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He's mean, he's green, he's part machine. Right. I'm tall, I'm fat, I don't play tat. Quite frankly, its going to take a lot more than a jumped-up cyberfish to impress me as far as a final mark is concerned. If this is just another cutesy platformer, I have to have serious words with a few friends of mine in some very dark corners of some very rough pubs, mentioning words like 'kill', 'the' and 'programmer'. I think it's time to road test the fish that never sleeps.

When they say "Robocod", they aren't kidding - this is one seriously re-built fish, and most of it'd get stuck quite horribly in your throat, only shifting after quite a few cans of WD40. So our robotic fish, as well as being able to walk on his fins, can leap tall buildings (well, piles of marshmallows, anyway) in a single bound, move along rafters using only his hands, and utilise his robotic telescopic extending waist to grab hold of high things. This is a fish to be reckoned with. One little-known fact is that James Pond is also a professor of Wok Studies, as well as a post-graduate studying the turnip in Vegetable Studies.

Technically, there's absolutely nothing in Robocod to disappoint you - smooth scrolling, an easy control system, good collision detection, fluid movement, and a pretty foolproof multi-loading system. Artistically, the graphics are clear (with only a very slight tasteless colour match occasionally), the sound effects are complementary rather than imposing, and the map design is clever, explorable, and solvable (I can definitely say that 'lost' is not a word you'll find yourself using during the game). [Although you might use the lovely word poo - Hutch]

The big question then is - is it any fun? When you first load it up, this really does look like one of those games that's all very cute and playable, but really incredibly boring. You know the sort, where all the levels are the same and you end up falling asleep. In actual fact, it came pretty close - there are times when you'll meet a difficult obstacle that you managed to pass first time round, but proves to be a complete pig on the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh attempt, and there'll be absolutely nothing between your angry finger and the power switch. It looks like the realise this though, as there seems to be a reward for persevering - at the end of each section, there's something new to 'try out' and relieve the boredom, such as an aeroplane, a pair of wings, or a small picket fence, enabling you to see bits of the game you didn't manage to glimpse the first time round.

Robocod has one basic flaw, being that it's a relatively easy game with one irritatingly difficult jump or a difficult piece of timing per level. This mismatch of difficulty is irritating - the programmers are going to make things really easy for me then they can feel absolutely free to, but if they're going to start irritating me by hiding a tarantula in the middle of my candyfloss, I'd much rather be at home with my feet up than at the fair.

It's definitely cute, then, and slightly wacky to boot. That doesn't make it good, though. In fact, games that rely on features like this usually manage to plunge even further down the rating scale. Robocod is a good game. There's not much in there you won't have seen before, and there won't be anything in there to keep you playing for centuries to come, but you will have fun, and you'll probably derive some pleasure from a cyberfish with an infinitely expanding waistline. The gameplay does have faults, though.

1. It's a lovely little game.
2. With lots of nice bits.

1. If I ever get my hands on the programmer, I'll kill him.