Tricky Trio

From the hands of the Pardesis comes a trilogy of games designed to appeal to a wide cross-section of the potential games-playing Archimedes owning public.

Dead End is that old favourite Tron in a new guise. The music and graphics are tremendously effective and certainly get the adrenaline running.

The playing area occupies two thirds of the screen and is extremely colourful. In the middle is a block which you can't drive through.

The micro plays your opponent although it doesn't actually think, it never runs into anything unless it has no choice.

This makes it tough but not impossible to beat, although your own strategy needs to be pretty simple - just keep going until the other guy runs into difficulty.

After a few goes I got the hang of it and won my first round, which is where the first difference lay: In an intermediate solo stage you are presented with the 10 digits in the button telephone orientation, the micro then chooses a sequence and you have to guide your line through each key in the right order - it isn't easy and requires instantaneous good route planning.

On the next proper level there are two blocks inthe way, three on the next and so on - at least I got to third so I haven't seen the rest. On the whole the only thing wrong with the game is that the keys aren't standard Q, A, O and P instead of Z, X, ? and ".

Gridlock is Reversi, otherwise known as Othello. Again the graphics are excellent but it doesn't play a very strong game on either of the two levels - which makes it ideal for people who prefer to beat the micro.

Brain Drain, one for kids of any age that can handle a mouse, is Pelmanism, the memory game. Lay out cards, with pictures on them face down, turn them over in pairs. If you match correctly remove them from the board and have another go, otherwise turn them back.

Again you play against the micro, although you might think that the machine could remember everything well it's been, programmed with alimited memory for cards and their positions, so after a while it forgets, even more completely than you would.

There are three levels of difficulty but I reckon you'd need a photographic memory to beat the micro on the hard level.

All the games inthis compilation are very simple and competently programmed although I'd have preferred a challenge in Gridlock. In every case the graphics are superb and the sounds, too, are very well integrated. I can certainly recommend these games.

Steve Turnbull