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I must admit that at the time Freedom arrived on my desk, I was fed up!! I had played sword-wielding macho white male barbarians in almost every role-playing game that had been booted up on my computer, and to be honest I was getting sick and tired of them.

But after reading the introductory bumpf on the Freedom cover, I felt my Role Playing bugs tingling once again. The reason? Well, in Freedom, you play the part of a black slave working on a tropical plantation in the 18th century. After years of being used and abused by the tyrannical plantation owner and his staff, you decide that enough is enough: Rebellion is the only option left!!

You will soon find this is no easy task as you have to achieve the co-operation and the support of your downtrodden brothers, as well as the backing of important members of your community such as Witch Doctors and Shamans. Furthermore, the plantation owners have superior resources including troops, who can quell a rebellion instantly - and time is also against you.

When booting up, you are in for a pleasant surprise, regardless of what computer you own. The music on both the Amiga and ST copies is atmospheric. It captures the feel of the plantation with the booming bass and rhythmic beat of a multiple of drums. Of course, the Amiga has the better sound, but the music that comes out of the ST is still very listenable.

After a few introductory panels appear, giving you the background behind the game you begin play. You have the option of playing the game in three modes: Defiant, Rebellious and Fanatical. Each level is progressively difficult.

Next, you get to choose one of four characters - two of them men and two women - all of which have different ability ratings. The ratings consist of Charisma, Constitution and Setting Fires. All these ratings - except Charisma and Constitution - help you perform various self-explanatory actions. Charisma tells you how much influence you have over inciting your workmates to rebel, while your Constitution score informs you how healthy you are.

Next comes the "composition of the plantation", which tells you who your friends are and who are your enemies. During the game you can recruit - if you charisma is high enough - the Witch-Doctor and the Medicine Man, both of which come in handy. Not only do they neutralise their opposing forces - the monk and the supervisor - but they can also heal any wounds that you sustain or avert attacks buy the plantation owners' dogs.

When this is over, you get a map of the plantation itself. You have three options here: the first is to have a more detailed view of your surroundings, the second is to make a pathway through the plantation, checking out who lives where - both friendly and hostile - and the third option is to review your position, which is basically checking your score.

There is also a fourth option called Advice, but this cannot be actioned until you have managed to obtain the confidence of the Witch-Doctor or Medicine-Man.

It is when you go for a more detailed view of the surroundings that you get to take part in the so-called role playing. To be honest, the role playing element in this game is negligible, as all you do is approach various field and craft workers homes and try to rally them to your side. You don't actually get to speak to them, and all the slaves' answers are either in the form of "Yes, I'll join you" or "No, I don't want to be killed".

As for meetings with the enemy, they basically tell you to stop the rebellion now, and you have the opportunity of leaving or confronting them. If you confront them you enter into either hand-to-hand or cutlass combat. You can use either the mouse, keyboard or joystick to fight your opponent in this "Moebius-style" arcade combat, and if you win you have the opportunity of killing them or keeping them prisoner. Both options have advantages, but I found killing the less respected members and holding the more valued members captive worked best.

Most of the time you are trying to avoid the dreaded dogs that are set loose to track you down. They do two annoying things; alert the plantation boss that you are on the loose and attack you. The latter option is the most dangerous, as the dogs attack you in another arcade sequence that is quite hard to master.

If you end up in a sugar or vegetable field you have the option of setting it alight or leaving. Dependent on the time, your following and awareness of the enemy, this can be a good or bad thing. If you burn too many fields too quickly, the troups will be called in and the game will finish immediately. However, if you don't do anything, you won't be able to recruit more followers.

After playing Freedom for several lengthy sessions, I was disappointed. The role-playing content is minimal to say the least, the figure that represents your character is miniscule and there is much too much instant death for my liking.

Added to this, some of the colours used are so vivid that, when it comes to reading various parts of the text, they become unreadable. For example, could you read pink and green text on a yellow background!!

I tried to like this game, as the concept, music and storyline were all good, however the graphics, role-playing element and actual game design are sadly lacking, so, with some regret, I reached over to my role-playing pile for another game. And what a surprise, it's another sword-wielding macho white male barbarian game. Oh well!