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It is the year 2012. Earth has been living on credit for some time now, and the few people who still use 'real money' put it into massive bank organisations, the biggest of which is the L.D., International United Bank in Switzerland.

The bank is so big that even its employees know only a tiny fraction of the vast complex. Day and night it is patrolled by troops of cyber guards that will destroy anyone they find lingering suspiciously around the bank.

You play a poor computer-systems engineer who has a craze about money and will do anything to get it - even hack your way into the central bank computer and transfer all the money from other accounts into your own.

On each level of Heist 2012 you must find a key. This opens a safe, from which you collect letters that build up a password. When you have all the letters, find your way to the computer room and press HACK. You must then type the password and press ENTER. If the password is accepted, you'll gain access to the next level.

Type 'exit' and press ENTER, and walk over to the elevator to leave the computer room. Elevators, represented by shafts of tight, are dotted around the playing area to make your life easier: to start an elevator just walk into it and to get out on the next level just walk out left or right.

But watch out - if you touch a cyber guard, you lose strength and risk death.

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: small, uninteresting sprites on a plain background
Sound: does for the ears what the graphics do for the eyes - with an awful tune
Options: definable keys

'Heist 2012is the worst game I've yet reviewed at CRASH - it's just a bad imitation of Jet Set Willy. The opening music is flapdoodle (Nick Roberts Daft Dictionary), and there are the usual unimaginative monsters like blinking eyes, moving splodges and big lumps of something. The gameplay isn't very exciting, either...'

'The graphics take us back to the innovative and original days of Jet Set Willy and Technician Ted, but sadly that's where the similarities finish. Heist 2012 is boring and devoid of character, like the graphical person you control. I just hope people don't take this as a typical Firebird budget release.'

'Aeons after most people are sick of platform games, out comes this rubbish - I was terminally bored after only a few games. A horribly deformed sprite totters around a crudely-drawn screen, and there's a weak and grating 'tune'. Firebird has made a big blunder releasing this.'