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After slaving away for the last five years in no less than four games (including a spell in prison and a long period on the run from the law), Monty Mole is understandably exhausted. All the more reason to enjoy his exile on the sunny Greek island of Montos, following his last 8-bit excursion in Auf Wiedersehen Monty.

But it's an exile about to be brought to a sudden and unexpected conclusion.

With a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning, Monty is beamed aboard an alien spacecraft where he's given a mission of the utmost urgency and a handful of super-powers with which to carry it out.

Monty's objective is simple enough in theory, but more than just a little difficult in practice. Armed with his new-found superpowers, the renegade rodent battles through a series of five alien worlds to destroy the Evil Guardians. It's a running 'n jumping 'n shooting match to the death.

And a mole's gotta do what a mole's gotta do...

With Rick Dangerous, Switchblade and Axel's Magic Hammer under its collective belt, Core Design's reputation on the platform scene is unmatched. Unfortunately (and quite strangely), Impossamole doesn't quite live up to this reputation. Impossamole looks and feels like a cross between Rick and Switchblade, and even though the latter seems to be the greater influence, the result falls firmly between the two stools.

The emphasis is placed more firmly on kicking and blasting adversaries rather than finding clever ways to avoid them, which means there's less demand for skill and more for a fast button finger.

This would have been bearable if the kicking and blasting was particularly extensive, but seeing as the enemies are so hard, the death toll is quite limited. The different levels and multitude of characters provide some variety, and Benn Daglish's hip-hop remix of Rob Hubbard's original Monty On The Run score serves to create the traditional Monty atmosphere, but, at the end of the day, Impossamole's too tough and repetitive.

Only the die-hard platform aficionado is going to get much out of this one - and even then it's going to take more than a fair share of patience.

Apart from coming on two disks, Atari Impossamole is identical to its Commodore counterpart.

Gremlin has plans for an IBM-compatible Impossamole, but a release date is yet to be set. That said, something should surface before the year is out.

A big bad Boss appears only at the end of a level. Expect to do battle with a giant mole-eating worm, a fire-breathing dragon, and even a huge ice-cream cone!

Choose your passage... Four of the five worlds awaiting Monty can be played in any order. However, the Bermuda Triangle can only be attempted when the first four are conquered.

The five worlds each house a hidden shop. Here, any coins collected can be traded for energy-giving worm cans, weapons and power-up cans.

Monty's fundamental mode of defence is a kick, but weapons dotted around the playfield provide extra killing power. The bazooka, pop-gun and even Monty's kick are souped-up to three times their original strength by collecting soup (!) cans.