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I actually preferred the French name, Henri Lapointe, but I guess Spiky Harold is more descriptive of a game in which the character you control is a hedgehog. Not just any old hedgehog, mind you - he is without doubt quite the cutest little chap you'll probably ever have the opportunity to control with your joystick or keyboard.

The first surprise comes before the tape has fully loaded. A feature that will be new to anyone who hasn't bought a recent Firebird game such as Rasputin is that music is played while the majority of the game is loading. The music is An English County Garden and is probably the best on an Amstrad yet.

It's played in full three-part harmony with an almost piano-like envelope. This music alone would probably justify the price tag but, the best has yet to come.

Once loaded there are just two options - you can either redefine the keyboard keys or start the game. While you make your mind up that Rimsky Kornakov classic - The Flight of the Bumble Bee buzzes away in the background. Perhaps not as good as the loading tune but still a pretty recognisable rendition.

Once you start you find yourself in control of the original Harold "cute as apple pie" Hedgehog. He can be moved left and right or he can be persuaded to jump. Whether jumping is an attribute available for all hedgehogs is questionable, but who cares if it helps Harold get through the 57 screens where he will find various food objects that must be collected to help him through hibernation. The sharp frost that is due in 24 hours imposes a time limit on the game but it is more likely that you will have all your 20 lives knocked off before then. There are extra lives to be found and even glasses of wine to make Harold a little tipsy so that control becomes a little erratic.

Everything isn't exactly sweetness and light at the bottom of the garden, though. There are some pretty worms, ghosts (?), clouds and probably anything else you care to mention.

Some of the screens are fiendishly tricky and require many "lives" of practice before you finally work out the best way through to the food item and final exit.

The game uses the same four colours in Mode 1 throughout to quite good effect. However all the sprites are drawn in the same colour - partly made up for by their animation. In particular, the gobbling mouth of Harold when he finds an item of food is a real gem.

There are many games that aren't even half as good as this which are being sold for the full price of £7 or £8. You would have to be some kind of nutcase not to buy a copy of this game if only to enjoy the loading music or the joys of Harold gobbling an item of food.

Sure, I suppose it is really just a platform and ladders sort of a game but it has to be one of the best examples of the genre. I'm amazed that the authors have managed to create such a cute looking central character in such a relatively small sprite and just one colour but even people who thought Thing on a Spring had an amiable little man could be surprised. The humour of the other sprites is also very good and I remain amazed that you are getting so much value for two quid.

Hedgehogs used to be the flat things you find on motorways - annoying and flea-ridden.

Meeting Harold has changed my mind, he is a cutie. The music is brilliant and the animation excellent. It is tempting to say that this should be a full-price game but I don't think it would quite be good enough for that. One complaint is that the tunnels are not quite big enough for the sprite, or perhaps that should be that the sprite is too big for the tunnels. This is a real Amstrad program - the graphics don't show any sign of being quickly converted from the Spectrum. I like it.

This game is worth £1.99 just for the loading music. When it comes round to January and we're all looking back at what's been happening during the year, we can reflect on the trend that started in 1986. This is where budget software becomes good software.

Spiky Harold is a good example of this trend. It is well programmed and has a professional quality and playability about it. When budget software was new, the games were not much better than magazine listings but now games like this threaten the more expensive titles in quality of programming. Here the animation is better than most Ocean games and the screens are well thought out and prettily designed.

It is not the sort of game I would sit and play for a long time 'cos you only need half a brain cell to play it, but as a wander-round-the-screens-getting objects game, it scores quite highly.