly Rubbertronic Ray, in his latest attack on the moral fibre of the Empire.

The ray drastically alters the characters of rubber and worst of all, causes cricket balls to behave in an uncontrollable way. The bouncer must be stopped at all costs...

Cue Viscount Sebastian Stifflip and his cronies; Professor Braindeath, Colonel R G Bargie and Miss Palmyra Primbottom.

Armed only with a stiff upper lip, the fearless four set forth to the darkest corners of South America to deal with the Count.

Stifflip And Co. comes courtesy of Palace Software, and has been programmed by the same team that brought you Zoids and the superb icon-driven game The Fourth Protocol.

Stifflip And Co. follows the trials of each member of the party individually, switching from one character to another as required, the new character appearing on-screen in the lower of the two comic-strip like boxes.

All commands are again icon/menu driven and although convenient, the long lists of selections tend to be slightly confusing and laborious to use. There are six main icons, covering Movement, Conversation, Combat, Actions and Manipulation of Objects. This does in fact tend to limit the choice of action and some of the solutions to problems are hinted at by the commands available. A word of warning though... these should never be taken for granted.

Moving from one location to another results in a few suitably South American scene appearing in the lower of the two panels, and the previous scene is shunted to the top. The graphics are of a very high standard, helping to capture an atmosphere that could otherwise only be text created.

Defeating the Count involves solving a multitude of rather obscure puzzles, using the four characters in conjunction with one another. It also involves some arcade action in controlling the combat between our heroes and the filthy Peruvian wallahs.

Stifflip And Co. certainly doesn't proffer any clues to the final solution and more or less leaves the player to his own devices. This may appeal more to the seasoned adventurer; I found it to be quite a feat to solve some of the later puzzles.

The game comes in two parts, loaded separately from either side of the cassette. Completing the first releases a code which is then entered on request, allowing the second stage to be played.