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Demonware come out of hibernation to bring you a game where a drill is the same as doing it for real, space is there to be squeezed through and cartoon nasties give you the creeps. Our reviewer dons hard hat and cries, "Make miner lode ore else!"

Okay, so hands up all of you out there who remember Lode Runner. Originally an Apple game by Broderbund released on the C64 by Software Projects, it was an original and hugely addictive platforms-and-ladders game in which you controlled a little stick man who ran around stealing gold from the evil Bungeling Empire.

Of course, there were lots of nasty baddies out to stop you, but you could always stop them in their tracks by digging traps with your laser drill for them to fall into. The drill was a vital piece of equipment in other ways too, as some of the gold you needed was buried deep in the brickwork of each screen, and a path to it had to be drilled before you could collect the stuff. It wasn't quite as simple as that, though, as a short time after you drilled through a brick, the brick would reform itself in the original space. This was frightening and frequently left you trapped in a corner or - even worse - bricked up and dead. "So far, so absolutely fascinating," I hear you all cry, "but what the hell's this nostalgic ramble passing for a game review got to do with PP Hammer, then?"

Well, I'm glad you asked, because the fact of the matter is that, in these days of Volfied, Smash TV and Super Space Invaders, what PP Hammer is, is essentially Lode Runner '91. The platforms-and-ladders set-up is the same, the gold-collecting is the same, the digging with the laser dill (all right, if you insist, 'pneumatic weapon') and delayed rebuilding of the bricks is the same, but everything's been given a spanky new up-to-date look.

The single-screen levels of the original have been replaced by huge multi-directional scrolling mazes, lots of power-ups, collectables and little extra features have been added, and the red-and-white bricks 'n sticks graphics of Lode Runner have given way to, er, more bricks but in lots of different colours. Ahem.

The biggest difference, though, is that all those horrid Bungeling bad guys have waved bye-bye. There are enemies in PP Hammer, but they're largely incidental to the action. Most of the obstacles to your progress through the levels are inanimate - walls, bricks and locked trapdoors have to be scaled, blasted or uniocked, while pits of fire, pools of water and spikes on springs must simply be avoided at all costs. Most of the 'combative' action of Lode Runner has gone, leaving us with something that's almost purely puzzle-orientated.

As puzzle games go, PP Hammer is a strange one. The size of the mazes means that you can only see a very small part of a level at a time, making it next to impossible to plan a strategy. What you have to do much of the time is take a stab in the dark, get it wrong, die, go back and take another guess and, when you get it right, commit the correct move to memory. Matters aren't helped by the fact that the vertical scrolling is rather reluctant to come into operation until PP gets very close to the edge of the screen, giving you very little advance warning of what you're going to come up against. Indeed, in some ways it's distinctly reminiscent of Rick Dangerous, a game which I hated for the unfair way it made things difficult for you.

PP Hammer doesn't suffer nearly as badly but then it's not supposed to be a platform game in the same sense at all, so when a hidden spike suddenly does leap out without warning and puncture your ass, it's even more annoying. This kind of thing has no place in a puzzle game. It's as simple as that. Much the same can be said for the invisible floors and invisible teleport traps you encounter in later levels.

Still, it's not all bad by any means. PP Hammer gives you a password after every screen, which means that you can sit down and play it for an hour or two, get a password, and come back to the game the next day, week, month or whatever, and not have to hack through the same old levels again. In this way, the game will last you for quite some time, and the small doses should ensure you never get too bored with the otherwise tediously repetitive gameplay. Tape users will also be pleased to hear that, while it is a multiload, PP Hammer uses an 'intelligent' loading system which automatically winds the tape to the correct spot, sparing you all that unbearable hanging around you're often expected to suffer.

Generally speaking, this is a quite acceptable little game as long as you don't try and play it to death in the first couple of days. Do that, and you'll be so fed up by lunchtime on day two that you'll probably never see level eight.

1. An easy game to get into
2. There's a fair helping of cute graphics and animation.
3. Get down, as they say, in some huge mazes.
4. Lots of them, in fact!
5. Password system ensures lasting appeal.
6. Time limits don't really intrude on play.
7. PP has got character
8. Intelligent loading system to keep tape users happy.

1. Crap music and sound.
2. Too much guesswork!
3. Level design gets very bland.
4. Too easy to be addictive.
5. Classic design spoiled by unnecessary features.