Sleepwalker

Sleepwalker is a platform game in which you have to help Mutt (a dog) guide his sleepwalking master, Lee, to safety. This is easier said than done seeing as how the silly sod happily walks into every trap and falls down every hole in sight. In order to get Lee safely from a to b, you have to run ahead of him, de-activating traps, closing trapdoors and pushing and kicking him in the right direction. For the most part, this is a profoundly frustrating experience. Pixel-perfect positioning of your canine character is required befoi you can successfully carry out various would-be rescue attempts. There is one particular point in level one where you have to push the sleepwalker to force him to jump over a small gap. To accomplish this, not only do you need perfec timing, you have to wait until he's right at the very edge of the gap before you push him. This takes several attempts before you get it right and is typical of the pain in the ass gameplay in Sleepwalker. Generally, this game is just too fiddly and tricky for its own good, but that's not the only problem I have with it. The graphics and animations are absolute crap. Considering the huge amount of pc platform games with excellent graphics and gameplay that are around, I can't for the life of me imagine why anyone would want to sit down in front of a game of such poor quality. The game's main selling point is the fact that it was produced for Comic Relief, and this has no doubt helped the sales of the game. I'm obviously reluctant to dissuade anyone from contributing to such a worthy cause, but honestly, if you're looking for a decent piece o platform action, there are much better examples of the genre around than thi feeble effort.