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Computer games fall into several different categories different categories of programs, for instance, adventures, shoot-'em-ups and strategy games all of which are very popular. A new game for the Amstrad, Blagger, is in the most popular category - the climbing games.

Blagger is one of the many games which has been spawned from the American game, Miner 2049'er, primarily Manic Miner, a game which Blagger resembles in many ways.

The basic theme of the game is roughly the same as Manic Miner. You have to guide your character through many dangerous and tricky caverns, collecting sets of keys that will open a door to the next level of the game.

Monsters and hunter killer robots patrol each of the levels making sure that no fortune seeker who enters their cavern emerges alive. Like Manic Miner, the monsters don't chase you, but move in a fixed route preventing you from making an easy escape.

The game does sound similar to Manic Miner and, for my taste at any rate, it is a little too close in some parts for it to be a mere coincidence. The crumbling platforms are straight out of Manic Miner as are the poison plants and some of the screen layouts.

This is, of course, fine it you don't already own a copy of Manic Miner, but is a bit of a bummer if you do.

It's fast becoming repetitive the amount of times I have given the same advice to people interested in buying new software - buy it because it's a good game, but don't buy twenty other games because they are all exactly alike.

Blagger is a well written and professionally produced game. But I think it would be a shame to see it in the same software collection as Manic Miner. I mean - why waste your money when you could buy a copy of Virgin's Sorcery.