Land of Hope and Glory, cold rice pudding, wet Sundays in Manchester and long queues at the Post Office have all helped make Britain the country it is today. But above all these stands one item that has truly put the Great in Great Britain - the cricket ball. This tremendously hard orb, which can smite a human body with such force that it hurts even through a foot of mattressing, has beaten the British character into shape.
But now evil is in the air - the dastardly Count Chameleon has plans to change a cricket ball's bounce with the help of his rubber-tronic ray. This bounder must be boweled a bouncer if he is to be stopped, and Viscount Sebastian Stifflip, Professor Braindeath, Colonel R G Bargie and Miss Palmyra Primbottom are the team to do it.
The characters are controlled in turn and followed as they make their way through the perilous pitfalls that await them on the far distant South American continent.
The one you're controlling is shown in the bottom half of the comic-strip-style screen, with the previous scene in the top half; the other three characters are on the right side of the screen.
Icon and menu systems allow our heroes to move, converse with other characters, and manipulate objects including lengths of rope and thread, knives and reeds. These objects will help you find solutions to the puzzles that obstruct the way to the Count and his obnoxious device.
But it's just not cricket - the bureaucrats, cretins, wide boys and rotten cads our fearless four encounter in South America can try the patience of this English party. So sometimes you'll have to land a good old thump on a foreign body with some accurate hooking, uppercutting - or ungentlemanly, but decidedly effective, punching below the belt.
Be warned, however: if too many low blows are thrown divine intervention occurs, and the offending character is dispatched heavenward.
There are two parts to Stifflip & Co, loaded separately; you must complete the first to reach the second. And remember, Britain expects every man and woman to do their best.
Producer: Novagen
Price: £9.95
Author: Binary Vision