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The time's soon going to be here when Dizzy The Movie arrives and we can all see the eggy fella on the front of Time and GQ. Until then though, Codemasters are giving you the chance to catch up on all his ST games to date with this five game compilation.

Zaks, the evil wizard, has imprisoned the Yolkfolk - those are Dizzy's friends, apparently - across the Magicland in various dastardly ways. Dylan, for example, has been rooted in a tree to the ground, Daisy has been enlarged and is now residing in Zaks' oubliette and so on. Dizzy's job is to wander round the land finding the necessary objets to solve the puzzles and release his friends. As usual, the graphics are bright and colourful and Dizzy seems to have gained some extra athletic abilities along the way - he's very bouncy for an egg.

Dizzy's friends are up the creek again, all because Zaks got a little miffed with them. Each of the Yolkfolk has been sent to a land corresponding to their personality - for example, Denzil thinks he's dead cool, so he's ended up in Iceland. It's down to Dizzy to free them (again).

This time, you're presented with a series of one-screen levels filled with objects appropriate to whichever land you're playing in. Some of these objects can be pushed to kill the nasties that zoom about the place, while others need to be collected to finish the level. There's a bonus level after each successfully completed screen, and finishing five such screens means you rescue your respective friend. The game concept's very simple and it doesn't take you very long at all to whip through all the screens. Definitely one for the kids.

Another puzzley one. This time, for some inexplicable reason, Dizzy's bombing around one-screen mazes chasing after fast food - pretty good pun, eh? - such as pizzas, fried chickens, hamburgers and french fries. Also in the maze are some nasties you don't want to meet - speed you up, slow you down, and so on and so forth.

This really is gameplay at its simplest. There's nothing even remotely taxing about running around a maze collecting objects and avoiding others. Mindless and likely to cause severe ennui after two plays.

Back to the wander-find objects-solve puzzle-style here. Obligatory wibble: Dizzy's stranded all alone on a desert island, far away from the Yolkfolk. He can either search for the 30 pieces of gold that are hidden around the island and then scarper (the extremely hard solution) or just scarper immediately (the not-quite-so-hard solution). Once again, it's down to using the correct objects at the right time.

The graphics are much simpler than those in the other Dizzy games, even the puzzle-style ones. The gameplay isn't though - there's a lot to do and explore before you can hope to get off the island. Fair fodder for a few hours play if you've got nothing better to do.

This game is reviewed as a separate package on page 112 as part of the budget round-up. Suffice it to say here that it's probably the best looking of the Dizzy games and offers just about as much gameplay as the other two non-puzzle games in the collection.

Some people just can't get enough of Dizzy games, while others might balk at the mere thought of playing just one. The three arcade adventures in The Dizzy Collection are all pretty much the same, gameplay-wise, so the two puzzle games, while being simple, offer a bit of variety.

On the whole though, they are all extremely simple games, and unlikely to thrill anyone over the age of eleven for very long. Anyway, this is all pretty irrelevant since we have it on good authority that eggs and all their associated yolky jokes are definitely out this year - 1992 is the year of the orange.

1. Dizzy games have carved a niche for themselves be being silly, challenging and appealing (provided you're under 12, or sedation, or both). There really aren't any other games which bear much comparison.