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Wulf castle, a murky, mysterious place, devoid of human life except for a vile necromancer, Dianos. Killer of King Wulf, it is said he abducts villagers for use in his black magic rituals. Karadoc the dwarf has been hired to find and kill Dianos, taking any treasure he finds as payment.

Cadaver is a flick-screen, isometric 3D arcade adventure with five levels of 70 screens, filled with objects, unsavoury creatures and treacherous traps. Objects are divided into a number of categories and, when touched, bring up icons in the lower left of the screen. The least you can do is search something (with a second icon to return you to walk around mode) and the maximum is five actions. Depending on the object, these actions include drink, read, open and give.

Food and water (held in barrels) are essential to restore energy lost from contact with creatures and the poisonous swamp water. Potion bottles often don't specify what ability/disability they give the consumer so they've quite a gamble. Scrolls give useful information or hold spells for use against adversaries or at certain locations. Tools, armour and weapons have more conventional functions and all objects are accessed via a 'rucksack inventory'.

The castle holds many puzzles, solved using objects, spells, buttons and levers - the latter usually unlocking doors - and through interaction with castle inhabitants (some *are* friendly!).

As the castle's explored, it's automatically mapped. The map shows rooms entered, highlights Karadoc's current location, and can be scrolled around and zoomed in on. The game position can be saved and loaded with appropriate spells, a gold fee (increasing with the level) required for saving.

The Bitmap Brothers have effectively grafted an adventure interface onto a traditional isometric 3D arcade game.

A massive inventory, loads of puzzles and a profusion of commands from drink to pull lever to fight. The need to explore and examine everything puts Cadaver in a different league from games such as Treasure Trap - pushing a few crates around won't get you far here. This really is an arcade *adventure*.

Thankfully, the icon system works well, with the icons usually quite obvious in their meaning, and the way they appear only when necessary means the control system is never too unwieldy. After only a short while puzzles are being solved quite easily.

This draws you into the game which gradually gets harder and, with five levels and approximately 350 rooms, dwarfs previous isometric games. All in all, a very impressive departure for the Bros which should keep gamesters occupied for ages.

I thought the Bitmap Brothers would inject some speedy action to the isometric aardvark format, but it's the usual 'explore, collect and use' affair, albeit on a more complex level than games it's inspired by.

It isn't easy, partly because too much emphasis has been put on the icons - you have to highlight one to do virtually anything and, on the default control setting, it's only too easy to accidentally bring them into use.

As for the puzzles themselves... well, I've never been any good at this type of game and although I've had plenty of theories of what should be done and where, my success in Cadaver has been limited.

This is partly due to the odd way certain objects are used - *throw* a pick to break a wall down for example. Nevertheless, this is certainly the largest and most sophisticated isometric aardvark yet. Anyone prepared to sit back and thing awhile should find Cadaver highly rewarding.

Presentation 80%
Load/save option (although you do need spells to access them) and useful automatic map.

Graphics 90%
Carefully drawn and beautifully shaded rooms and sprites, excellent use of colour but iffy animation.

Sound 78%
A wide range of unusual, effective samples - although it's rather odd hearing a maggot scream!

Hookability 74%
Over-use of icons and dull opening locations can be highly off-putting but the exploration bug redresses the balance.

Lastability 92%
Masses of locations, objects and puzzles to feed your arcade adventure appetite if you're willing to persevere.

Overall 86%
A remarkably laid-back, brain-biased Bitmap Brothers creation, but one with plenty of staying power.