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Hewson would need someone like Colonel Oliver North to convince me this wasn't a platform game - and I'd still opt for a Senate enquiry. It's not just the levels, the lifts and the caving-in floors, what really give it away are the - er - platforms.

My fact sheet tells me the programmers got a degree in cybernetics and that in Nebulus he's using something called 'rotational' 3D scrolling and multi-layer parallax scrolling. So platform game it may be, but the graphics would like being pretty neat.

For those of you who need a storyline to get really involved, here's a quick rundown. Someone has been building towers in the sea without planning permission. You're the demolition man from Destructo Inc. sent to pull them all down, one at a time, until you've demolished all eight. Curiously, the tower crumbles automatically as soon as you get to the top. McAlphines should know about this.

In true Hewson style, there's a 100 second time limit for each tower, and a brief fish-catching interlude between levels for grabbing extra points. So now you know, cybernetics is the art of devising incredibly naff game stories.

Each level starts with this Funny Little Creature being deposited from a submaring onto the base of the tower. The FLC looks like a cross between a squirrel and a frog. It's got two legs, a huge eyes, a tail and it crouches forward as it walks. It's brilliantly animated but just that bit too gribbly 'cute' for my liking.

Anyway, the outside of the tower is surrounded by platforms, steps, lifts and windows. You move up by negotiating the platforms and steps, going up sections in the lift and by entering windows which deposit you out of another window a little further up. You only see part of the tower at a time, which scrolls upwards as you go.

Now for the rotational scrolling stuff. Since the tower is round, and you're going round it as you make your way up, the perspective rotates so that you see different sides of the tower as you go. This is all very impressive, if not a little weird.

Now for the nasties, apart from dodgy platforms and slippery steps that make you fall down a bit (Sometimes as far as the bottom), there are bouncing balls to zap and various flying things that you can't zap. Bump into any of these and you tumble down a few sections. Only the coloured balls are zappable, the silver ones are just temporarily stunned.

On top of that, each level has its own peculiar nasty. The first, Tower of Eyes, has (you guessed it) eyes that float up and down. They'll knock you off too. Then there's the Realm of the Robots, etc, etc.

I suppose you're waiting to hear about multi-layer parallax scrolling. You get this in the interval scene which finds you in the submarine zapping fish for bonus points. This amounts to nothing more than the background scrolling more slowly than the foreground. Bit disappointing, really.

What's good about Nebulus? The scrolling graphics are pretty special, as are the sound effects and the animation of the FLC. A nice touch is the FLC's rear end getting smaller as it enters a window. The sound of padding feet is also well done, and it changes slightly when the FLC is inside the tower.

What's bad about it? The problem is that there's only one way to the top, and the obstacles and nasties are always the same - there's nothing random. So it's just a matter of learning the correct route and what nasties to avoid and blast at each stage. The tower is supposed to crumble when you get to the top. I was expecting a Walls of Jericho job. What actually happens makes you wonder whether climbing up was worth the effort - I'm not telling so as not to spoil it for you.

I liked Nebulus because it's got classy graphics and animation, but the gameplay just isn't sufficiently challenging to sustain interest. Being simply very difficult is not good enough. Once you know what happens when you get to the top, you might as well give up because the succeeding levels really aren't that much different - a flawed masterpiece.