If you are looking for a challenging platform game with astounding graphics and downright sexy sound, then Jim Power could be just what you're after.

You are Jim Power, the chief of the Special Warfare Unit for the Security of President Halley (S.W.U.S.P.H). The story goes that President Halley's beautiful daughter Samantha has been kidnapped (wow that's original). The mad, bad and very scary indeed Vulkhor is responsible for this terrible deed, but then again Vulkhor is the infamous devil from the Mutant Planet and kidnapping is the sort of thing that devils are meant to do.

The Mutant Planet is not the sort of place that Judith Chaimers II recommend you go to, it's full of, err, mutants and a few more mutants. No-one has ever dared venture to the Mutant Planet - that is until now.

Now why on earth would Vulkhor want to kidnap the President's daughter? Well maybe it's because the President is the only person in the whole world who knows where the ultimate arm is. That's arm as in gun type thing, not as in the thing that hangs from your shoulders.

So Vulkhor does the decent thing and decides to blackmail the President, or else his daughter gets it.

As you might have guessed, Jim Power is a platform game - a five level platform game to be precise. Jim roams through dense forest, strange cities and gloomy caves just to save the President's daughter. What a daring, brave chap Jim is.

Now this won't be an easy task by any means. Using his blasters, Jim has to, err blast through the many beasties that inhabit the mutant planet.

Fearful creatures such as zombies, vultures, dragons, spiders, carnivorous plants and other strange creatures are all after your blood. Not only does Jim have to contend with beasties, but he has to survive all the traps such as acid drops, stakes, flames and stalactites.

Well I think Jim could do with a little help, so just to help him there are numerous modules. Inside these modules are things such as shields to shield you, clocks that give you a bit of extra time and the 1UP bonus which, surprisingly enough, gives you another life.

The most important thing to collect in Jim Power are keys. These handy little items open doors and secret passages, but if you forget a key while you are on your way you are in big trouble because you have to go back for the little blighter.

Now I said Jim Power was a platform games, but I lied. There are in fact three levels of platform prancing and two levels of fast shoot-'em-up action. I love Jim Power - that's the game, not the bloke. I bet you were getting a bit hot under the collar there for a minute.

The graphics are amazing. There are 200 colours on-screen at once (ooooh!), three playfields in 50Hz (gusssp!) and an ergonomy with unrivalled flexibility (eh?). Well it means nowt to me, but it sure does look good. Soundwise - well the bloke who created the music for Turrican is back, so if you loved the music from Turrican you're sure to love the music in Jim Power.

It's as playable as Kim Basinger's bits (calm down, Biff - Ed) and more addictive than something that's quite addictive indeed.

But it's very hard indeed and is definitely not for the beginner - a couple of years of platform pantalooning experience is definitely needed. Good graphics, sexy sound and playable playability. What more do you want... blood? Jim Power is way cool.

Jim Power, eh? Sounds like some kind of new super hero, doesn't it, or maybe a super-efficient games reviewer. You know, the type who could possibly host the tips pages (move over Jonathan), or maybe the letters... (Now wait a minute - Ed.). Then again, it would be just my luck if he turned out only to be a lousy old game hero instead.

And that's exactly what he turns out to be - though less of the lousy, surprisingly enough. While it's true that Loriciel haven't always fared too well in these pages of late (who could forget the so-so Baby Jo, the average Builderland, the frankly hopeless Steve McQueen and the rest), Jim Power looks to be a bit of a turning point.

While by no means a classic, it is one of those games that proves more or less impossible to dislike, and one that bodes well for the future - especially when the future would seem to contain products as exciting as Entity (see the special preview of new Things To Come section this month).

But back to Jim Power. The gist of the game is to go from left to right (the screen scrolling right to left, you know the drill) through a series of platform sections, shoot-'em-up sections, and end-of-level guardian sections (each successive one with an increased amount of shooting in it), killing everything in sight.

Looking rather like Turrican, but playing more like Rolling Thunder, it puts the player in charge of a cool little dude with a baseball cap and meaty looking gun, who (for the shoot-'em-up sections) can don a rocket pack and take to the skies. He's also got a limited number of smart bombs - which is just as well, because there're 250 screens of game to battle through.

The first thing you notice about Jim Power is how everything moves so wonderfully smoothly, in a multi-layer parallax kind of way. Each level comes complete with thoughtfully designed level layouts and traps, giant end-of-level guardians to send a shiver up the old spine, and a generally professional feel. It's not, however, a perfect game, and here are some reasons why:

1) The control method takes far too long to learn. It's almost impossible to move and shoot at the same time, and for the first 10 minutes I found myself losing life after life because of it. (Mid-jump control is also pretty minimal, but for some reason, it doesn't irritate too much). A few hundred lives into the game you may find the control becomes a close, intimate friend, but it'll take some getting used to...

2) It's dull (at best) sonically. True, things aren't entirely unpleasant (the spot FX and samples work better than the music), but we're pretty much in McDonald's territory (i.e. they're no great shakes) here.

3) Okay, the visuals. Apart from the pretty crappy first level, the major drag with Jim Power is the iffy colour palette used to such average effect. It's a shame, when you've got all those nicely drawn graphics and smooth parallax scrolling, that the foreground colours look like the monitor's just been kicked in the RGBs. The problem is worsened by the fact that the sprites are also composed of the same blend of black, green, white and red. (It's a colour scheme Jim, but not as we know it...)

Still, good game design more than makes up for these lapses of presentation. This is one game that definitely has that 'just one more go' factor, largely due to the fact that every life lost is entirely down to playing incompetence - there's no 'unfair death syndrome' on view here.

Jim Power, then, is one of those toasted marshmallow sort of experiences. It's kind of sweet, rather tasty and mildly addictive, and while it won't change the state of your tastebuds forever, you'll have a pleasant warm feeling inside for a good while afterwards.