When a small child is driven cruelly from his Stone Age homeland to an Artificial Environment Centre sometime in the future, his socialisation process is likely to be affected. Not for him a trouble free upbringing of cheese cloth shits, Screen Test and camping holidays in the South of England. No siree. This kid is gonna have a whole load of readjustment problems.

And as luck would have it, I'm not talking utter nonsense (well, I am) because Kid Chaos has found himself in exactly this situation.

Sporting an outfit which would have done an extra from West Side Story proud, Kid Chaos wants out of the modern world. To get back to his prehistoric paradise he must batter his way through five worlds of platform action. This is no cutesy affair; the Kid has a club which he can swing indiscriminately, crushing everything in his path.

He can spin and knock everything out of the way and... oh, I can't go on with this. Kid Chaos is Sonic The Hedgehog - replace the blue spiky thing with Kirk Brandon from popular Eighties rock combo Spear of Destiny, bring to the boil and simmer. A recipe for success or half-baked nonsense?

Anyway, each world is split into four levels, some huge, some short but devilishly tricky, concluding with a classic-style arcade game at the end of each world, including a Breakout and a Space Invaders clone. And my, they are splendid fun.

But what of the meat? The worlds themselves aren't wildly original - but then you could say that about most platform fare. They range from Toy and Techno lands to Ruined Cities and Toxic Wastelands. No, what you get is speed - if you feel the need. Kid Chaos is one of the quickest fellows around - you bound along taking out the nasties and the power pods a toute vitesse, as they say somewhere abroad.

It's darned tricky though. At the end of each level you're informed of the damage done and as often as not only 50-60 per cent has been completed. And the task times differ greatly - on one level you may have 15 minutes to bob around while on the next it could be only 90 seconds, which means collecting as much time as possible, and it can be frustrating, particularly when the exit is elusive.

Some of the manoeuvring is very tricky, and you're often caught between grabbing the pick-ups, carefully avoiding the many traps and just bombing along hoping everything will be all right.

But Kid Chaos is a pretty comprehensive platformer. The worlds are varied enough to sustain interest and the parallax scrolling is smoothly efficient, though whether you need another platform game like this is another question. But enough. The bottom line - Kid Chaos is fun. And that's what counts.

Kaum hat der kleine Jurassic-Rowdy das Licht der Welt erblickt, das bricht auch schon Hektik aus: Neugierige Wissenschaftler entführen den Knirps aus seiner kuscheligen Fred-Feuerstein-Umgebung ins 21. Jahrhundert, wo er gar nicht froh darüber ist, zukünftig den Job einer Laborratte zu übernehmen.

Ehrensache, daß man da zum Joystick greift, um den Knaben heim zu seinen urigen Mami zu geleiten - die Zeitmaschine wartet am Ende von ünf abschnittweise unterteilten und mit einem Zeitlimit gesegneten Levels.

Lediglich mit einer ollen Keule bewaffnet, köpft Brorks Urahn in der ersten Stufe noch harmlos mutierte Blumen im Wald und auf der Wiese, während es vermeintlich nette Häschen und Fledermäuschen auf seinen Energievorrat abgesehen haben.

Nach dem gegnerlosen Levelfinale mit "Arkanoid"-Mauer kurvt er dann um ätzende Giftpfützen in einer ausrangierten Chemiefabrik und haut den ansässigen Riesenschlangen sein Stöckchen aufs Haupt.

Ist auch diese Aufgabe bewältigt, wollen in der Spielzeugfabrik "entgegenkommende" Matchboxautos plattgemacht werden, ehe in Techno-Town noch diverse Fahrten auf Tempo-Achterbahnen zu absolvieren und in einer Tempel-Stadt die Maikäfer der Zukunft zu besiegen sind.

Alle diese Szenarien gliedern sich in jeweils drei Plattformabschnitte plus einem finalen Zusatzspiel wie dem erwähnten "Breakout"-Verschnitt, kleinen Ballereien oder ähnlichem.

Nun stammt der Neuzugang in der mit "B.C. Kid" und "Chuck Rock" recht prominent besetzten Steinzeitliga auch wahrlich nicht von schlechten Eldern:

Mit Magnetic Fields alias Shaun Southern und Andrew Morris zeichnet jenes Programmierteam für Kid Chaos verantwortlich, das bereits mit den diversen "Lotus"-Games (für Gremlin) eine ganze Klassiker-Trilogie vorzuweisen hat. Bei solchen Voraussetzungen braucht sich natürlich niemand zu wundern, wenn es hier so schnell spielbar und teilweise auch technisch brillant zugeht wie sonst selten im Genre.

