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Videokid is a game with a plot that confirms the worst fears of any parent when they see their dead kids watching hour on hour of Robocop and The Terminator. To wit, a small child watching a video gets sucked into the telly somehow and ends up battling his way around five worlds to get out again.

So we wearily begin yet another platform game. Billy, the bratlet, bashes his way around Medieval World, Western World, Science Fiction World, Gangster World and finally Horror World, being attacked in each by suitably designed monsters. In turth, this isn't really a platform game as such because Billy can hover wherever he wants to, without actually needing to use the platforms. The screen scrolls at a rapid rate in all directions and a large part of the game is knowing where you should be at any particular moment in order to avoid being squished in the screen scroll. There are only a limited number of exits to each area.

While you're frantically trying to beat the scroll, you have to contend with the legions of cute monsters that are firing at you from all sides, mobile ones as well as hostile parts of the furniture wanging vicious-looking spears and the like at you. Bonus weapons can be collected by shooting the spheres that occasionally float into view.

It's a bit 'ard. What with deciding where to go, avoiding the shots, trying to kill the monsters and looking for bonuses, you really need to be on the ball. The graphics are bright and cutesy, though not specially well animated and the chip noise is as bad as it ever gets.

What is most puzzling is the point of setting it inside a video. The setting bears absolutely no relation at all to what's happening on-screen, and obvious video effects like enabling you to replay and rewind haven't been included. Surely, if you're going to do a game about video, then you should at least include some video-like features.

Unfortunately, Gremlin have the knack of producing games that are competently programmed and good to look at but have no spark of gameplay interest to them at all. This is one of them.

1. Uncanny resemblance to Mega Twins in graphic style. Not surprising, really, since they're both by the same programming team, Twilight.