You really needed guts to survive in the rough, tough, world of cavemen. Luckily, that's one commodity Chuck Rock has plenty of, thanks to his strict diet of beer, chips and beer. Now Chuck must use his rotundity to save the fair Ophelia, who has been kidnapped by all round Stone Age bad guy, Gary Gravel.

Chuck uses his turn to top terrifying tyrannosauruses, bash brontosauruses and to irritate ichtyosauruses. If a beast charges him, the Chuck breathes in at the press of a fire button, and boldly bounces them with his beer gut. Alternatively, he can eponymously chuck rocks to crush the creatures. With only these two techniques at his disposal, Chuck has to conquer a five level, multi-section platform quest that will end (cue violins) in a reunion with his good wife.

Terror 'dactylis!
Level One has our hero, leaping, bounding and running around a jungle world. Pterodactyls swoop in for the kill, triceratops butt and thorn bushes snag the bearskin-clad adventurer. Chuck has to pick his way through the Neanderthal nightmare, the emphasis is on timing and careful leaps rather than on violence.

On later levels Chuck must conquer cave worlds, lagoons, ice plains and the dinosaurs' graveyard.

Chuck's rock-throwing doesn't just kill folk though, it is an integral aid in finishing each level as they give Chuck the ability to manipulate the scenery. Large boulders can be dropped to provide the necessary stepping stones to high platforms or carried overheat to provide makeshift shields. Carefully hurled stones can even act as counterbalances on pivoting platforms, throwing Chuck higher than he could ever jump.

Not all the creatures Chuck meets are set to do the man down. Chuck meets are set to do the man down. Some friendly birds wait eager to help missing link's long-lost cousin. If the Homo-erectus Boulderous Throwius stands in front of them, then they willingly fly him to platforms new.

Stone Age graphics
Chuck's world is a curiously amusing blend of Python's Terry Gilliam animations and Disneyesque cuteness. Chuck has a manic quality, walking in a weird manner and belly bashing foes out of his path. It is the supporting cast of deranged dinosaurs though, who complete this crazy graphic equation. All have characteristics that endear, especially as they shriek themselves to death; shivering, shuddering and shattering like Daffy Duck at double speed.

The entire effects package back the game concept well, underlining the humour and off-beat action of Chuck. A vicious Xylophone cut accompanies bonus points collection and each life starts with a gutral "Unga Bunga". No one could say that and sound intelligent, but Chuck manages to make a comatose slug look apart.

Romp and circumstance
Chuck Rock is fun, there's no getting away from it. The game follows an established formula but still manages to exhibit personality and originality. With the solid platform of graphics and sound to build upon, the reports should all be good. Everything conspires to pull you in, just like it should. The difficulty slowly mounts to replace the initial amusement as play progresses.

Chuck eventually, though, leans too heavily on the toughness to provide player motivation at the expense of the humour. What started out as a cute platform romp eventually becomes a slog.

Chuck Rock is a well structured game in the mould of Rick Dangerous with the traps replaced by end-of-level nasties. The hero is continually faced with new challenges and permutations of the puzzles, to confound and confuse.

The introduction of swimming on the later levels for example, adds new tricks to Chuck's gameplay repertoire, with the caveman struggling to hold his breath and turning blue in the process. The toughness eventually overshadows the game's personality, however Core have designed a cracking platform epic guaranteed to put players through their paces.

Chuck is a caveman, both historically and socially. So when he hears that the evil Gary 'Gritter' (for this is a game that lets no caveman/rock joke go unexploited) has kidnapped his beautiful wife Ophelia, his first thought is 'So what? There's plenty more women out there, and my trusty club hasn't let me down yet'.
But then he realises she hasn't quite finished the washing yet, and that unless he wants to spend the rest of the week wandering around in a soggy loincloth, he'd better do something about it.

