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Franky, old Prof Frankenstein was not very good at creating life. His results were always crude, lumbering and about as likely to play a decent game of poker as a bowl of Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes. But at least he tried. And this game stands as a tribute to his effort. And what a fitting tribute it is - it's crude, lumbering and about as much fun as playing poker with a zombie.

It starts off well, with an amusing little intro sequence that explains the plot. You are Prof Frankenstein's dim-witted assistant Igor. The Prof is knocking up another monster but is lacking a few parts. So he sends you out to collect a few items: dead bodies, scrolls, and other arcane bits and bobs. He boots you out of his lab and tells you not to come back empty-handed.

You spend the rest of the game wandering around a moderately large playing area (it's about the size of one level in Hagar The Horrible) dodging nasties - ghosts, serpents, bouncing eyeballs, etc - and looking for the things the Prof wants you to collect. The only controls you have are joystick left and right to move sideways, joystick down to pick things up and fire to jump. Yes, that does mean you can't kill anything! Boo!

Basically, it's a platform puzzler in which you have to work out how to get the bodies back to the Prof before dying of fright. You see, as opposed to having an energy level that drains away, you have a fear quotient that builds when you run into nasties. If it builds too high you lose a life. And that's about it. Sure, when you first play, you have to work out how to get back to the lab, which provides some enticement to carry on, but with only one level it becomes very tedious very rapidy. You keep encountering the same situations over and over again. When you've worked out how to get past a problem once, having to get past it umpteen more times - which you will have to do as you can only carry one body at a time - is downright annoying.

The controls are also very muddy. For some odd reason you can't walk up stairs. If you try, you fall off. Instead you have to jump up them, and if you accidentally land with the joystick pushed to one side you fall through. Even trying to change direction a bit rapidly confuses the poor old game.

The graphics are serviceable, there are some nice touches of visual humour and occasionally a puzzle is ingenious enough to be worth working out. But, overall, the game offers so little variety and is so sluggish you'll give up after a few minutes. Which is a shame as you'll never get to see the monster! What a swiz!

1. Nice line in visual humour.
2. The intro animation sequence is entertaining.
3. Plenty of lives mean that you don't have to keep starting all over again.

1. There's only one level and that's not particularly large.
2. The controls are not very logical and at times very tricky to master.
3. The monster only makes a very fleeting appearance.
4. The graphics are pretty dull.
5. The puzzles are not ingenious enough to make you want to work them out, they're just difficult because the controls are so bad.
6. No sense of progression.
7. Best played with the sound off.