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I have not played anything like this before. It is fabulous. Let me explain. Castle Quest is an arcade adventure game set in a large castle made of colourful bricks, planks and ladders with many objects, such as a torch, gold bar and an aqualung, scattered around. Like traditional adventure games, the object of the game is to solve many puzzles and ultimately to find the wizard's treasure.

The thing is, all this is played in beautifully animated real time arcade action which requires a high degree of digital dexterity.

There are many monsters patrolling various passages, usually in twos and threes. As you are not allowed to zap these creatures, you have to find a way to avoid them or fend them off with some of the objects found. The finding of objects will not score you any points, however. You are awarded points when you solve the puzzles, which are all fairly tricky, almost to the standard of text-based adventures.

Therefore, Castle Quest is not an easy game to play. I expect many of you will be stuck for a long time without scoring a thing. Many times I was caught by a mob of green hairbrushes and thrown into prison. It took me ages to work out how to escape from the prison by experimenting with some of the objects found inside the cell.

The solution was perfectly logical but, since the execution of it is in an arcade format, it took a lot of attempts to finally work out the timing. Once you've made your escape, you will be able to do a fair bit of exploration.

As I said, this game is difficult but it is one of the few games which was so addictive I couldn't stop playing it. It is not for those who are new to arcade adventures but is a must for anyone who can cope with games like Elite. Go and buy it if you like a challenge.