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Who'd have thought things could get this bag? The world grows more polluted by the day, while the politicians get greener. So what should Greenpeace, the world's foremost conservation group, do? If Rainbow Warrior - the world's first green game - is anything to go by (it may not be, of course), the answer would appear to be that universal panacea, get into marketing.

In seven different scenarios the forces of industrial progress are confronted head on. You've a choice of the order in which you attempt the tasks, but to save the world they must all be completed. Each incident recreates an episode from Greenpeace's history, with the hard facts exhaustively documented in the manual. That's sadly where fact and fiction separate, as the good ship Rainbow Warrior sails off its chartered course and heads for disaster.

The problems you face - modelled on the real crises actually being fought by Greenpeace - are nuclear power and radioactive waste, dumping at sea, whale hunting, acid rain, ozone depletion, seal culling and, finally, safeguarding the spirit of the Rainbow Warrior itself. In real life their volunteers endure hardship, risk life and limb and fly in the face of enormous legislative and political opposition. In real life, it ain't no game.

But in Rainbow Warrior the game, where the facts are never allowed to get in the way of a scenario, problems are exaggerated and trivialised - for all the world as if the imminent destruction of our world were not a dramatic enough basis for a game! There's something very cringe-making and patronising about the plots, such as they are: try to stop the depletion of the ozone layer in the Antarctic and you have to throw snowballs to stop aerosol cans marching towards the skyline. As the protective shield decays, beams of UV sunlight burst through, transforming exposed penguins into killers!

Mutant sharks harang poor little brave Greenpeace divers and their sweet dolphin guides (oh please). And if you succeed in stopping those cute little seal cubs getting their heads smashed, a nuclear submarine comes into the picture and starts test firing missiles around them. I really do think I'm going to be sick.

The ridiculous plot aside, the game - or games, for this is little more than a compilation - is badly short on gameplay. There's little scope for action, and the fiddly controls frustrate play badly. So you can't kill anyone/thing in a Greenpeace game, but that shouldn't mean it has to descend into farce. After all, Thunderbirds seemed to manage well enough with non-violent scenarios.

Graphically the game is reasonably accomplished, with sprites drawn almost, but not quite, as caricature. The action scenes are stilted, however, with little on-screen movement, the most interesting being the peripheral background detail in fixed routines. The sonic side is underused, leaving the graphics to struggle like a beached whale (oops). There are various themes that run throughout the game, fostering a sense of identity and continuity. The problem is that the identity established has exploitative undertones.

A themed compilation, Rainbow Warrior is unlikely to win awards for graphics, sounds or game design.

The aim is to interest and inform, and entertain it does, to a limited extent. But it does not educate in any way other than the historical data in the manual. The games lack any basis in fact other than the general theme. Why on earth have radioactive penguins savaging workers at the pole? What's that all about?

Greenpeace Warrior is an original and strong licence idea that has evolved into something of a white elephant, if you'll pardon the expression. It may be the right time to develop ideologically and environmentally sound software, but the game, it seems, is there only to fill the box with the hip 'n trendy name on it.

Sorry, but there's something just too "right on" about Microprose adopting Greenpeace, and just not enough that's right about the game.