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The scenario pits Fantasy's hero Ziggy against the infinitely evil Scarthax, who has found the Great Plug of the universe and is threatening to send the whole of creation clown the drainpipe. Ziggy's not the sort to take this lightly. He accepts the challenge to tackle Scarthax - but he only has twelve hours to do so.

Arriving on the planet of Thallis, he has to assemble a hit squad of creatures.

Details of these are found on the flipside of the tape in the "Backpackers' Guide". They include such weirdos as the schizoid Double Headed Emu of Thvvark, the paranoid Googly Bird and the disgusting Snottoid.

Ziggy's backpack is singularly capacious: he can store all eleven critturs at the same time. Unfortunately they don't all rub along together very well - they may eat each other - and they all require different diets. Working all this out, as well as finding them, is what this first part of the projected Backpackers trilogy is all about.

Thallis consists of a huge underground maze, with lots of colourful flora - but fauna is a little thin on the ground. As Ziggy goes hovering around, he has to shoot aliens: but these are just rudimentary balls and become very boring indeed. Even worse, there's no sound at all in the program.

This is not a game which you could call exciting. It requires patient exploration, map-making and note-taking in order to work out the various combinations of animals you can carry. The absence of sound is a disappointment, as is the fact that Ziggy's backpack is not yet convertable to submarine or buggy - we'll have to wait for parts two and three for that.

Backpackers is not going to give instant fun, and will appeal more to those with time and tenacity to spare.

I found this rather unoriginal and something of a disappointment. the Guide itself is a very clever idea, wonderfully implemented with a great deal of imagination and humour. The game, however, suffers from being yet another run-of-the-mill arcade adventure.

Certainly it is complex and will take a long time to solve, but I found the instructions lacking in places. On a brighter note, the graphics are good and there is a useful option to save your current position.

All in all, I wasn't particularly stunned by this game and, although it does provide a very difficult challenge, I won't be holding my breath for Part Two.

Long awaited game, this, and frankly it's a big disappointment. The graphics are of a good standard and colour is used well but there is a total lack of sound. Why?!

There isn't much to do and it becomes clear that most of what is promised in the advertisement blurb is contained in the other two games in this series.

Let's hope that the other two games in this series are of a better standard.