Basically there's this chap called Axel (no, not Foley), he's got this hammer, and he's on a mission to save his sweetheart Lucy who's held captive in a castle (stop me if you've heard it before). Axel has to hammer his way through eight mystical lands with the ultimate aim of defeating the thoroughly nasty dragon Nilmerg.

Axel's Magic Hammer is a platform game. The hammer is Axel's main weapon and you can use it to either obliterate nasties or hit rocks to reveal coins and power-ups. The best power-up is a flying hammer which you can throw across the screen for longer-range hammering.

Hazards include vipers, bats, skulls, wasps and penguins. The tougher creatures require quite a few hits until they give up the ghost, so it's easy to lose your valuable energy.

There's a multitude of hidden caverns and bonuses littered around the levels. These are usually encountered by accident - when you try to backtrack on yourself, for example. The higher bonuses are usually found at the end of nasty jumps and these often require pixel-perfect positioning. The graphics in Axel's Magic Hammer are cutesy and animation is good, although the joystick control is sluggish at times. The puzzles aren't insurmountable either.

There's nothing particularly new or original in Axel but it could offer some entertainment for younger ST game-players.