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Released way back in February 1987, Firelord is perhaps most notable as the project which so exhausted Steve Crow that he gave up solo projects to concentrate on graphics. 1985's programmer of the year thus teamed up with Mark Kelly to do Turbo Out-Run and Golden Axe. Speccy Firelord itself won a Smash, but John Cummings' C64 version received just 68% in Issue 22.

Richard Eddy thought it "one of the most beautiful games ever to grace the C64", but Paul Sumner and Julian Rignall were both tired of "mediocre arcade adventures".

The plot is the familiar one of a cursed land, this time the culprit is an evil queen misusing the legendary Firestone. To lift the curse, someone must get the four charms of eternal youth. Sir Galaheart volunteers for the job, which is presented in flick-screen fashion. Each screen rapidly becomes filled with enemy knights and other villains, but simply being quick on the trigger button isn't enough.

Objects, scattered all over the place, can be traded with various characters. To do this you enter houses where the screen changes to show a face and objects or services (such as vital information) on offer. You can even try stealing, but if you get caught trial consists of pressing Fire as the cursor flicks between 'innocent' and 'guilty'. A guilty verdict costs you your life.

Firelord does have good backdrops, but the enemy sprites are all monochromatic and the main character is weak too. The Spectrum origins of the game are obvious, right down to the click-click of the knight's footsteps. It's basically a 500-screen maze game with plenty of baddies to shoot and objects to find. Sabre Wulf in essence, but with trading added on. Despite the nice backdrops and a good intro tune, it looks ancient.

At full price it would be a joke, but at £3 it competes with outright Spectrum ports such as Dizzy so it's worth a look for mapping fanatics.