Thus motivated, Chuck sets out on his quest, which turns out to be a lengthy five level trek through every unlikely prehistoric situation the boys at Core could come up with. For the most part the wildlife remains fairly indifferent to our Chuck's plight - some ignore him, some treat him as potential food, but you get the feeling that they're not so much obstacles deliberately set in his path as the natural hazards of a caveman's life.

Chuck's by no means totally defenseless though - smaller lizards and the like can be belly-butted out of the way by his not-inconsiderable beergut, flying kicks can come in useful with some of the taller ones, and then of course there are the rocks.

You see, Chuck Rock isn't just our hero's name, it's pretty much a description of him too. There are all sorts of boulders lying around the place which he can quite happily pick up and a) throw at animals to squish them, b) use as stepping stones to help him clamber up onto higher platforms, or c) use as slightly unlikely umbrella to protect himself against the huge boulders which occasionally bounce down the screen for no adequate explored reason. A carefully thrown rock can also trigger off one or two nifty little effects,but more on that later.

Armed with these assorted talents, our neanderthal chum makes light work of the jungles, swamps, icefields and dinosaur graveyards (each level sub-divided into a number of smaller zones) he must cross to rescue Ophelia - perhaps too light in fact, for this isn't the toughest platform game we've ever come across, with only the huge end-of-level guardians likely to cause most players any real problems

Lee Pullen, who did the graphics on Core's earlier release Torvak The Warrior, has put in some sterling work on the visuals here, to the extent that they positively leap out at you and shout 'play me!' The sprites are absolutely lovely, gorgeously coloured and full of character, and wouldn't look out of place in The Flintstones.

They're animated with great care and imagination too - each time you come across a new character it's a bit of a mini-event in itself because you're desperately keen to see 'just what this one does' (and you're rarely disappointed). The BBC's sound library has been raided to good effect too, with brilliant sampled speech and effects providing the game with an audio track definitely worth pumping up the volume for.

Where Chuck improves on Torvak is that it actualy has a decent game hidden under the graphics. Within a pretty basic platform format, it's packed to the brim with original features, well thought out gameplay and nice touches that makes it a positive joy to sit down with. In fact, the phrase 'nice touch' could have been invented for this game, with every new prehistoric obstacle bringing a smile to your face.

There isn't nearly enough space to list everything I'd like to mention here, but personal favourites include the way Chuck behaves underwater, the crocodile see-saws (who'll sproing you up to a higher platform if you stand on their tales and drop rocks on their heads), the obviously freezing-to-death baddies in the ice levels, the mud monsters (horribly scary, these ones), and the cute little dinosaurs that split into two smaller ones when you bash them, then split again until they're so small they get crushed between your toes.

So there we have it really - not the most complicated game in the world, but a decidedly neat one, put together with care and imagination (remember, both Chris Long and Bob Churchill worked on Rick Dangerous 2, so you know the level of ambition to expect) and reaching the lofty peaks of playability only normally associated with the best Japanese arcade games.

My only real niggle (and it's a slight one) would be that the difficulty level is perhaps pitched just a touch too low (a real surprise when you think it comes from people involved with Rick 2!). All the same, for a platform game that you'll keep coming back to again and again, you could do much worse than pick up a Rock.

Ungabunga! Core Design's latest platform romp takes the player all the way back to the Stone Age when men were real men, women were real women and big green Brontosauruses with awful incontinence problems were an unfortunate hazard of everyday life.

Drawing inspiration from cartoons such as Captain Caveman and the classic Flintstones, Chuck Rock is a five level platform game split into twenty-five zones set in a jungle, caves, under the sea, in an ice world and a dinosaur's graveyard.

The game proper starts with our Neanderthal hero trekking across a platform-packed jungle landscape full of prehistoric monsters, dinosaurs and other Cretacion creatures all of whom are out for his blood. To combat these, Chuck can either leap into the air and kick them, pick up a rock and throw it or hit 'em where it hurts with a powerful earth-shattering 'belly-butt'.

