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Astronut is yet another variation on the platform theme. Mind you, it took me a while to find out just what the game was about since it comes with one of those colour-grid protection cards.

On loading, you are given a grid reference and must enter four colours from the card. Make two mistakes and the Spectrum resets.

Is it worth this hassle? Emphatically yes - Astronut is a very good game with excellent animation.

You have to move a bomb-planting astronaut around a series of platforms trying to push blocks from one ledge to another and down into a receptacle.

To get to the higher ledges, you must position the astronaut over a belching volcano. At the next eruption, the astronaut is catapulted to a higher ledge. The only thing that can hurt him are the wild assortment of weirdies.

And what a collection they are: snapping clams, pulsating jellyfish, dancing flowers, nippy snails, bespectacled frogs, dangling spiders, and some of the largest, most impressive fire-ball spitting dragons ever to appear on your Spectrum.

For me though, the best beasties were those bearing no resemblance to anything seen this side of sanity. An enormous bulbous head with boots on was one of the many loony creatures.

Nutty stuff - imaginative, funny and addictive.