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After the catastrophe of last year's Turtles game, expectations for The Simpsons weren't exactly high. So the finished product comes as something of a shock...

So here it is, Ocean's big licence for 1991. And - I might as well go ahead and say it - it's actually rather good. Certainly it looks as if all our worrying - based to a large degree on the past performance of last year's big name cartoon-licensed title - was for nothing. This is a fast, well presented, clear and cute little scroller - the office has echoed over the past week to the sound of people wandering over, watching for a few minutes, and then saying (with more than a hint of surprise in their voices), "Y'know, it's actually rather good".

So, the ghost of the Turtles well and truly exorcised, let's take a closer look at the game that could well turn out to be this year's biggest hit. Only the foolish would deny that the bulk of the appeal is down to the strength of the Bart Simpson character - slightly over-exposed he may be, especially for someone who only a smallish proportion of the population have ever seen in his original TV-incarnation, but his bubble hasn't burst just yet. Image Works may find they struggle a bit with their second Turtles game, however much of an improvement over the first one it may be - Bart is undoubtedly now the man of the moment.

He's a man who works particularly well in computer form too - he's just so easy to draw, for a start. Bright yellow, and with a pointy head, he provides a crisp and clear central image to what is generally a very clean looking game. Abandoning subtle shading, parallax scrolling and the like in favour of flat, bright colours, The Simpsons looks as much like a console product as anything I've seen on the Amiga.

Bart himself, while not the biggest sprite I've ever seen (the game doesn't scroll vertically, and since there's a fair amount of platform jumping to be done, he has to be of a reasonably compact size for the screen to fit it all in) is constantly amusing, whether running around with a spray can, skateboarding, or knocking hats off the heads of innocent passers-by. He moves well too, running increasingly faster as you push the joystick in one constant direction, then sliding to a halt as you slow him down.

Well, first up there's an animated opener. Aliens explain that their fiendish plan is to disguise themselves as humans and fuel their machine-that'll-conquer-the-world (quite how it'll do that isn't clear!) with raw materials collectable from all over Bart's hometown of Springield.

On the first level, for instance, they're collecting all the purple things that can find 'cos their machine runs from purple things (Look, I never said this had to make sense, okay?) while on the second level they've modified their creation and it's, erm, hats they're after. Your job then, as Bart, is to make your way through Springfield, avoiding alien nasties and disguising, destroying or collecting as many of the things the aliens are after as possible.

Level one, for instance, sees you walking, then skating, through Springfield on a mad rush to paint as many purple things a different colour as you can.

Faults? Well, there are some. The fact that you're spending a lot of your time collecting things, buying weapons or tools from various shops, and figuring out interesting ways to disguise or destroy the various objects you're after (you can't just spray all purple things for instance - you have to work out other ways of get rid of some of them) makes for what is actually a rather in-depth and challenging game - one that rather belies its simple, cartoony look. I suspect many younger Bart-fans are going to get hopelessly stuck.

Cycling through the objects in your inventory, putting on your sunglasses (which reveal who are real people and who aliens-in-disguise, in the style of the film They Live) and so on - all selectable via the joystick - I found slightly harder to access than ideal too. Still, perhaps that's just me.

Simpsons fans may be disappointed the rest of the family make such fleeting appearances in the game too - one of them gets to help Bart towards the end of each level if need be, then they all congregate for the big nuclear power station finale - but this is Bart's show. Having only seen a handful of the cartoons, it didn't bother me at all.

Most annoying for me though - though admittedly an integral part of the game - is discovering quite what constitutes a platform and what doesn't. At least you don't die when you fall off things, but it can be frustrating, jumping onto what clearly looks like the sort of ledge you should be able to stand on, and discovering you can't, while things you clearly should be able to walk along (washing lines, say, or bushes) are fair game.

It really is a case of suck it and see - just don't take anything for granted.

The Simpsons comes in two versions - the one, packaged in a small cardboard box, that comes with the new Cartoon Classics Amiga bundle, and the normal street version. The copy reviewed here is the one from the bundle and the first to be completed, though, annoyingly, it'll only work on the 'new' generation of Amigas. Presumably this was deliberate - a tactic designed to ward off large scale piracy of the bundled game before the standalone version of The Simpsons is available in the shops - but it's annoying.

Expect the street version of the game to be in the stores around the middle of September - if there are any real differences from this one (and we strongly suspect that there won't be) they'll be reported in a future True Stories. As it stands, it looks like the major difference will be that the standalone one will come on just the one disk, lacking the impressive animated intro sequence - though why this should be the case is unclear - it seems slightly unfair on established Amiga owners, though of course it really has no bearing at all on how much you'll enjoy the game.

One thing is certain: The Simpsons has come at just the right time for Ocean. After tying their colours to the masts of a number of decidedly non-hit films (Navy Moves, Darkman, Nightbreed: The Interactive Movie) over the last twelve months, it's good to see them back on form - not just with a good, strong licence, but a good product spun off from it too. Ocean's philosophy has always been along the lines that "we don't sell software, we sell dreams", and here's where it looks to make some sort of sense. A hit in every sense of the word.

Uppers: Bright graphics, generally smooth control, some neat puzzles, a fair amount of variety, bizarre humour and this year's strongest licence make The Simpsons an unqualified success.

Downers: Perhaps a bit too complicated for the youngest gameplayers, and the average Simpsons fan is nothing if not young.

A hit, pure and simple. A few false starts, some slippage and the odd weak licence has meant a disappointing Amiga showing from Ocean this year - here's where it all comes right.