This first level, made up of four zones, is set in a prehistoric jungle. To reach the end-of-level dinosaur, Chuck has to combat lemming-like creatures that unexpectedly leap out from the undergrowth, animals that suddenly transform into giant hammers and Monkeys which pepper the air with coconuts.

The second level takes place in an underground cave. Chuck has to jump from rock to rock and hop onto moving platforms to get a lift powered by cat-like creatures running round threadmills. The second zone in level two begins with an earthquake the screen literally shaking violently - an effect I've seen before on the Megadrive but never on the Amiga. Moving on into the level, Chuck finds himself in the middle of a volcano, complete with lava flows and little fire sparks which jump out and run around after you.

Level three takes place in a watery domain with only small islands sticking out from the sea. Chuck has to hop from one tiny island to the next. Although he can swim, he can only hold his breath for a short time. If he stays under water too long his face turns blue and his arms start to paddle faster and faster until he's trashing about in the water in a near fit.

Mad snapping crabs with massive claws and large blue swordfish make up some of the cartoon inhabitants. Bash the swordfish underwater and his snout crumbles like an accordion.

An ice covered world greets our hero in the next section. The colours used in this section have been given a bluish tint to reflect the cold, and Chuck's breath is shown as an icy cloud. Dangers here come from falling icicles, fast-moving creatures trapped in blocks of ice, and a cute little character who scoops up handfuls of snow and lops snowballs at Chuck.

The fifth and final level is set in a dinosaurs' graveyard with lots of dead dinos and glistening bones littering the area. Indeed, many of the platforms are made up from a patchwork quilt of different sorts of bones. Further on in the level, Chuck gets to explore the innards of a particular large dinosaur. Here, worms pop out of the ground, butterflies appear in the stomach (!) and amoeba-like growths slime about ready to engulf any who cross their path.

After a particularly gruelling boxing match wit Tim the Tyrannosaurus, Chuck finally gets to confront the evil Gritter and rescue his wife.

Chuck Rock is a big game, with each level made up of between 90-100 screens, it's been put together with a lot of finesse and is very stylish and funny. The joystick controls are easy to manipulate and straight-forward. The only criticism is the initial difficulty in timing Chuck's belly butts, but that comes with practice.

There's no time limit to the game, so there's ample opportunity to explore each level - it's so easy to race through each section and miss a lot of the incidental humour. The in-game tune is jolly enough, but best are the atmospheric sound effects of beating African drums and the various noises emitted by each character.

As usual, there are end-of-level beasties to bump off, which takes some doing, but with names like Steve the Sabre Tooth Tiger and Frank the Tricerotops it's hard to take them seriously... until it's too late!

My only criticism is that the game is a bit too easy, and despite the very high standards of animation, there really isn't that much to do. The puzzles are a tad easy, and once the controls and timing have been mastered, it's a doddle to cream off the wee beasties. That apart, it's still one heck of a game with the best cartoon graphics I've ever seen. Great fun and Core's best game so far.

Chuck is a caveman, .and he's got a problem. It's a problem familiar to anyone who's played a Japanesey arcade/adventure game before. And this is what it is: his chick's been kidnapped and he's got to go and rescue her. Well, actually he hasn't got to go and rescue her, but you know what we mean. (After all, it'd be a waste of 20 quid if you sat there and watched his unmoving body standing at the begging of level one for hours on end).

Anyway, after that brief 'aside', we can get back to the fact that Chuck is indeed going to try to win his love back. And to get you in the mood for the game that's about to come, Core has bundled a demo in with the two game disks. A nicely animated and jolly demo too, which shows all the events leading up to the actual kidnap.

There's Chuck lazing about in the lounge watching telly (and throwing beer cans at it). Then there's his chick Ophelia, who's out in the garden hanging up the washing (with not a 'New Age man' in sight to help her). And then, da-da, there's the snatch itself, Garry Gritter, the villain of the piece, sneaking up on Ophelia, chucking her over his shoulder, and making off into the distance. ("You get to see her pants, it's brill" - A French person).