Noch weniger verwunderlich ist das, wenn man weiß, daß statt echter Innovationen eine ausgereifte Sammlung alt-bewährter Hops-Ideen wartet - also etwa Sammelextras für frische Lebensenergie, Schutzschilde oder schnelle Spurtstiefel sowie Rücksetzpunkte für den kürzlich verblichenen Neandertaler.

Aber selbst wenn die gebotenen Ideen nicht gerade taufrisch sind, hier macht's einfach die Masse. So muß der Spieler mit Geheimkammern, Höhlenpassagen und superschnellen Sprints genauso fertig werden wie mit millimetergenauer Pixelarbeit.

Das hohe Spieltempo wird allenfalls durch im Weg stehende Stacheln oder baumelnde Morgensterne abgebremst, und auch bei beweglichen Plattformen, Lasern oder Flammenwerfern schaltet man natürlich besser einen Gang runter.

Die besonders effektiven Sprungfedern dagegen müssen mit Vollgas angespurtet werden und sorgen dann für so viel Speed, daß höchstens noch "Zool" oder "Mr Nutz" mithalten kann.

Für Einsteiger ist der prähistorische Runner aber eher nicht gedacht, denn die mannigfaltigen Gefahren und zunehmend unfairen Attacken werden trotz der hervorragenden Steuerung wohl nur Plattform-Profis meistern können - aber wer ist das heutzutage nicht?

Die Handhabung hat ein Extralob verdient: lästige Kopierschutzmechanismen fehlen, und die Nachladepausen fällen freulich kurz aus. Und als Clou erlauben die Ozeanisten erstmals, ein Actiongame auf Festplatte zu nageln - mit 1,5 MB RAM seid Ihr dabei.

Ja, man kann sogar zwischen einer gepackten und einer speicherplatzfressenden, dafür aber schnelleren Expanded-Version wählen. Im Optionsmenü darf man die Steuerung konfigurieren, Level-codes wahlweise per Tastatur oder Stick eingeben und das Vorhandensein sowie die Lautstärke der Begleitmusik (vielfältige und überwiegend gute Techno-Tracks) bzw. Sound-FX regeln.

Im Spiel wird übrigens fast jede Aktion von passenden Effekten begleitet, und gelegentlich künden lauter werdende Geräusche von Gefahr im Anzug, was man recht bald zu schätzen lernt.

Die Grafik fährt allerdings auch ein paar Negativpunkte ein, denn manche Sprites sind geradezu lachhaft animiert und wollen so gar nicht zu derart detailreich ausgearbeiteten Hintergründen wie etwa einem plätschernden Wasserfall mit Brücke, die sich bei Betreten gefährlich durchbiegt, passen.

Und wo sich Blümchen nett in der Kulisse drehen, fallen vernachlässigte Käfer halt doppelt unangenehm auf: Da flattert nichts, die Krabbeltiere sausen völlig unbewegt durch die Luft. Einige Szenen kommen sogar fast im SW-Look daher, und speziell den Chemielevel könnte direkt ein Farbenblinder entworfen haben.

Dafür sucht das superschnelle Parallax-scrolling seinesgleichen, und selbst ein Screen voller Gegner bringt kein Ruckeln. Nett auch, daß dem Helden bei einem längeren Päuschen schnell langweilig wird und er dann zunächst ziemlich sauer dreinblickt, ehe er mit der Keule in der Hand im Stehen wegpennt...

Viel hat zum Hit also nicht gefehlt - ein bißchen mehr optische Feinarbeit und ein paar Innovationen beim Gameplay, und wir hätten sofort und ohne Zögern unser Gütesiegel gezückt.

Aber ein Platz im Oberfeld der Hüpfliga ist Kid Chaos auch so sicher, und das ist für einen so alten Knaben ja auch kein schlechtes Ergebnis. Oder? (rl)

Phew. Good job we held off reviewing Kid Chaos until it had been completely finished and had had its name finalised, eh? Otherwise we might have done something embarrassing like writing 'Kid Vicious' on our cover. But anyway. Nomenclature confusion aside, Kid Chaos looked decidedly impressive when Ocean first showed it to us last month. Developers Magnetic Fields really did seem to have got to the bottom of what makes a good platform game.

