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The Cool Croc Twins, eh? No, they're not the latest rave duo to emerge from the streets of Brooklyn. Punk and Funk, who certainly look green enough to have emerged from a sewer, have made it onto the Amiga in a mad, headbanging, arcade extravaganza marking the debut of Arcade Masters, Empire's new original-arcade games label.

The background to the game concerns three crocodiles. A babe called Daisy Crocette has fallen for both Funk and Punk. Unable to commit herself to either, she seems to have given up altogether and run off to the local Crockery - I guess that's some sort of feminist refuge for mixed-up crocodile babes. Anyway it's now up to Funk and Punk to battle over 60 screens to win her back.

My first impressions was "What the hell's going on?" Controlling one of the crocs is not initially the easiest of tasks - it takes a bit of getting used to. You use the joystick to walk Punk or Funk around the edges of the screen, then fire to bounce him off against the coloured squares which litter each area. The object of the game is to light up all three bulbs in each of the squares by hitting them with your croc's head. The level is not completed until every square has all of its bulbs lit up, and what's more you're playing against a time limit.

Graphically there's nothing special, but the colours are bright, cheerful and very arcadey. The sound is passable - a non-annoying tune accompanies the game, and standard arcadey noises come into effect when a croc lights up a bulb or gets grazzled by a critter.

Cool Croc Twins can be played in either one or two player mode. In the two player mode, each croc might light up three bulbs on every square. You and pal race Funk and Punk against each other, each trying to light up every square and finish the level first. Sounds simple you might think. Well, that's where you're wrong. In front of some squares are small platforms. You land on these when you bounce off the sides. Funk and Punk must walk round each platform, to bounce off and light up the hidden bulbs. Unfortunately, because your croc is upside-down at this point, the controls are reversed and it all gets a little disorientating. Even more confusing is landing on either side of the screen - you must push the joystick left or right to walk up or down.

As if that wasn't enough, there's also a bunch of 'critters' out to stop you. They continually turn the lights in the squares back off, and kill you if you touch them (why don't game characters ever want to be your friend?) and as the game progresses there are also objects blocking the bulbs. These bounce your croc off in a different direction or waste time by spinning him round. Add to that the increased number of enemies as you go through the levels and you've really got your work cut out. I've heard of babes playing hard to get, but this is ridiculous.

And that's it really. There's no special effects or bonus levels, just sixty levels of more or less the same thing which gets progressively more tiresome as more enemies are sent and more objects block each square.

In terms of controllability it's very awkward, but I suppose you could get used to it if you've got nothing better to do. Playability is limited, but after completing five levels there is a level code available on screen, so at least you don't have to go back and do all the early levels when you play it again.

The choice of one or two player mode is a definite bonus - it offers good short-term fun in two player mode, but comes nowhere near the multi-player frenzied fun of, say, Ubisoft's Dyna Blaster, and that's where you should look first for simple arcade thrills.

Well, it's a novel idea for an arcade platformer, but too many levels and not enough variety of gameplay leave you pretty bored pretty quickly.