And so it goes on, with Chuck realising something is amiss and giving chase - in the nude, because his strides are still in the wash. ("Ooh la la!" - Another French person). It's all a bit like a 40 second episode of The Flintstones that would go down well in Le Touquet, really.

And you can watch it again and again until you decide you don't want to any more whereupon you can re-format the disk for your own use - it's just like a 'get a quid back free' special offer. Anyhow, now you know about the kidnap demo, you'll want to know about the game, won't you? Yes, of course you will.

Dunc: As a genre paints at least 200 words, I may as well start with Chuck Rock's very own genre: it's a viewed from the side hit and kick 'em up platform-cum-maze-game. There are five levels (with underwater segments where your breath can run out), and each of the five levels is split into a further five sub-levels.
So you can take that as five levels or 25 levels (depending on how your mind works - I personally see it as nine levels, but that's because I'm completely crap at counting).

So what makes Chuck Rock stand out a bit from the crowd of platform games? The humour in the visuals, that's what. It's a sort of cross between Terry Gilliam's Python stuff and early sixties Hanna Barbera, and there are loads of 'neat little touches' scattered about throughout the game (such as, while trying to walk under the nether regions of a stationary Diplodocus, it goes ploppy plops on your head)> (Stop being so childish. Eed.)

Anyway, so now you know that it's an amusing platform game, what else do you need to know? Well, I suppose Chuck's fighting moves and a little bit of info on the enemy sprites would help.

Here goes. Chuck can do a flying kick or a tummy-butt. The flying kick's self-explanatory, but the tummy business probably needs illuminating. (It doesn't actually, but go on anyway. Ed.). Imagine what would happen if obese, beer-gutted dart player Jocky Wilson pulled his stomach in till he had a figure like, I don't know, Linford Christie or someone. Mmmm? All that fat packed in, denser than 10 gold ingots. Now imagine Jocky simultaneously letting go of the gathered flesh and doing a forward pelvic thrust. Yeah?

Imagine being on the receiving end of that. You could probably knock a bridge down. Maybe two. No bridges for Chuck though - he has to knock down dinosaurs.
There are loads of the basts, from weeny (and quite pathetic) newty-type things all the way up to ginormous mammoths, sabre-tooths and so on. (And don't write in and say 'mammoths and sabre-toths weren't dinosaurs, because they were. They lived in the same time period. Anyone who's seen Four Million Years BC starring Raquel Welch will know I'm right).

As well as the nasties (all with their own various idiosyncrasies), bits of the scenery can fall on you as well (the aforementioned jobbies being a case in point). As you progress through the levels, the maze element becomes tougher - there are only so many ways through. Oh, and like a clot I've forgotten something crucial - the rocks.

While stumbling along picking up bonus points and energy icons, Chuck may happen upon a rock. It might be a massive boulder or it might be a teensy-weensy pebble, but Chuck can pick it up and throw it. Or he can hold it above his head and use it as a shield. Or, more importantly, he can bung it on the floor and use it as a stone-age step-ladder to help him reach those platforms which would otherwise be out of reach. And sometimes he needs to balance one on top of another. And you know when you really, really need a rock?
Yup - they're just like taxis. They're incredibly difficult to find. Oh, and incidentally, while I know it's hardly a major feat of programming expertise, the rocks have 'weight'. They affect Chuck's jumping abilities (if he's holding one, of course) and tend to send him plunging down into the dark depths of the water--filled caverns more efficiently than if he'd bought a ticket for the Titanic's maiden voyage.

Some games fall flat on their face in overcrowded genres like this one, some games provoke a sort of "yeah, well, tum-de-tum-de-tum", while others entertain you with their original approach and draw you in to the point at which you realise you're a teensy-weensy bit hooked. Chuck Rock falls into the latter category, with the blend of humour, action, mapping and logic slotted together in such a way as to produce a very enjoyable Ice Age romp. It definitely gets a big thumbs up from me!