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Mr. Puniverse is Mastertronic's answer to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Mr. Puniverse is the weediest, most pathetic example (and hence leader) of a new breed of men - wimps! - whose destiny is to have sand kicked in their faces. Mr. Puniverse is so weak and undernourished he must spend all his time in search of the vitamin pills which keep him alive, barely.

Design wise, Mr. Puniverse is similar to Gremlin's Monty On The Run. By which I mean no more than that it's a platform game and a very good one at that. Mr. P must work his way around the 25 screens and pick up his life-restoring pills from each one.

What makes it more of a challenge than your average platform pastime is that a certain amount of thought is required to retrieve the pills from the less accessible locations.

Laser beams make certain routes impassable, but can be switched off if you find the right lever. The problem is that switching off the beams allows the cannon to fire missiles at you. A few well calculated decisions have to be made as to which obstacle will be the easiest to overcome.

Sometimes it's simply a case of near impenetrable defences, like the room of half a dozen pulverisers. Pulverisers are like huge steel pillars which descend on you from a great height, it's a good idea not to be standing underneath them when they do.

In this room you have to run underneath the lot of them whilst at the same time jumping over the missiles fired from a cannon at the far end. This is difficult, but not impossible. I did it. Getting back out on the other hand is a different question.

There are a few things about the game I don't like. If you're not carefully, you can fall into dead ends which are impossible to jump out of. When this happened for the first time, I concluded that the only thing to be done was turn the machine off and reload.

Then, using the 'press everything in desperation technique' I discovered that the D key causes you to commit punicide. Considering you have eight lives a minor price to pay really.

Much more annoying was when I headed blindly into a new screen straight under a pulveriser. That I could take, but watching my remaining seven Puniverses suffer the same grizzly fate without being able to do anything about it was just too much.

That aside, Mr. Puniverse is an excellent game and well worth the usual two quid price tag.