No, we have not made a mistake - this is a Dizzy game and it costs 20 quid. In a slightly puzzling marketing strategy scenario, the Codies have decided that, although at first glance (and indeed second, third and all subsequent glances, but we will get to that in a moment) this looks exactly the same as the first 16-bit Dizzy game (the £4.99 Treasure Island Dizzy), it is going to cost four times as much.

Actually, maybe it is not so strange - the Codies always insisted that their games were really all full-price products and that selling them for eight quid was always purely a marketing thing, so perhaps we should not be raising any eyebrows. Yeah, right. In whichever case, though, one thing IS sure to raise eyebrows in connection with Crystal Kingdom Dizzy, and that is how crap it is.

Now, as I have already said, on first impressions this is Just Another Dizzy Game. But there has been a bit of fiddling around on beneath its surface - this is a little bigger than the Diz epics we have been used to before, and it comes in four separate sections, each of which can be accessed with a password via a neat little spoof on Code Masters' Nintendo and Sega cheating device, the Game Genie.

Well, that is the theory, but a bit of a cock-up on the production front meant that the final version of the game actually forgets to give you the level two password when you complete level one. (With that in mind, I will break tradition, and give it now, as a reward for any of you, who have struggled through the first section and cannot be bothered to play it over and over again when you keep dying on level two, as well you might, for reasons I will get to in another moment - it is G5J 73Q 8HK).

That is just one of the little buggy annoyances in the game, though - in the aforementioned level two, it is only too easy to get a ride across the sea from a dolphin, leap off its back, and find yourself through a solid-looking floor and getting stuck at the top of a different screen, from which there is no way back into the game. Couple that with the lack of a level two password, of course, and you will get very angry with this very quickly.

Also, it could just be my imagination, but I am sure the other Dizzy games did not make you traipse backwards and forwards shuffling objects around tediously nearly as much as this does, especially in level three where it gets quite fantastically nasty-minded about things.

I have kind of run out of space here, and there is lots more I would have liked to mention (like paying 20 quid for a game and still having to put up with flick screens and a choice between average music OR fearsomely crap sound effects), but let us just say I am one of Dizzy's biggest fans, but I hate this game with all my heart.

The world seems to be divided into two groups when it comes to this Dizzy chap. There are those who have never been able to see the attraction of the objectionable ovum and loathe him with a passion bordering on the psychotic. Then there are those who think he's the best game character ever devised and who, when sufficiently provoked, will threaten to inflict actual physical harm upon the first group.

In my usual wishy-washy way, I hop from group to group depending on my mood and the particular Dizzy game I'm looking at at the time.

If you've missed out entirely on the Dizzy-phenomenon, please allow me to explain. Dizzy is an egg. He has arms and legs (and boxing gloves). He has a girlfriend. The girlfriend keeps getting kidnapped. Dizzy keeps rescuing her. In order to do this, he must negotiate platforms in a platform-game style. But he must also collect objects and use them to solve puzzles. The puzzles are never complex. There are currently 3,725 different Dizzy games on the market.

Crystal Kingdom Dizzy is the sort of game that makes me wonder how I could ever had any patience for the be-limbed egg. It's not very much fun at all. Although it has, at least, managed to vary the 'kidnapped girlfriend' format it is using. Instead, the much more original 'stolen magical treasure and kingdom in peril' excuse for a plot.

There's a lot of trudging about and picking things up and carting them about the place in a tedious sort of way and you rapidly wonder why you bothered - it somehow doesn't seem to have the appeal of some of the earlier Dizzy outings.

There's a school of thought that says the Dizzy games are designed for 'younger players' and that the simplicity of the puzzles has been tailored to their limited cognitive powers. So, if your cognitive powers are limited, you'll find the solving of these puzzles quite a rewarding experience. But if you're a bit of a thinker, well...

I 've been reviewing games for the past six years, and Dizzy was one of the first games I ever reviewed! Crystal Kingdom Dizzy is the seventh Dizzy game to date! Why? What makes Philip Oliver keep churning them out, even though this style of game went out with the Spectrum?

This time the story tells of the magical treasure of the Yolkfolk, which has been stolen, and of a young egg-like being called Dizzy who goes to recover it. To do this, he has to work his way through five medium sized levels composed of flip-screen platform action with a couple of traps and loads of puzzles.

The thing that struck me first about the game was how incredibly easy all the puzzles seem to be. I don't know, maybe I'm too clever, but if someone says to me 'I wish I had a screwdriver' and then I find a screwdriver hidden in a tree, it doesn't seem too difficult to put two and two together.

Visually, the game could be any of the seven titles. Dizzy still spins when he jumps (hence his name) and the same simple backdrops accompany the same detail free sprites. The game is obviously trying to be cute, but there are none of the little touches and expressions found in other, far better titles.

Crystal Kingdom Dizzy is much the same as any other Dizzy game. Save your money and avoid it.