You may have seen this game advertised originally as Spitting Images. Unfortunately for Domark the lawyers from a certain well-known satirical TV puppet show decided this title was a little too close for comfort hence the swift rebranding exercise. The new name more than adequately sums up the object of the game though, which is to put back together the faces of a selection of well known public figures.

Screenshots? On the cover? It was a revolution

Taking its cue from those sliding block puzzles that always tend to fall out of a certain class of Christmas cracker, the game presents you first with a blank screen to play with. You control a flashing cursor which can be moved at will over the canvas. Press the fire button and the first piece of the puzzle will slide out on to the playing area. Move the cursor on to this piece and then you can slide it around the screen by holding fire before moving the stick in the direction you wish the block to move. At this point it is also worth looking at the miniature version of the picture you are trying to assemble which is handily placed above your score. Here the full grid is present, and the block in play is highlighted so you can tell where it needs to go. This comes in very useful on some levels where position is not obvious from the scrap of picture held on any one block (indeed, certain screens include several identical blocks, get them in the wrong place and your finished portrait will look perfect but you won't finish the level).

As if the concept of releasing the blocks and sliding them in to place wasn't enough, the game's Dutch designers have seen fit to throw in a number of other challenges for the unwary player. Firstly, the blocks do not come out in the order you need them so there is a great deal of shuffling to be done to make any kind of progress. Secondly the edge of the playing field does not make a perfect wall. There are cracks which come and go - hitting a block against one of these will cause it to bounce back to where it started. There are also doors which open and shut. Send a block towards an open door and you can kiss it goodbye as it slides off the edge of the screen. These aren't lost forever but simply join the back of the queue waiting to come on again.

However, the doors are not all bad - as well as the obvious solution of temporarily getting shot of blocks that you don't need yet they are also vital for bomb disposal. Yes, more hazards await the player in the form of non-picture blocks. These have assorted other images on, the most annoying of which is a fizzing bomb which will soon countdown to nothing and explode, costing one of your three lives. The only sure way to escape this threat is to throw out of a door quickly, although bombs can also be extinguished for bonus points by throwing a tap on to them. Picture combinations common to all screens include bonus multiplying guns and bullets, while the others are specific to individual levels - when re-assembling a picture of ‘Uncle Clive’ points come from combining a C5 with his god-like brain. And beware the lit match if a can of fuel appears on screen.

Bless him, he invented the calculator you know, or the fridge. One of those two.

As the levels progress things are made harder by increasing numbers of cracks, doors that stay open longer or never shut at all, blocks begin to bounce off one another rather than stopping where you would expect and the time available to complete the image drops away with greater speed. All the block shuffling and bonus grabbing is done against the relentless march of time, measured by a swiftly decreasing bar along the bottom of the screen. Let that tick away to zero (and you will be warned by some insistent beeps when time is running short) and another life will be lost.

Domark have produced a game to be proud of. Split Personalities has a knack of grabbing the player and not letting go. Sound in the game is limited to a few jingles and beeps and a persistent helicopter like noise when your cursor is on screen but the artwork more than makes up for this. Each portrait is extremely well drawn and detailed; part of the thrill of the game is in seeing who the next celeb requiring re-assembly will be. We also found it ideally suited both to keyboard play and the use of a short-travel joystick such as the Konix Speedking. Ideal for the quick and precise movements required in placing blocks.

RODENT RETRO CASH RATING - FULL £4.99

"Yer can even play with rubber keys"

Author's note

This is one game I still play regularly through the joys of emulation. While analogue PC joypads make the control a little more vague than is desirable there is still a lot of fun to be had here. And of course there is the joy of slipping into pure '80s mode on seeing the pictures unfold - Reagan, Thatcher, Kinnock, Sinclair, Charles & Di - even Alan Sugar gets a look in along with Bogart and Marilyn Monroe and one or two others, all rendered in glorious pixel perfection. Remembering the bonus combinations stretches the grey matter almost as much as the picture assembly: Dennis plus a cigar and brandy glass on Maggie's screen; Flags with Ronnie; pistols with the Maltese Falcon for Bogie. Domark then went on to acquire the official Spitting Image licence and turned it into a much less enjoyable product. Weird that.