Get shootin', get runnin', get collectin' - and fast... 'coz Zool's here. At last this much-praised platformer has reached your ST.

Ants and chocolate snacks, eh? What do they have in common then? No, not those chocolate ants you used to eat as kids in the belief that they really were chocolate-covered ants, but, surprise, surprise (since this is the screenplay section of ST Format) an ST game.

That's right, it's Zool, apparently a Ninja of the Nth Dimension, wherever that may be.

In a bid to give the ST its very own version of Sonic and Mario, Gremlin have come up with this super-fast scrolling platform game starring an ant. And it just happens to feature another not so discreet marketing plot with the inclusion of the Chupa Chups logo all over the place. It seems that they make chocolate bars and lollies so it seems only fitting (or was that "commercially viable?") to make sure the first world you enter is that of a sweetie land. Zool's not particularly cute or clever or attractive - or even immortal, he can just move really really fast. Unfortunately he's not the only thing in the game that can move so speedily - all the baddies are equally mobile.

Zool's a platform game of the most traditional type - there are collectibles to collect, pplatforms to jump between and end-of-level baddies to kill. Although all the levels get progressively harder, the game doesn't exactly start off easily - you're assaulted by all sorts of animals, jellies and other things that seem to be able to render you into a non-being merely by looking at you; your finger's firmly attached to the Fire button and your wrists are coming in for a severe bit of movement... and then you die.

On all of the levels, so that you don't have to start back at the beginning of each one when you lose a life, there are various targets for you to hit - on one level you get a sign and on another you get a half buried banana. When you reach them in your quest for the exit, to get out of this assault on your nerves and your hands, you have to punch them. Since you have to be in exactly the right position for this you do tend to leave yourself open to attack - and this is especially frustrating dying at this point just as you're planning ahead for when you do die - you hope not to be caught in the act. It's a good touch, though, making you have to work for your life rather than just giving you random restart points.

There are other good touches too - being told the general direction of the exit is quite helpful in that it gives you something to aim for and also being told what percentage of the objects you've picked up is pretty good since they seem to mount up rather quickly and that just makes you feel good about the world and life in general. Bonus levels and increases in your life expectancy also make the game more attainable - if you just died all the time you'd sson get pretty fed up with it. As it is, however, on the occasions when the screen stops, goes blank and you're left thinking you've gone and committed suicide yet again and the words "Bonus Level" appear, you're ready to forgive all and sundry everything they've ever done to you. Well, almost.

The levels are split up into six sections and you have to work through each one before you progress to the next - they're just extensions of the world you're in. Graphically all the worlds have pretty much the same look about them but the creatures that inhabit the worlds and the tricks that are up their sleeves are completely different. Whereas in the sweet world you have to watch out for killer bees that multiply and sting with deadly accuracy - and get around with great enthusiasm. In the tool world you have to watch out for vicious saws and other "home improvement implements" which slide out sneakily, ready to chop your legs off without so much as a "Look out, I'm about to chop your legs off." By far the worst has to be the bag of popcorn which you don't seem to be able to avoid but which gets you every time you go near it - the popcorn explodes all over the place and you end up getting hit. Each world has a vicious beastie you have to kill before you can progress to the next, just to make matters even harder.

Zool's been a hell of a long time in coming to the ST and now it's finally here you'd be forgiven for wanting to know whether it was actually any good or not - certainly whether it was worth the £26 you'd be expected to shell out for it. Well, it's a good game: it's damned fast, it's huge, it's playable, it's frantic, you're against a time limit, there's variation between the worlds with different tactics needed in each of them, it gets the adrenaline going and your trigger finger aching. It looks OK and plays pretty well - it's very speedy and incredibly smooth scrolling - none of that jumping from screen to screen here not able to tell what the hell is going on on the screens that are the next ones along.

But it's not brilliant - it doesn't have that certain elusive whatever it is that makes a great game great. It doesn't have the humour and the personality of that other most recent classic Lemmings 2 (against which all other platformers are bound to be compared) - indeed, it doesn't evern have the variation of that game.

It doesn't require you to use your brain apart from to direct your finger to hit the trigger - there's none of that puzzling things out and thinking logically. If, though, all your want to do is hit Fire and get hot and sweaty over your ST, you could do a lot worse than getting Zool to do it with.

1. Huge and very playable.
2. Incredibly fast and smooth scrolling.

1. Lacks originality and humour.