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Well, I have to admit that this feathered megastar was a completely unknown entity to me. He's obviously on telly while I'm hard at work on this wretched... er... I mean wicked magazine.

Anyway, on with the story: duck-thing Edd is in the bowels of the BBC studios and wants to make his way 'to the top', as these showbiz celebs say. To reach the top of the building Edd has to waddle and jump his way through nine episodes (levels), spread over the three departments (stages) of Weather, Special Effects and Children's TV.

Surprisingly, these departments bear absolutely no resemblance to those of the real BBC building, being brightly coloured, extremely tall and bedecked with platforms. Not only that, but they're populated, not with Terry 'boring' Wogans or Noel 'Noel' Edmondses but with floating be-spectacled fish, bouncing teddy bears and the large hand of Wilson the Butler (never heard of him, either). More like Edd the hallucinating waterfowl if you ask me...

You continue with your quest, guiding Edd up through each scene, collecting all twenty stars en route and trying to avoid contact with the deadly creatures. One touch ruins the 'shot' (you die) and means you have to use another of your four 'takes' (lives). This is followed by a jaunty ditty celebrating your recent demise, which gets on your wick after a short time. Thankfully, your feathered friend is armed with a Snowball Shooter, which is used to freeze opponents, allowing you to leap past unharmed. Collect the 20th and final star and Edd reappears at the bottom of the next level. Sorry, episode.

Gameplay is extremely tight and very unforgiving. Edd can only jump at one angle and distance, 5o you can't do little jumps or changes of direction in mid-leap should you find yourself heading for trouble, This is really frustrating when things heat up - which they do quite quickly!

Edd The Duck is... all right. It lacks that special something which would set it apart from any other platform games, for better or worse.

1. Restrictive control method leads to severe frustration in tight spots.
2. Lack of varied gameplay reduces the lasting interest.
3. Limited number of levels is compensated by overly high difficulty.
4. Annoying restart jingle grows extremely tiresome after a while.

1. Very pretty background graphics with plenty of detail and colour.
2. Superb hi-res sprites - nice lookers and movers.
3. Arcade-style gameplay is very challenging and can grow very addictive!
4. Vicious level layouts really test the old reactions.
5. Lovely tinkly spot effects and catchy intro tune.