Bud Tucker In Double Trouble

Bud Tucker is a point-and-click adventure with bright cartoony graphics and loads of silly voice-overs - obviously 'inspired' (in the same way that forgers are 'inspired' by bank notes) by LucasArts' Monkey Island and its ensuing sequels. So far so good. There now follows a list of things that are wrong with it, in no particular order.

1) The lead character is a geeky American kid;

2) He says something sarcastic every time you try to do something the game won't let you do, until you feel like tying him to a chair and cutting his lips off with scissors. And then forcing him to eat some salt;

3) The game can't seem to make up its mind whether it's set in America or Britain (80 per cent of it looks and sounds British, but the remaining 20 per cent of 'Yank' content looks as if it's been hastily forced upon the game by some arsehole in the 'marketing' division);

4) The level of humour rarely rises above Crackerjack standards;

5) It wastes the voice talents of Rik Mayall;

6) The graphics are patchy;

7) It features some unbelievably lame impersonations of Woody Allen and Samuel L Jackson;

8) It isn't a tenth as good as Monkey Island, and that came out years ago;

9) Many of the puzzles are irritating and illogical;

10) You get the odd glimmer of 'what might have been' here and there - but that ain't good enough.