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Apparently, this game is an 'animated graphic adventure'. In other words, an arcade game. Sim doesn't need any overblown phrases because it's an excellent game.

You control our hero, Hercules K Orangebottom, in Jet Pac fashion using only the keyboard, though you are allowed to choose your own control keys at the start.

One of the first things you'll notice is the jolly jaunty singalong a-BBC-tune, though after 20 minutes or so I was praying for a Music off option. The first scene looks deceptively idyllic, with Hercules on the ground, a bright blue sky marked only by a couple of clouds floating by, and even a smiling sun.

Then you realise the sun's suddenly locked in on you, so you'd better move fast! Move off the screen to the left to enter the adjacent one from the right, and here are more clouds and another sun buzzing in your direction, but also a tunnel leading down. Sadly the tunnel is guarded by a rabbit.

As well as the ten Simarils you have to collect there are other objects scattered around the interconnecting screens, so let's hope for a carrot.

Zipping up and right there's another tunnel entrance, but a door in it closes as soon as you enter the screen, so descend to the screen eblow and here another tunnel starts, guarded only by a slowly moving meanie. In we nip, under the meanie in the next screen, and reach a larger cavern, populated by two bouncing meanies and a Channel 4 symbol ricocheting around.

Get through to the right and eureka, our first Simaril, though I've found no way of getting it without sacrificing one of my three lives to the lightning bolt that zig-zags after you when you enter. Nor can I weave my way past the three flitting objects in the screen below the Channel 4 room. After one hour I hada single Simaril and nowhere to put it.

Apart from the relentless music, the game's great fun, and in some ways is like an adventure, coaxing you a little bit further along with each play. Collision detection could be better, but at least it teaches you to keep well out of the way of the nasties - and I haven't even come across the starfish, the radioactive seaweed or the carrot yet. I'd rate Sim about 17-carat. Not quite top notch but almost.