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The Great Gurlanos, is about to go on his most dangerous quest yet. A with nowt but a sword and shield has to fight fierce and deadly warriors as he tries to make his way to the ultimate objective - to get a bag of greasy chips from the Four Lanterns chippie on a Friday night.

Okay you dudes, so I lied about the final objective - but the scenario is fairly similar to battling your way through the door and to the front of the queue of your local deep-fried starch merchant. The first thing you are attacked by are little flying stars, balls and what could possibly be small pieces of fried fish, which you hove to persuade to buzz off by use of you shield. After the barrage of flying shapes, you then face your first opponent, where, using all your weapons, you must defeat this ghastly geezer. The same happens all through the game, except your opponents get progressively harder to kill. During the journey, little icons can be taken which, when you press the sword up, middle and down keys together, gives you a proctector shield giving protection from all the flying deep fries. Unfortunately these only last for a short time and are rationed to only one per life. You can also strengthen your weapon (fnarr) and sharpen up your shield by hitting the appropriate flying icons, (cunningly disguised not as a chip shop but as... Yes! A sword and shield.

The game itself is good, but is let down by the keyboard only playing control. There are so many different keys that it's difficult to play the game properly without breaking a few fingers. I like realism when I'm hacking the head off some baddie, but this is just going too far.

Gurianos was a good arcade game and it seems strange that there was never a full price conversion of it to the Spectrum. Maybe there was, and it's release as a budget original will appeal to all the old fans of the game.

Label: Encore Memory: 48K/128K Price: £2.99 Tape Reviewer: Ian Watson

It's nice to see an arcade conversion come straight out on budget - what the reasoning behind this is I don't know but it's the fans of Gurianos who will certainly benefit.