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Subtitled the Trail of Darkness, this is the second of the Chronicles of the Land of Fairlight. In part one your quest was to find the Book of Light and battle your way past the guards, trolls and castle guardians to hand the book to the good Wizard Segar and save the land.

Unfortunately, you have been fooled by the Dark Lord and his illusions and, by handing him the book, you have sealed the destiny of the land. Fairlight II begins with you outside the castle, despondent and with nowhere to go.

Luckily, the real Segar appears in front of you and tells you that you can yet save the day by tracking across the land until you finally seek out the Dark Lord and defeat him. The apparition disappears and you're alone once again.

You are Isvar, the would-be hero of the quest who looks more like an Italian waiter than a saviour of the land.

Fairlight II is almost twice as big as the original and loads in two separate parts. Complete the first part and you can load in the rest of the quest. Be warned though, this is a big game and will literally take months to solve.

Unlike the original quest when you were confined to the castle limits, Fairlight II boldly goes where no arcade adventure has ever gone before. Your quest begins outside the castle and will lead through woods, rocky plains, buildings, along narrow ledges, down into holes in the ground and even onto a pirate ship.

The game features Fairlight's 3D Worldmaker techniques that gives the game's objects real-world characteristics such as weight, inertia, momentum and even, occasionally, intelligence. Therefore, although you can carry a maximum of five objects don't be surprised if you can only pick up three. The message "Too Heavy" should tell you why.

The screen display shows the 3D view of the world Isvar is in although some screen have cut away views and one is smply a single thin ledge running from one corner to another. Above that are five "pockets" to hold objects that you find, a message window and your current life force. This begins at 99 and is reduced during combat until, at zero, your journey ends.

Isvar moves in four diagonal directions, picks up and drops objects, fights and jumps through keyboard controls although a Kempston joystick can replace some keys.

Exploration of the land will be hindered constantly with attacks by the people and critters that serve the Dark Lord. These hack or chomp away at you until sufficient sword blows hack them down. My favourites are the incredible wolves that stalk you before they strike. You must also be wary of the plants in the forest since some have energy draining thorns that can weaken the unwary adventurer.

Solving the game is a mammoth task that will take time and a mixture of exploring, mapping, fighting and problem solving skills. Luckily you can save your game position for later play or as insurance to protect your work to date.

Most of the probems involve getting hopefully useful objects from almost impossible places. To do this you must find, collect and ferry the materials you'll need, to build yourself a platform or steps to reach the object. To do this you must use the rocks and barrels that form the passive backgrounds of lesser games and stack them on top of each other. Climb on top of your makeshift structure and you can claim your prize.

The next problem is to find out what to do with your new found booty. One particular problem has an object on top of an unreachable platform deep inside a building (making ferrying rocks and barrels unrealistic). Beside it are three moving platforms that are stacked on top of each other. The way to the object is to jump at the stack to land on the lower platform which pushes the higher ones back. A second well time leap will take you to the next level and so on. Miss one jump and the stack is moving in all directions and the chance is lost.

Unlike many arcade adventures that can easily be solved with a map and a pause button. Fairlight II contains many mapping traps. These include several doors separated by woods and rocky plains that lead to the same building that then my contain repeating series of rooms to confuse the player. You should also watch where you're going as a step in the wrong direction could lead you off a cliff and into a new game.

There is hope, however, in the shape of energy bubbles that float around some of the game's rooms. Most drain 10 life points on contact but I've found at least one that gives you 250 life points! It takes some finding as it's in the 22nd room in a repeating series of rooms that can be reached by simply going straight through them. Watch out though as it's always the third bubble (the others drain your life points and should be avoided).

128K owners can buy a special version that adds a soundtrack to an incredibly silent game and loads both parts in one load.

Superb graphics, realistic animation and fiendish puzzles that can be solved with a joystick all add up to create a superb arcade adventure that is only slightly spoiled by a marked loss of speed when more than one monster appears on the screen.