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I like a bit of fishing, so playing a fishy secret agent out to foil evil fishermen like myself provides an interesting bit of role reversal. James Pond, the prequel to this year's ultra-successful Robocod, is the first adventure of Amigadom's premier fishy secret agent and as such probably isn't much of a mystery to anyone - check out this month's Amiga Universe if you're completely clueless.

That being the case I'll just give the briefest of plot basics before we get onto how good it is: James Pond is an underwater agent on a series of missions to save innocent see creatures from nasty lobster fishermen, evil oil companies and the like. See, told you it'd be brief.

And how good is it? Well, in a word, very. It's certainly colourful and cute and packed with character. This is very much an 8-bit console type of game, which isn't to knock it at all. Scrolling, graphics and so on may not be up to Psygnosis standards, but that's hardly the point - funny (if groanworthy) and inventive details, an abundance of sub-levels (arf, arf), appealing characters and well-structured collect-objects-shoot-baddies-and-free-captured-creatures gameplay is the order of the day here, and makes for a very appealing £8-worth.

In fact, my only problem with it would be that much of it is perhaps a tad too easy for most of us - though in its defence it's probably just aimed at the younger gameplayer, in the first level you are set the task of setting free trapped lobsters before wicked divers take them to the surface or hostile sea-creatures kill you, and while most experienced games players will breeze through it, they'll have fun while they do so.

Later sections get tougher, but this isn't the sort of game you're ever likely to get completely stuck on - as the game progresses missions tend to become longer rather than more intense.

Still, it's a joy to play, and eight squid (sorry) is a mere drop in the ocean as far as good games are concerned, after all. Even after I've finished every level, it's a game I'll come back to again and again.

Colourful, ingenious, humorous, easy to play - Pond is a lorra laffs, and even in a month of great budget re-releases a clear stand-out game. If we have to give it a grade, it would certainly be well above 'C' level.