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SF people out there might remember a short story by Norman Spinrad called Carcinoma Angels, in which one Harvey Wintergreen (aided and abetted by a 99 per cent illicit cocktail of chemicals) went inside his own body to do battle with a terminal cancer. Nice trick if you can do it, and Bactron is here to show you how.

Bactron is a small yellow bipedal blob that has been wandering about your body since you first shuffled on to this mortal coil.

A sort of chemical - I think - it has to activate all the healing enzymes that lie scattered in the deepest recesses of your corporal essence.

Out to get him are a pretty sordid array of microscopic mobsters. Names like Mac the macrophage, Steffie the staphylococcus, Dot and Spek should tip you the wink that the guiding about of wee Bactron is going to be no pharmacological picnic.

Being well versed in the ways of computer games and the rules that pervade them all, you might expect your lowly Bactron to have a little bit in the way of zap to protect itself.

Funnily enough, it doesn't. The only weapon - apart from its legs to flee with - that the thing has is its breath which stops some of the bacterial baddies in their tracks. (mine's a bit like that first thing in the morning).

But one puff knocks a little off its energy and brushes with the marauding microbes do the jouleoineter no good at all.

Your body the battlefield is depicted in a fairly standard isometric (pseudo3D) format, but with striking use of colour.

The aforementioned baddies are distinguishable, but there's no key to match the names to the faces. If they had faces, of course, which they don't.

The nastiest kind are a cross between a floating green spider and a skull. These move rapidly and are unaffected by Bactron's icy breath. They tend to travel in pairs and are to be avoided at all costs. Then there's the bouncing blobs, Luckily enough, these seem to be completely unaware of your presence and wander about fairly aimlessly.

They're still a bit nasty to get on the wrong side of, but a little joystick juggling can be relied upon to get Bactron out on the way.

The collapsing spirals are a little nastier, as these home in. Bactron's blast does freeze them to the spot for a bit though, so they can be outwitted. Likewise, the cavorting squares-on-sticks (oh for some proper names) tend to have a purposeful aim in their movements but can be stopped temporarily if need be.

Bactron can also push and pull various blocks and towers about the place, but usually in vein. They can be used to trap an evil entity, or reveal hidden doorways between rooms (rooms? But that's what they look like).

During this life or death battle, the patient's health is shown by a thermometer reading and a heart rate monitor. The thermo blows up quite spectacularly if Bactron fails, but there's a nice bit of boogie to sooth the stiff.

And by the way, Harvey Wintergreen beat the cancer. Trouble is, he can't figure out how to get back out of his body...

Isometric games tend to have strange joystick controls. With this one you have to rotate the stick through 90 degrees clockwise (so UP is right) before things make sense. They also tend to be difficult. This one's darn near impossible.

And they tend to need to be mapped. This one does, but you start off from a random position each time, so getting a map started can be tricky.

They also tend to be dull graphically. This one is very pretty indeed, with the best use of Mode 0 that I've seen. Nice animation, too. But nobody said it would be easy.

Bog standard Iso-3D job. Grab the 'stick and wander about a bit. Presentation - superb. Bactron is a cute, ugly bug.

The scenario doesn't quite fit the action but then it must be hard trying to think up another reason for what used to be known as an Ultimate-style game.

Buy this for the graphics alone, there is plenty to do and it's a good mindbender. Boy can the French draw.

Bactron was produced in France by Loriciels and is sold here by Activision. Now Activision software usually comes with more instructions than the average Japanese home barbecue and as often as not they are just as easy to understand.

Bactron offers you two paragraphs of hype and no help. I gave up and let the germs run riot.