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And from the creators of Holed Out, something completely different - a true arcade adventure, complete with lots of fighting as well as route finding, object using and problem solving. The game, I am assured by an expert (my twelve year old son) is essentially a copy of Gauntlet, a game currently popular in real arcades and on real (!) games machines. The action takes place in a central area of the screen whilst the four corners provide permanent display of the status of four separate characters.

You can metamorphasise yourself into any of the four at the touch of key and need to as each has different properties. There is a leprechaun who is good at running and jumping, but pretty useless for fighting, an enchanter whose a dab hand at magical spells and two heavies, a warrior (female) and a Titan who are good at the rough stuff. So if you find an area full of magic potions, you must turn into the enchanter to collect them - since he knows how to use them - and then turn into a tough character to fight your way out, and so on.

The game has 32 levels which must all be completed in one turn to win. Sensibly, however, you can choose to start at any level for practice and variety. If any of your characters should die, however, the game is up - you can't carry on with the survivors. Obviously, in some deep, meaningful sense they are all aspects of your personality with one common identity. Instructions are rather complicated since a large number of sprites are displayed in turn with explanatory text taking several minutes to read through. In view of this complexity, I think that more should have been provided in the way of written documentation than the flimsy inset for the CD type case containing the disc.

My expert consultant found the game reasonably playable but not as good as versions of the generic game for other machines which his friends have on their Ataris etc. I expect this game to sell well but also to disappoint a number of purchasers due to its advertising. In essence, the expectations raised by The Fourth Dimension with their hyped-up glossy, full colour and arty ads will not be fulfilled. Arc graphics at their best can almost match real artwork, but sadly White Magic's graphics fall well short of the machine's potential.

The sprites used have, for example, nothing like the beautiful detail and ingenuity of those produced by the Minerva programmers in games like Hoverbod, Orion and indeed Thundermonk. They are more reminiscent of the crude Mode 2 creations of BBC games. I suspect this an example of a game being ported from its BBC version with insufficient effort to enhance the implementation to the standards and expectations of Archimedes owners.