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In case you thought Asterix was something you had out in hospital, here's the lowdown on those two garlic (sorry Gallic) geezers, Asterix and Obelix. They're the scourge of a Roman army that has notched up Gaul (France to you) in their world domination programme, but can't subdue one tiny Gallic village - we're talking 50 BC here.

Asterix looks like a wimp, but he's a real hard case due to the magic potion brewed for him by Getafix the village druid. Obelix is his big-bellied sidekick who eats too much wild boar (pork chops to you). Together, they make life hell for the Romans occupying the hour camps around them, which is easy since most of them are pretty quick.

Thankfully, Melbourne House has remained reasonably faithful to the original ideas and characters. You control Asterix in his search for the seven pieces of Getafix's homebrew kit - his Magic Cauldron. Why pieces? Because that lumbering oaf Obelix has kicked it over and smashed it. Without it, Getafix can make no more of his magic elixir - and Asterix will have to make do with Sanatogen.

Wandering around the game's many locations looking for bits of cauldron sounds pretty boring so the programmers have added spice in the shape of a Fight More. Whenever you bump into a Roman soldier or a boar, a window opens up in the screen containing the two enlarged characters. You then thrash it out using the joystick to kick and punch.

Asterix has only five lives but he can acquire superhuman strength with the magic potion he carries. There's only enough for one slug, though, and that's his lot for the rest of the game. Both Obelix and himself frequently get hungry and need to eat hams to keep up their strength. Asterix gets these by killing wild boar, but he can carry only up to five. Without hams, Obelix will no longer follow him. That's not such a bad deal since he does nothing anyway (even his trousers are the wrong colour).

The game lets you explore its locations pretty well unhindered. You don't need to fight, you can always run away. And the game's 'terrain' looks to be pretty large. There's the village, a forest, three Roman camps (Asterix buffs will note that there should be four) and Rome itself.

Graphics are bold and colourful and animation of the two protagonists is reasonable though not brilliant. But the game suffers badly from the dreaded 'screen delay'. Instead of scrolling smoothly, each successive screen has to draw itself. On top of that, you don't return to the same screen by going back the way you came. Despite that, you do eventually get an idea of where everything is - and the bits of cauldron are always in the same locations.

But picking up bits are the least of your worries. Wander out of the safety of the village and the place is crawling with Roman soldiers. Make your way into their camps and they swarm at you like bees. I did a swift death in Camp Compendium, managed to escape Camp Aquarium only to find it led into Camp Totorum - another Custer's last stand. A little tip, there's a cauldron piece in Camp Aquarium.

You can, of course, surrender (gulp), and get yourself marched off to the camp dungeon. Funnily enough, there's a ham in there which you can eat to make ready for the obligatory fight in the arena with a maniac gladiator - and this man really moves. I don't know what happens if you win, he just mowed me down!

If you were smart enough to pick up the key lying around in the map, you simply open the dungeon door and fight your way past the guards to safety - a swig of potion helps here.

In case you think this is good fun, you'd better read on. As I've already said, the way in which each successive screen has to draw itself becomes tedious. And many of the locations look too siilar - the village, the various Roman camps. Admittedly, the whole game resides in memory but this repetition lessens your enjoyment. Maybe less scenes but more variety would have been a smarter idea?

As for the Fight Mode, this is a travesty of graphic animation. At first, I thought my telly tube had gone, the characters are so long and squashed. Fighting itself is pretty restrictive with only one punch, one kick and a duck to offer. You're right, Melbourne House did give us Exploding Fist.

With all these drawbacks, Asterix just doesn't make it as a classy game. Graphics are colourful and the music is good but we're let down again by rotten gameplay and a painfully slow way of moving around the screens. On top of that, they didn't even include my favourite character, Unhygenix the fishmonger. By Toutatis - as they say.