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Now that natural causes appear to have killed off Ultimate, Odin reign supreme as the masters of cute graphics and interesting scenarios. Games from this, the least pretentious of the Liverpool gangs, tend to be eagerly awaited and quickly forgotten. In the past, Odin games have tended to be a bit samey, this time, however, the previews have promised something a bit special and I dug into Heartland with more than customary keenness.

It is rare these days for a plot to be both interesting and relevant to the game, but this is one. It explains the reason you're stuck in this game (on a bed no less) but alas not why you're wearing a Top Hat. The idea is to find a magic book that protects the Heartland and restore to it the missing pages of the final chapter. All of these (and a few black pages that must be destroyed) are sprinkled around the land and often you will have to hang around on the screen until they materialise.

Needless to say, this is not as easy as it sounds as a variety of opponents will drain your energy on contact.

Weapons appear on screen, along with more power-draining spells, and you absorb both by simply jumping through them. When you find a certain number of spells, an hourglass will be activated giving you a set time to get back to your bed and move on to the next level.

Graphically, Heartland is quite superb. The animation is virtually perfect with your Hero and the various definable foes he meets looking like something out of the imagination of Lewis Carrol. Everything from the way he flings his hat, to the comic way he dies is brilliantly conceived and comparable only to Ultimate at their best. In play, however, the game is frustratingly hard. Going through a door involves stopping, turning into or away from it, and going forward. Needless to say, this is nearly impossible at high speed, and I got a bit tired of mapping such an intricate game.

If my persistence had been rewarded with variety or greater depth, I wouldn't have minded, but alas it isn't. Even prettier though the later levels are, gameplay is exactly the same, and without opportunities to interact with the characters you meet, it all gets a bit hectic. Take these original graphics away, substitute platforms for plateaux, and you could basically be playing Nodes Of Yesod or Arc Of Yesod - it's just one screen after another of shooting and mapping with a few automatic pick-ups thrown in. Odin are obviously getting better, but one feels they're not getting any more sophisticated.

Don't let this put you off, though. If you like hard arcade adventures (emphasis on the arcade) with lots of shooting, you're going to love this. Now that Telecom have so many good writers under their wing I'd love to see Odin working with a proven games designer (Mike Singleton, perhaps?). Ah, what a game that would be!