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When man first invented time travel, he never really realised the full extent of the dangers which would accompany it. To counteract these dangers, an agency was needed to watch over the timelines and the people who use them. TIME is such an agency.

Usually, TIME agents patrol the time-lines, making sure that no-one meddles with events or inadvertently alters the course of history. On this occasion, however, your mission is to follow in the path of a renegade TIME agent who is intent on causing disruptions in the space-time continuum, by travelling up and down the time-lines and switching artefacts between different zones. If left unchecked, these chronologically misplaced artefacts can cause colossal disturbances across time, resulting in the large-scale destruction of time periods and having dire consequences for mankind.

As a Timelord, the agent cannot be killed, but it is your task to reverse the damage he has done and thwart his plans by finding and replacing the offending artefacts.

You begin your mission in the Eiger vault, headquarters of TIME, having just boarded your time craft, the "Falcon's Wing". The ship is part-controlled by CAIN: a Cybernetic Artificially Intelligent Nexus, which runs many of the higher functions of the craft and enables you to access the vital controls via a menu system.

'Database' gives useful information about residents and artefacts to be found in the time-period, and also gives notice when any disturbances have been detected. Choosing 'Time Zones' enables you to select your proposed temporal destination and following the time warp, 'Exit' allows you to leave the ship.

Equipped with a rapid-response laser gun and a jet-pack, you explore the time zone in order to discover any artefacts. When found, these are ppicked up simply by walking over them and pressing the Fire button. Only one object may be carried at a time however, so once collected, the artefact must be immediately replaced in its correct chronological position.

In each time-zone you are attacked by the inhabitants of the era. These can be destroyed, and extra powers collected by picking up the tokens which appear at intervals. 'Power of will' momentarily immobilises the enemies, and 'Thinkstrike' temporarily renders you impervious to injury.

You only have a limited amount of time in each zone, and your stamina is reduced by hits from the enemy. If it becomes severely depleted, you are returned to the Falcon's Wing and a time penalty is incurred. The mission ends when your stamina is reduced completely, or when the time limit for the mission is over-run.

Although basically a simple 'pick up and drop' game, Falcon is actually quite difficult. The action is fairly straightforward, being a mixture of shooting, picking up and dropping off, but actually achieving the objective is made difficult due to the hostile enemy and the very tight ten minute time limit.

The in-game presentation and graphics are superb, but I found the action far too frustrating and unrewarding to be worth persevering with. Perhaps an avid arcade adventurer would think otherwise?

Falcon's graphics are really well presented, with the flick-screen backdrops deserving a special mention. Unfortunately, they only flatter to deceive, as the game itself is repetitive and fairly uninteresting.

The idea can be reduced to a basic search-and-replace theme, which soon palls and becomes tiresome due to its inherent simplicity. Falcon may appeal to the jaded arcade adventurers - but not for long.

If you're into infuriating gameplay, sluggish characters and unwieldy menu systems then Falcon is the game for you. However, like most other C64 owners, I like a little more in the way of polish and general playability.

The time zone inhabitants are pretty deadly, so hunting down and collecting objects proves to be difficult. The database gives plenty of background about the mission, but it doesn't tell exactly what should be done - and a couple of reads is often necessary.

After giving this some hefty playing I've come to the conclusion that Falcon boasts some pretty graphics but not a lot of game.

Presentation 68%
Limited options, although the smart on-screen presentation deserves mention.

Graphics 84%
Beautiful backdrops which are badly let down by the poor sprites.

Sound 55%
Unusual sound effects and music.

Hookability 78%
Suss out the difficult menu system and it becomes more playable.

Lastability 45%
The urge to continue disappears when all of the time-zones have been visited.

Overall 49%
An average attempt at a not entirely original concept.