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Under the auspices of US Gold, Crystal Castles has finally emerged into the light of day on the Beeb and Commodore 64 micros. And about time, too. I haven't played such a satisfying game of grab-the-loot-and-run for a long time.

Crystal Castles has been described as 3D Pacman, and that just about sums it up. You play a character, apparently called Bentley, whose main aim in life is to get rich - fast. And since Bentley lives in a world of weird and wonderful castles whose corridors are strewn with gems, he has every chance of doing so.

All he has to do is scamper round the castle's walkways, leap on to moving platforms, run in and out of doorways and so on to gather all the available goodies. But, inevitably, there's a snag, and that snag takes various forms. Hostile bouncing blue balls, for instance, or mobile man-eating trees, not to mention the dreaded worms. And if Bentley takes too long clearing a screen, a savage bush - I think it's a bush - appears on the screen to add to his problems.

Considering the sheer speed of this game the graphics aren't bad at all, and the sound, for once, complements the action. It's simple, slick and very good fun.

The C64 version of Crystal Castles - previewed by our very own Tony T. in Hot Gossip last issue - has a great tune and is very fast.

Each screen has a title - but on all the screens you have to collect the gems scattered around the pathways of the various Crystal Castles. Like the BBC game, the nasties take the shape of blue balls, trees, swarms of bees and green worm thingies.

There's another nice touch in this version are the secret warps which transport you in between levels. When you reach certain screens a message appears telling you where the warps are.

For example, when you reach level sevent you get a message which reads: "Jump at left back corner of first screen".

If you do this you get 140,000 bonus points and get transported to level three.

The graphics aren't bad - just a bit fiddly for my tastes, just like the Atari original in fact.

U.S. Gold say there are releasing this game as a "limited edition". We're not quite sure what this means. It couldn't be a marketing plot, could it?

Anyway, if you were a fan of the coin-op then this game is for you. Crystal Castles is a faithful copy of the arcade original. Completely playable and totally addictive.