Kid Chaos did not just scroll really fast - heck, a game could scroll from one side of the playing area to the other in 0.25 seconds without necessarily being any fun - but it made use of that speed by sending you flying joyously through conveniently-placed lines of collectables, hurling you miles up into the air and flinging you from bumper to bumper in pure rapture.

And on top of that it was full of original thinking, like having little Duck Shoot and Breakout games at the end of levels. Magnetic Fields genuinely seemed to know what they were doing.

So it came as something of a surprise when I jumped down a shaft near the end of level 3 and got killed by some spikes. There were not any spikes at the bottom of the last two shafts I'd jumped down. I had no way of knowing there'd be some at the bottom of this one. I put my head in my hands and wept, realising for the first time that Kid Chaos is, in fact, no different. It is just like all the others.

JUMP
And as it turns out, Kid Chaos is a game of extremes. On the one hand there are the brilliant, truly inspired features like the spiky balls which make stereophonic swooshing noises as they swing from side to side (once you have turned off the ill-advised rave soundtrack), and the way your power level gradually rises if you stand still, so you can trade time for energy, or the little room in the Toy Factory where you have got to bash into rows of Space Invader-shaped baddies.

And on the other hand there are pointless, brainless things like barrels which suddenly come rolling towards you giving you no chance of avoiding them unless you are expecting them, and bumpers which send you flying backwards into spiky pits, and spikes which blend into the background so well that, although you can just about make them out while you are standing still, you have no chance of spotting them when the screen is scrolling, and - perhaps most witless of all - orange bubbles which inexplicably appear directly on top of your sprite and kill him.

It is a bizarre kind of Jekyll and Hyde-type situation, good versus evil, and at the moment I am not exactly sure which side triumphs. Going back to the good things, the settings make a refreshing change. You will find no slippy-slidey ice worlds or runaway mine-carts. Instead there are neat ideas like the Toy Factory where all the toys are running amok, and the pollution-ridden Toxic Wasteland, even if it does start off in a garden.

RUN
The graphics are generally all right as well, if a bit muddily-coloured. The levels are about the right length, and each one has got a different emphasis, whether it is having to make your way carefully through a particularly trickly-placed series of platforms, having to hunt around for thinly spread Smashable Things (which you have got to hit a certain number of to open each level's exit), or simply having to race to the end against a particularly tight time limit. This, along with the amusing end-of-level bits, makes for a game containing plenty of variety.

But what about the momentum on Kid himself? It is a real effort to get him moving, and just as tough to get him to stop again, which means he is constantly blundering into baddies, sliding off platforms and not being able to make it off collapsing platforms. And he is hardly the most identifiable-with of characters - a caveman in Zany Cool Sneakers who I was rarely sorry to see plunging to his death. Cute woodland animals might be cliched, but they do at least appeal to the protective instinct in us all.

Kid Chaos has got lovely bits where you go whizzing along winding pipes and burst joyfully out of the end, and then completely stupid bits where you have got to tip-toe between closely-placed crushers, only cannot possibly make it through because the controls are so sluggish. It sends you bouncing in exhilarating zig-zags between carefully placed bumpers, but then puts an electric force field at the end that you go flying towards and die.

It recognises a second disk drive, but then draws a huge picture of a disk on the screen and writes "Please insert disk 2" when disk 2 is already there. AND THERE IS A POWER-UP THAT REVERSES YOUR CONTROLS.

I desperately wanted Kid Chaos to be a great game and, on balance, I think I like it quite a bit more than I hate it. But is is almost as if Magnetic Fields spent months writing this beautifully platform game, fine-tuning it down to the very last detail, and then left it on the kitchen table overnight ready to post off to Ocean the next day, whereupon some mischievous mice crept in and inserted a load of completely ridiculous flaws into it in a sort of reverse Tailor of Gloucester scenario.
And yes, it does look like Sonic.

So Sonic can't be done on the Amiga, eh? Since Sonic appeared on the Mega Drive it's been the bone of contention for Amiga kids, jeered at in school playgrounds by smug Mega Drive-owning peers. And seemingly every time an Amiga is mentioned in a Mega Drive magazine it's described as an 'older person's machine, with a great line in RPGs and flight sims, but no great shakes in the platform stakes'.

THE PLOT
Kid Chaos, from Lotus creators Magnetic Fields, wields a pretty hefty club in the direction of these doubters. Technically superior to any other platform game (Sonic included) Kid combines fast, smooth-scrolling, an incredible number of parallax layers, and colors and sounds so vibrant it makes you wonder what the hell the other platform creators have been doing for the last few years.

