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I'm not a fan of the Lord Of The Rings but even I'm fairly certain that Gandalf is (a) a wizard and (b) one of the good guys. Gandalf the game, however, seems to be a mishmash of all sorts of things. The inlay states your task is to "destroy the evil of Melkor" but is hazy on the details. And when the game starts, your mission seems more along the lines of collect up bags of gold than deal with some evil adversary...

Still, plot points come secondary if a game is of sufficient quality, and Gandalf is an interesting addition to the multitude of platformers already available for the Spectrum. Its graphics are functional, but cute in a sort of Rainbow Islands/Edd The Duck sort of way, and the game is rendered with the Nirvana Engine, a clever bit of Spectrum code that practically eliminates colour clash.

The game is a flick-screen platformer. I'm in two minds as to whether it qualifies as a graphic adventure. Yes, it does feature locked doors which bar the way forwards, and yes, these doors can only be unlocked with the keys that you find scattered around in other areas. However, it has more in common with Super Mario Brothers than your average 'take object A to place B to be able to progress further'. Rather than allowing you free rein, you are forced to keep travelling right, even to the extent that each couple of screens you reach a "checkpoint". After you touch it, you'll be reincarnated next to it if you later lose a life (instead of being returned all the way to the beginning).

There are other "Super Mario-style" inclusions too - you can headbutt blocks from below to reveal bonuses. There are hidden blocks that suddenly bash you on the head when you're not expecting it, and upon reaching the very far right of the level, you get a very familiar formation of blocks to clamber and a much-too-familiar-to-Mario-fans castle to enter too.

Alas, Gandalf doesn't move with any of the speed or finesse of Nintendo's moustachioed plumber. That's not to say he lumbers along or anything - in fact, his movements left and right are smooth and responsive. There are ladders to climb and descend, water droplets to avoid (by biding your time in passing them) and loads and loads of gold bags to collect, if you can be bothered leaping from platform to platform to collect them all. Jumping is a bit of an acquired skill; unlike many platform games, you can't jump straight up and then roll left or right mid-leap; instead you need something of a run-up to propel yourself in a particular direction.

Gandalf can also throw fireballs at patrolling nasties to wipe them out for twenty seconds or so. Hitting a nasty removes it from the screen, but nothing in this game ever stays dead, and after a few stars twinkle in the area it disappeared from, it's back again. Fireballs are limited too, so don't waste them on the nasties you could easily jump over (with enough of a run-up). That's because, on some screens, you do need to use the fireball, usually to remove a nasty that's blocking the way to a cavern rich in gold bags.

So what's the verdict on this mishmash of Super Mario and Rainbow Islands, then? Well, it has a bouncy opening tune (128K only), a jingle on new game and death and cute and colourful displays, not to mention a reasonable degree of responsiveness. These are all things that it's desperately hard not to like, even if it all seems so far removed from Tolkien as to feel bafflingly obtuse.

In fact the only thing I really didn't like was the fact that jumping large gaps in the terrain was made more difficult than it should be by the need to take that all-important run-up to the edge before leaving terra firma.

That's such a small point that really, in conclusion, if you're looking for a brand new platformer to play on your Spectrum (that's not another mass-produced La Churrera number) Gandalf should be at least on your wish list, and quite probably near the top of it.