Targeting three- to six-year-olds, Noddy and the Magic Clock is a 3D adventure that promises a healthy degree of educational content, wrapped around a plot involving the popular title character.

Unusually, the software is not just compatible with PCs and Macs, but also runs directly from the CD without the need for a lengthy installation process (although, as is increasingly the norm, you will be bugged to register before you get to the game proper - it's an easy screen to skip, however).

The adventure springs into life when, through an animated sequence that is happily taken from the source show (as are several of the cut-scenes, and this is very much a good thing in this case), Noddy manages to ruin the magic clock of Toyland by reading out a spell he shouldn't have; while driving no less. Now he needs to fix it. And thus the program splits into a number of activities that have to be completed to put things right.

Basically, Noddy has to collect numerous parts to complete his task, which he gets by undertaking the jobs that the residents of Toyland ask him to do. They're not a shy lot, that's for sure.

These tasks split into two levels of difficulty and are intended - in a fun way - to help the young audience with the likes of numeracy, problem solving and colour recognition. There's a healthy range of mini-games within the program, and it makes a successful job of recreating Noddy's environment and the characters within. What's more, the tasks - and even driving between them - are engaging, rarely leaving our younger reviewer bored.

As a computer program there are one or two problems, though, not least the tetchy nature of the software. One keyboard press, for instance, dumps you back to the desktop without any kind of confirmation, and even though it's only the escape key that does that, the very young audience - and specifically our own pint-sized test subject - will have little trouble accidentally quitting the software.

We also, on one or two occasions throughout our review, had the software hang on us, a problem we then replicated on a second machine. It was easily solved, but did require a restart as well. This was after quite a prolonged session on the game, but nonetheless it's hardly an ideal scenario.

Still, with quality voiceover work, good production values and a faithfulness to the source material, Noddy and the Magic Clock is a fine piece of educational software. It's not too shabby when it comes to value for money, either, although just beware that you'll need to be in the vicinity of the computer when it's running on to mop up any problems should it crash out on you too.

A fun, well-tuned educational package that makes solid use of a popular central character. A few technical quibbles do cause the odd problem, though.