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Deus Ex Machina is translated from the Latin as - a god introduced into a play to resolve the plot. Yup, you guessed it - you're the god and you're trying to guide a human being through its life in the computer.

The program is accompanied by an audio tape which, when synchronised with the game, provides electronic music and a running commentary about each stage you pass through. This is a very clever idea, but after hearing it through once it merely becomes background noise and after two or three games you probably won't want to play it at all.

The program takes you through the life of a person from the welding of the DNA, through birth, childhood, adulthood and finally old age and death.

Each stage of your development presents you with a different game to play in order to maintain your percentage score of success in life.

There are about fifteen sections to each life but several groups have the same format. This is the case for five of the first six games which involve moving a cursor around and placing it on objects to either keep them spinning or pulsing.

This is done by simply placing the cursor on the object while trying to avoid the blue scanning cursor of the defect police and not letting anything stop moving.

Your cursor is green and, as far as I can tell, it's a mouse dropping with which you can control the progress of an accident in *the* machine. The plot of this little mishap is related on the audio track and starts with this unfortunate mouse having its sphincter eased by nerve gas. Hmmmm...

I won't burden you with the details of the story on the soundtrack, related in words and music by famous names like Ian Drury, Jon Pertwee and Frankie Howerd. Suffice to say that it lives up to Automata's weird reputation and may well appeal to people taking degrees in philosophy and sociology.

The game always lasts the same amount of time and your success at each stage is determined by a percentage score, which will drop for every failure you have.

It's certainly not just a game - more of an attempt at entertainment. The problems it faces in achieving popularity are great though: some will find it tasteless, others unplayable and many just won't be able to relate to the game concept.

I liked it, however, and found it highly original and enjoyable. But beware, you should definitely try before you buy with this one.

It looks like an awesome package - star-studded soundtrack, etc - and it's certainly an awesome price. But Automata's sick black humour is unlikely to make you chuckle for long and the music is tuneless enough to forget after a couple of hearings.

So, it all comes down to the quality of the game that's buried somewhere inside. Unfortunately, gameplay alone would not sell this package; most of the sequences are very simple and don't bear repeated play. Once the novelty has worn off, you'll wonder what you can do with it!

It's certainly different, but without its rather weird and wonderful music it might be just another game.

Graphically, it's brilliant in parts, uninteresting in orders. The various stages of Man's life are portrayed quite well, though some of the screens seem to want to rob you of your eyesight.

Finding out what to do in each screen does use some brainpower, since the instructions are somewhat obscure. The question is whether you'll want to play it more than once.

There's sometimes only a thin dividing line between brilliant originality and insufferable gimmickry. I think most game-players will feel Deus Ex Machina falls just the wrong side of the line...

Some aspects of the package are stunning - the opening graphical sequence, for one. The trouble is, the synchronisation of the music with the action means each game is of a fixed length, and this has imposed a severe limitation on the actual game-play. I also found the storyline ultimately to be pretentious rubbish.