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A long time ago, in a galaxy just over the road, an alien and his family were on holiday. Then disaster struck! The kids got separated from their dad, and wandered off round a rather pathetic planet filled with crumbling ancient buildings and diesel fumes.

You guessed it - Earth is that weedy planet. But before you start getting completely terrified at the idea of aliens attacking, settle down, take a sip of hot, milky tea and get this - Bod is completely harmless. He isn't planning to invade at all. So he hasn't brought any weapons. In fact, the worst he can do is jump on people, which, to the jumpee, feels like someone dropping a large marshmallow on you.

Anyway, you must control Bod as he looks for the mini-Bods, who have stupidly got themselves into the worst positions on each level. Well, I suppose it's not stupid at all really. I mean, if they were close to the beginning it wouldn't be much of a game, would it?

Because Bod is an alien, he's got the ability to travel through time. As everybody knows, all aliens have this power. Some just don't choose to use it that's all. Anyway, the three time zones that Bod visits are handy in that they make up the three huge levels of the game.

To make things more fun, I'll go through them in no particular order. There's the Eighteenth Century Castle. I'll save time in describing this by asking you to think about any National Trust stately home or castle your parents might have dragged you round on a miserable, overcast day last summer. A drawbridge, the odd suit of armour, a few big staircases and a crowd of excited French kids, all with fluorescent rucksacks - does this sound familiar? Well, you'll find it all in The Bod Squad (except for the French kids, who Zeppelin have carefully avoided including).

And, of course, there are plenty of platforms. What would a platform game be without platforms? Pretty darn boring, that's what. Anyway, Bod not only has the ability to jump large distances from platform to platform, but he can also do a super-jump, which gets him across unfeasibly large gaps. To carry it out, all you have to do is simply pull down on the joystick before you push up. Simple and effective.

What's more, if you're thorough you can help Bod find various useful devices to get him around the levels more painlessly. Best is the beanie. For those not trendy enough to know, a beanie is a baseball cap with a propeller on the top. In the game, this propeller allows Bod to float up and down the screens with ease, forgetting about platforms, nasties and anything else. Trouble is, the beanie propeller only lasts for thirty seconds, so you really can't afford to waste it.

Right. Where was I? Yes, another level is set in Ancient Egypt. Bod must search those yellow pointy things in the desert [Pyramids - Ed]. He must contend with mummies, ancient Egyptian goddesses and, like the other levels, some rather nasty platforms.

Finally, there's a Victorian Haunted House. It's packed with ghosts, ghouls and other scary things that begin with 'g'. Granadas, possibly. Being the last level, it's bigger and tougher than the others, as you'd expect, and has more of those hard-to-reach switches.

The switches are found dotted around over each level. You wander along and activate them, and they do all sorts of weird and rather useful things, such as opening up floors, walls and ceilings. This has got to be done, but some of the switches have to be reset if you want to get back. Very puzzlesome, indeed, and it's worth making a mental note of all the switches that you have tampered with, otherwise you'll get stuck.

The Bod Squad is a very neat game, it's got to be said. It has marvellous animation and rather spiffy gameplay. The levels are big and taxing, too. True, you might not be amazingly enthralled because it's yet another cutesy (and we've seen a lot of those recently?), but you can't deny that it oozes quality. For the measly sum of 3.99 (unless you're Roger) you're getting an impressive game indeed. In fact, the only thing that's stopping The Bod Squad from being a Corker is there are only three levels. Five would be almost perfection!

1. Three levels just isn't enough.
2. Bod bounces off the walls in a most frustrating manner.

1. Excellent animation. Bod really seems to have weight and mass.
2. Loads of puzzles, all carefully packed into each level.
3. Sound effects, although few, are suitably blobby.
4. Detail, such as the collision detection, is superb.
5. You can approach each level in a different way. It's not just a left-right scroller.
6. It's easy to get into, but toughens up nicely later on.
7. You actually have to think about how to solve many of the puzzles.