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Magister the mage is completely mad. He's been ruler of the hill for 13,000 years, casting pretty nasty spells on any human who attempted to establish a settlement there. One day, having reached the ripe old age of 13,000 he dozed off for 500 years.

Along came the Normans and built a castle: a magic castle, which sapped his strength. When he woke up and found a fort full of people above him, he flew into a rage. Unluckily, his wand has gone limp, his powers were spent and people only laughed. In embarrassment he sulked off to a hut outside the walls, vowing vengeance.

Always one to spoil a party, Magister turned up on a feast night and transformed everyone in the castle into grisly ghosts. Unable to control his laughter (the sign of all good villains), he then went and kidnapped your twin sister. What a dastard! That was a year ago - now, standing outside the fortress in some natty knightly gear, you're rushing to her rescue.

Easier said than done. Castle Eternity has over 100 rooms, endless corridors, a full set of confusing catacombs, puzzles, one-way routes - oh, and ghosts. Ghosts drain your energy, so if you don't send them to Spook City pretty prono, they'll shiver the life out of you.

Your task is made easier because control is divided between two 'hands'. The weapon hand helps you dispatch those rotten wraiths with a spunky slingshot; the action hand allows you to perform some nifty tricks as open doors, examine objects, eat food and pick items up.

As well as hunting and killing ghosts, there are plenty of other discoveries to be made: secret rooms, some very cryptic clues, hidden food, mysterious potions and bottles of beer.

To rescue the princess you need to find ten pink pentacles (stashed away in the oddest places), which allow access to the pentacle vault - this contains more gold than Fort Knox and (more importantly) the final key to your twin's prison. To get anywhere near these magical items you also need keys: seven will do, but if you want max points, ten should be your target.

The best part about Castle Master is the total freedom of movement within the game environment - more so than in any previous Freescape product. Progression isn't linear: there's usually more than one way to solve a puzzle, and if you just want to wander around the castle admiring the scenery, you can.

It's also the first Freescape game to be developed primarily for 16-bit, so there's an animated intro sequence, a 20% larger screen, much more object detail (rather than simple polygons) and the addition of an action hand.

There's so much to do it will take ages to finish even with minimum points. And if your bent is for playing princesses rather than knights, Incentive have included an option for that, too - playing a woman is a different proposition. Take a look at Castle Master - it's the best Freescape game yet.