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"Walkerz" are dumb. They'll just keep strolling along, minding their own business, straight over a cliff edge, under a steam roller or into a Question Time audience. It's your job, of course, to make sure they stay out of trouble, and reach their destinations safely. This doesn't involve special skills or icons to click, as the only thing you get to control is a platform, that you can move around the screen to help the little guys out where necessary.

It's at this point that half the audience will be scratching their heads, drawing comparisons between Psygnosis' Lemmings, a game very much along the same lines. There're a lot of differences between the puzzlers, though...

The first big change is that, though you've got to get each walker to their destination safely, each walker has a different destination - you're not trying to guide your people to one particular point. Secondly, each walker travels at a different speed, pushing your timing abilities that little bit further. The other interesting point about Walkerz is that, as the walkers don't move as a pack, the game's designers were able to make the events on each level completely random, so there's never a pattern you can learn to each level, only a technique.

These changes make Walkerz a vastly different game to Lemmings, the style or play relying more on reflexes than logical (and lateral) thought. As time (and levels) go by, the perils that await our bipedal friends [Is there something you should be telling me, Andy? - Ed] get steadily more ferocious, as spikes and ramps make an appearance.

Walkerz is basically a race to block the gaps in the paths of doomed (though fairly cute) idiots. You're allowed to kill (by neglect, of course) five people per level, and even though you get an extra 'drop' for every 200 points you score, you only get a few points (two upwards) for every walker saved. As more people pile onto the screen, you'll find yourself needing every drop you can get.

If Walkerz sounds like a fairly simplistic game, you should remember that some of the best games ever have followed fantastically simple playing styles (Pong, Tetris, Breakout, Tetris, All-Metal Dragon Lad, Tetris, etc). The platform is directed, rather than steered (if you push right, the platform flicks to the most obvious rightward hole). As the game progresses, you'll find the need to hit more and more diagonals to get that platform to the right place at the right time, which isn't always easy (so you can start worrying now, Quickshot owners).

The stars of the game, the walkers themselves, look fairly human. Though they spend the majority of their time strolling dumbly back and forth, they'll happily wave a thank-you as they get safely home and even try to make the occasional jump for themselves (and usually fail). The landscapes they walk around are both varied and detailed, each loading separately but quickly.

A surprising lack of sound effects make room for several good tunes, though maybe the occasional plummeting scream or scrunching of bloke wouldn't have gone amiss.

The game's authors, New Entry, have put thought into Walkerz - there's a gradual but enticing difficulty curve, giving a subtle blend of success and threat that'll keep you plugging away through the 30-odd levels, saving up to 50 people in each. Alternatively, they provide you with a great opportunity to watch over 1,500 people plummet to their deaths (or, failing that, score a seriously grazed knee). A level password system would have been nice though.

In all, Walkerz doesn't quite have the scope or depth to compete with more highly-priced titles such as Lemmings, but the challenge a group of little blokes and some potential death-traps can provide makes for good fun.

If you want a copy of Walkerz, send £5.99 to the Electric Boys at the address that must have been burned into your retinas by now: Electric Boys Entertainment Software, 917B Brighton Road, Purley, Surrey CR8 2BP.