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Deep under the misty mountain, the dragon stirred. It stretched its golden wings and extended its talons. The bones of the slain crunched underneath. Then it put on some hi-tops, shades and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and grooved on down...

Have you noticed how various software companies have started to make games with trendy and hip 90s plots in them? Gone are the days when all you needed was a pack of ghosts, a man with a set of shuriken or some Russians who needed shooting.

No, nowadays you have to put up with the sort of plot we've got here; you see, DJ Puff is abit of a 1990s-style raver, apparently. He's got a massive collection of CDs, all with totally techno funkatronic, groovesome, laid-back tracks on them.

But these are sad times, and the Puff has fallen foul of the Rave Police. What's happened is that the head of the cops, a rather heavy-handed gorilla called Captain Krips, has decided that nobody should be having a good time. So he's confiscated our little DJ's CD collection.

At this point, you may decide that the police taking away a load of weird dancey CDs off a small but dangerous dragon is rather a good thing. If so, you're probably too old or untrendy to appreciate the subtlety of it all. But you have to give the Codies full marks for coming up with a 'modern' plot for one of their releases.

Anyway, I'll move swiftly on. Puff must wander around an impressively large platform game, zapping any baddies who obstruct him. There are two major ways in which he can do this. Being a dragon, he can breathe little twirly thunderbolts at people. It's a long-range weapon, this, and the good news is that Puff has an endless supply of them. But in order to kill something, you've got to hit it several times with the thunderbolts.

This is where the bombs and flaming mouth-torches come in rather handy. As you go around collecting stuff, you get bombs which you can throw at baddies. The range isn't too impressive, but they'll blow up whatever they land on or next to.

The flaming mouth-torch things are the more traditional weapon you'd expect a dragon to use. Puff can collect a store of what can only be described as inflammable gas. By pulling down on the joystick, you can get him to blast a sheet of flame from his mouth. It instantly incinerates anything in its path (except the stuff that you'd really like to incinerate, like walls and major obstacles).

Like most platform games, the path you're supposed to take through DJ Puff's Volcanic Caper is fairly straightforward. There are a number of frustrating dead-ends, though, and some of these contain seriously useful firepower bonuses and occasionally even one of the CDs that Puff is trying to get back. So you can't afford not to explore the whole thing thoroughly.

Reflective Designs, the bods responsible for this little gem, seem to have hit upon a completely nasty way of getting you to lose a great many lives. At various places in the game, there are very tight vertical shafts which have mini-platforms on them. These are all patrolled by baddies who spew out explosives in a nasty random fashion. This is extremely unpleasant, to say the least. Getting past them is an incredibly risky feat. It can take several minutes of pondering as well as nerves of steel, as you try and share the platforms with the baddies for that briefest of seconds, before blowing them to bits with whatever weapon you set off first in your panic to hit the fire button.

Fiendish stuff. It's a relief to know that the collision detection is pretty spot on in DJ Puff. The platforms are also arranged so that you can tweak Puff that extra pixel further and hang his toes in space before making those vital long-range jumps.

And as you'd expect, there are loads of hidden platforms, secret bits and invisible collectables to stumble over.

Of course, you're ultimately heading for an earth-shattering show-down with Captain Krips (the gorilla with the bad attitude, remember), so there's a definite aim as well (and he is most assuredly going to be one real mean end-of-level bad guy).

Yes, DJ Puff's Volcanic Caper is really jolly good. It takes cuteness into new realms. The characters are as good as anything you'll see on the C64. They're smooth, clear and very nicely done. Puff flaps his stubby wings in a touching attempt to fly over the gaps, and his little eyes blink whenever he's confronted by a particularly tough section. It's enough to make you break down and blub [Especially if you're a girl! - Roger].

There are loads of platform games around at the moment. So if one is going to stand out from the rest of the crowd, it's going to have to be pretty good, right? Well DJ Puff is certainly noticeable. It's a lot of fun, in the same vein as Nobby The Aardvark and Hudson Hawk (with big sprites, tons of colour and plenty of cartoony action). Great stuff, and the more games like DJ Puff the merrier, say I.

1. Some bits are incredibly tricky.
2. And you might have had your fill of platform games, no matter how good.

1. Cute graphics make DJ Puff a great game to watch.
2. It's big and there's no time limit so you can plan, map and plot your way to your heart's content.
3. Every time you get a bit further, there's something new and different to deal with.
4. Three sorts of weapon give DJ Puff variety.
5. It's fast, smooth and Puff is easily controllable and has a nice feel.
6. Plenty of baddies, all very well drawn, and with excellent collision detection.