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What a corker! In case you thought a doughboy was a junior gingerbread man, let me inform you that the word also refers to a US infantry soldier. In this game, the poor GI has been given the job of rescuing the President, who is being held in a POW camp behind enemy lines.

Certain Presidents you may prefer not to rescue, of course, but unfortunately this one doesn't have a name, so we must give him the benefit of the doubt.

There are six screens of increasing fiendishness, but all of them are beautifully designed and laid out. On the first you must move your scuttling figure across the trenches, collecting the supplies needed for the mission: TNT, fuses, mines, wire cutters and ladders. To avoid incoming rockets (which home-in on you quite viciously) and enemy soldiers, it's a smart idea to hide in the trenches. If you get through, collect a key in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, and move on to the next.

Here there is a system of radar towers overlooking several canals. Since these can easily become your watery grave, you must find your way across not by rubber dinghy but by blowing up the towers (hence the TNT), which always collapse obligingly across the nearest waterway, enabling you to use them as bridges. Before long you realise that you need the fuses here too. Ingenious and amusing use has been made of the fire button to allow the player to lay his TNT and then pay out a length of fuse before lighting it. Failure to get far enough away results in a premature explosion and a nasty headache in the morning for your doughboy.

Screen 3's hazards are marauding tanks, and your objective is to cut holes in the fences and blow up a series of oil silos.

Those tanks really turn nasty in Screen 4, whilst in 5, you must break into the POW camp using your ladders. If by some fluke (or possibly by sheer teeth-gritting persistence) you make it to Screen 6, the President must be hauled out of his jail and guided out of the camp.

Doughboy looks neat and plays logically. It is also by far the most absorbing game I've looked at this month. The joystick-controlled figure is nice 'n chunky and responds smartly to one's frenzied commands. The idea isn't originality itself, but it is good to see it perfected. Hard to find any criticisms, really, so I'll end with a useful tip: try the two-player option when first attempting the game, but without an actual opponent. There is still a certain amount of flak flying about, but far less than normal. It enables you to get the hang of laying those fuses without blowing yourself up the whole time, and to figure out how to use the wire cutters. Great fun!