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Fish have fingers, cats have whiskers and dogs have fleas. Colin Curly bucks the doggy trend and opts for an ant instead. Andy Lowe investigates this topsy-turvy world and comes out smelling cheesy

Colin is not a happy canine. He'd rather eat strange, yellow, curly snacks than ordinary dog food and, in a particularly reckless spot of prancing about in the countryside, he dropped them down an anthill. Now, Colin may be a bit of a prat but he's no fool - instead of calling the fire brigade or the lost-crispy-curly-snack helpline, he asks a passing soldier ant - GI Ant - for help. Sure enough, GI vows to return the mislaid munchies and dives valiantly into the offending cavity.

Push Over presents you with a series of levels, each littered with a number of blocks. Many of these obstacles can be pushed by GI Ant and - as is the case with most blocks - one they've fallen, they stay fallen. However, there are eight other varieties of block with rather different physical characteristics which behave in distinctly odd, but gladly predictable, ways. Oh, there's also one block, the Stopper, which refuses to budge no matter what shoves it, explodes near it or threatens it with extreme and radical physical rearrangement. Your job is to manipulate these blocks in such a way as to bring about a chain reaction - a sort of domino effect - of falling blocks. This may sound easy, but there are one or two little rules...

Rule One: the last block to fall must always be the Trigger - and all other blocks, apart from the Stoppers, must have fallen before the Trigger. Rule Two: GI Ant can pick up, carry around and rearrange all the blocks - er, apart from the Trigger. Rule Three: he can only fall a certain distance and, strong as he is, he cannot take a block falling directly onto his bonce. Rule Four: one you've rearranged the blocks to your taste, you get one push to shift them - if they move correctly you have to go through the exit door within a time limit. If not, it's Lemmings-style start again time.

When a screen is completed promptly and successfully, you're awarded with a token. This can be used in two ways - either to help you go on to the next screen if your time limit has expired, or for replaying a failed screen from the point before the push. To get to the final level you also need to collect a total of ten packets of cheesy snacks which can be found in various locations along the way.

Unfortunately, product endorsements are often an indication of a software house's lack of confidence in a game and its ability to stand alone as an example of good programming. There are many instances of hastily tacked-on endorsements, masking poor and unexciting software - fortunately, Push Over is not one of them.

This is a fantastic game. At first, there may seem to be very little to do apart from wander around the scenes, but the game has you firmly in its grip as soon as you succeed on the first level. There's no need for ultra-fast reflexes or lightning dexterity here, but that doesn't necessarily make things dull. Any comparisons to Lemmings must stop at the fact that Push Over is, predominantly, a puzzle game - and so a bit of thought and planning is needed to take on the game in its entirety. It has humour, playability, durability, originality and a beautiful simplicity which instantly melts the sour taste of the hype - which, in these cynical times, no one believes anyway.

A wonderful achievement. The Red Rat programming team have finally established themselves as a force to be reckoned with.