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Once upon a time, not so long ago, Captain Dynamo was the darling of the superhero set. He used to fling tall buildings around with Equanimity, his wisecracking sidekick. He fought against untruth, injustice and polite villainy. By far the most scampish of his foes was Evil Austen. Many was the time the two clashed atop Austen's castle, until Austen had the sense to move. But that was many years in the past - we lied about the not-so-long-ago bit - and now the Cap has retired, forgotten by the world at large.

Then, Evil Austen decided to have one last fling before senility sets in, planning to conquer the world with a gigantic death ray machine. Tragically, he steals a load of diamonds by mistake - we lied about the before-senililty-sets-in bit - and Captain D is called upon to save the day just one more time. If only the Codies had cast Don Ameche in the title role and given Macauley Culkin a part as his cheeky grandson, they could have cleaned up at the box office. But, through an administrative oversight, they're not a film production company at all and so had no choice but to make this scrolling platform game instead. As the Cap you have to make your way up the inside of Austen's castle, collect the diamonds and avoid or trample on a sad collection of cute nasties. Other hazards inconveniently poke themselves into your path - spike traps, electric globes and suchlike. It's a hard life when you're nearly dead.

What a lovely surprise. After CJ In The USA, Spike In Transilvania et al, it's so refreshing to actually see a good Codies game which is playable, tricky, different and an altogether not-budgety-at-all kind of game. The smart and fast vertical scrolling effectively provides another obstacle because you can't see what's coming next. A minor problem is that the cute sprites don't fit in with the damply atmospheric backgrounds - or is it the other way around? A major problem is that the game is harshly unforgiving of mistakes - there are no credits and a dearth of restart points, so you usually end up going back a long, long way. Mildly stonking.