Like all good arcade games there is a plot, or at least some cobbled-together guff which passes for one. It seem that a young, carefree, happy-go-lucky caveman was out hunting dinosaurs when POW! A pair of crazy scientists (from the future, naturally) whip him, and his club, to a modern-day garden suburb.

Quite why they did this is unknown and, quite frankly, as immaterial as the whole story, but it's made even more confusing by the additional wardrobe of trousers, jacket and trainers that accompanied the quantum leap through time.

Okay, so the storyline stinks. That established, we can now concentrate on the game which is, thankfully, much better. Five worlds lie between Kid and his goal: Secret Garden, Toxic Wasteland, Toy Factory, Techno Fortress and Ruined City.

In terms of running, jumping, bashing and collecting they're very similar, but each world is both different and remarkable in its graphical style. The Secret Garden, for example, is packed with colorful flowers, beautiful greenery and wildlife, but no concession has been made to the fast pace and smoothness of the game. Not since Thalion's Lionheart have we been treated to so many layers of parallax, but that game was pedestrian in comparison - when the Kid gets going he really moves.

Kid, still armed with his dinosaur-braining club, sets out to find the time machine, which could return him to his prehistoric home and, along the way, collect enough energy to actually power the sting. Sadly, the 'energy' in this case is stored in various disguises: flowers, stone monuments and lamp shades, to name but three, which must be destroyed in order to gather their electrical content.

There's a certain amount which must be collected in each level before moving on to the next, so it's not just a case of racing through to the finishing post - you have to work to make that exit door open.

From the beginning it's clear that Kid Chaos has been written with the player in mind. The controls can be changed, a throwback from the old Commodore 64 and Spectrum games, which is all too often lost on the Amiga. Now you can either push the button or move the joystick up to jump, both of which suit different people and if you're controlling with a joypad (CD32, for example) 'up to jump' strikes dread into the heart of players who, like me, put playability above everything else.

But Magnetic Fields are veterans now, having produced some of the better games in recent times: Kickstart on the C64, Super Sprint on the ST and, more recently, the Lotus Turbo trilogy for Gremlin. So perhaps they should now best.

When you complete a level you're given a complete run-down of your achievements. The amount of energy collected and baddies clubbed are highlighted, Chaos Engine-style, as small horizontal tubes which form a kind of bar graph charting your progress.

So, if you've missed a few nasties, or you think you could have done better in the energy department, then you can always go back and try again. It's this kind of attention-to-detail which makes Kid Chaos a game you'll keep coming back to.

And, of course, a platform game wouldn't be complete without its pickups. Apples, sweets, rocks, whatever, each one collected adds to your hit points (the number of times you can be hit by a baddie without losing a life). Each successive level has baddies with greater hit points, so while on World One Level One you might lose, say, 30 hit points, by the time you get up to World Three Level Three you'll probably lose 50. And since you start the game with 50, make it a priority to acquire those pickups as soon as you can.

THE BEST?
Thankfully, as you've probably gathered by now, the stunning technicalities don't overshadow the gameplay. It makes no claim to be original; indeed, it copies (parodies?) many other games like Zool and Sonic. The Toy Factory, say, could be directly taken from Zool (or any one of a number of other platform games), while the underground rollercoaster tubes and 45 degree springs which cannon you into the air are classic Sonic features.

There is something wrong with Kid Chaos, though, believe it or not. This one real flaw is in the weight of the main sprite - he carries far too much momentum, which makes it very difficult to stop on some of the smaller platforms. And inertia plays havoc with the Kid when you're trying to move him up a hill: he really drags and grates his way up, which means it's a good second or so before you can make it to top speed.

Because the worlds in Chaos are particularly hilly and packed with tiny little platforms, it seems ludicrous that the designers expect you to judge pinpoint distances with a control system that feels like lumpy porridge. Like I said, when he gets going, though, he really moves - and its this exhilarating speed that really makes up for the lack of control in the tighter areas.

It stands, then, as a slightly flawed gemstone. A pick-up-and-play game which doesn't get too difficult too quickly, which looks and sounds brilliant, which poses a decent challenge to those who have already killed off Zool and the others, but which is slightly frustrating because of the massive momentum of the main sprite.

Compared with the scale of the game this is perhaps being picky, but I really feel that Kid Chaos could have been one of the greatest platformers ever if the Kid himself was just a wee bit more maneuverable.