Cool Spot is an American game, originally written as a vehicle for Spot, the brand character in the US of top fizzy beverage 7-UP. But, here in the United States of Europe, 7-UP is sold to us by a frizzy-haired stick dude called Fido Dido, which made things a little awkward. After all, we wouldn't want the Customers getting confused, would we? No we wouldn't, so all references to 7-UP were painstakingly removed from the game, except for the character (so any American holidaymakers popping over to the UK and trying out the local Mega Drive games are going to get really messed up), leaving the poor old game in a bit of a schizophrenic state. But hey, enough trivia. Its licence roots might lead you to worry about the quality of Cool Spot - the game (after all, licence games are notoriously nearly all crap). If so, stop worrying now.

Let's get it out of the way right at the start - this is one of the best platform games I've ever played. In fact, it's one of my favourite Mega Drive games ever full stop. We've already seen practically every feature you could ever imagine a platform game could have, so it takes a lot for a platformer to surprise us these days, but Cool Spot manages it with a game that's had the kind of time and effort put into it that I didn't think they made anymore. From the opening seconds, when the wire-limbed shades-wearing tiddlywink that is the star character leaps out of the a choppy sea onto a floating bottle (green, fizzy pop container, no logo - hmm) and starts to surf along to a rollicking accompaniment of the Surfaris' (or the Fat Boys', if you're a bit younger) Wipe Out, my face was permanently contorted in the sort of grin that led the rest of the MEGA team to book me in for a three-month stint in the Betty Ford Clinic.

And that's the real secret of Cool Spot's success - lots of other games are technically outstanding in some way or another and make you think 'Oh, yes, well, that's really very good, I suppose', but ones that actually genuinely make you feel happy are few and far between. I haven't been so captivated by a game since, ooh, the dazzling revelation that was the original Sonic. But hey, enough gushing. By now I guess you'd all quite like to know exactly what it is that makes this game so bloody fab, yes?

God, where to start? Well, first off, I suppose I could have a go at justifying the absurd 10/10 I've given it for graphics. Cool Spot himself is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best-animated character I've seen on any computer or video game, making even the heroes of Prince Of Persia or Flashback look like Thunderbirds puppets by comparison. He's got charisma by the bucketload, this little guy - from the way he yawns, polishes his shades or plays with his yo-yo when you bore him by leaving the controls alone for a while, to the wondrous theatrical swoon he performs when you're stupid enough to get him killed. Everything he does, he does so impressively that I reckon the total number of animation frames involved in his movement alone must be, ooh, more than 12, anyway. (If you load up Strider 2 after you've played this, you won't be able to stop laughing for the rest of your life).

But it's not just Spot - every other character in the game has, astonishingly, had just as much attention paid to them. My special favourites are the mice in nightshirts on the 'Wall' levels, but every single enemy feels like a real, individual, 'living' creature, not just a good-looking collection of pixels. I can't remember the last time I caught myself talking to a game's protagonists, but the chances are I hadn't started shaving yet. And I haven't even mentioned the lovely parallaxing backgrounds yet, or the speed and smoothness of the scrolling, but I can't because now I've got to tell you about the sound.

The sound's brilliant. Spot himself squeaks and yelps in a deeply endearing fashion, but there's stunning music too. And not just Thunderforce IV-style, 'Mm, listen to that, isn't it multi-channel-near-CD-quality-tastic, mates? But hey, shame about the actual tunes, though' stunning - actual boppy, hummable, tuneful kind of stunning (especially on the Loco Motive level, which plays something distinctly reminiscent of the theme tune from Bonanza. Or maybe The High Chapparal).

Space is getting tight now, so let's hurry through the rest of the categories. The gameplay is, in all honesty, the least amazing aspect of Cool Spot - brilliant though it is, you really have seen all this jumping-around-platforms-and- collecting-stuff stuff before. You've almost never seen it done so well, though, from the design of the levels themselves to the original touches (like on the first stage where you leap around in the sky, hanging from a succession of balloons) to the groovy bonus stage where you can earn yourself continues (which itself you have to earn the right to enter). Cool Spot isn't original, but it's a joy to play from start to finish, and that's the only thing that matters at the end of the day.

Game size? It's a whopper - the levels are all massive, and it'll take you upwards of three hours to play through all of them even when you're good enough to zip straight through, and having to earn your continues (and they're pretty tough to get after the first couple) means that this is never going to be a Sonic 2-esque first-day rompthrough. And as for addiction, this game kept me in for an entire weekend when I had half-a-dozen far more 'important' things that I really ought to have been getting on with. 'Nuff said?

I haven't really even begun to tell you adequately why this is such a lovely game, but I'd have needed half the magazine. Go out and get yourself a copy. Yesterday.

93 PERCENT