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"Long ago in the reign of Beren, last of the Mountain Kings of Karn, these came from the distant north a horde of fell creatures, borne on the wings of darkness. Dragons there were and vampires too, and weavers of enchantment, and nameless things from the deep places of the world. They swept down as a dark gale upon the halls of the Mountain King and terrible was the slaughter of men. From the Gates of Karn escaped but those few of greatest might. Four was their number and these were their names:

"Beren the might, last king of Karn."
"Istar the wise, lore master of great wisdom."
"Haldir the elf lord from the northern woods."
"Khadim the dwarf, carver of stone."

These then were the heroes of Karn and mighty they were. Yet not mighty enough, for one by one they fell captives bound with iron and stone and magic spells. And darkness fell on the land, darkness unbroken until one day, there came to Karn a stranger from a strange land, and the stranger went forth into the wilderness and fought with the powers of night and released the heroes and with them removed the Shadow from the land of Karn forever. Then the stranger departed and none know to where.

So reads the cryptic scenario of the heroes of Karn. But hero of the story you are not, for you play the mysterious stranger who lifts the darkness from the mountains of Karn and then disappears without trace. Find your way carefully around the city of Karn, choose your route warily and remember that things are not always what they seem. You, the stranger, have few special powers at your command and must therefore enlist the help of others in areas where the forces of darkness stand gainst you.

You have plenty of time to sit back and admire the colourful graphics of your location in this 100 percent machine code graphical adventure whilst speculating on your next move. Choice of route may at first seem obvious but beware, you could just be walking into a trap.

Heroes Of Karn I found to be a rather interesting adventure. The short story given with the tape (part of which is quoted above) gives the game an air of mystery and expectancy. As I found during play, the story needs to be studied rather closely in order to overcome some of the obstacles and puzzles.

A fairly wide general knowledge is a definite help and even a knowledge of certain fairy tales can come in useful. The adventure is described as one for advanced players, but I think that although an experienced adventurer would have an advantage, a player with an informed and devious mind would have no more difficulty than the former in achieving success.

I was quite surprised to see the complex sentence structure employed by the program. It was quite happy to accept full sentences as opposed to the usual two-word inputs. There was, however, the drawback that this narrowed its range of vocabulary somewhat, which I found disappointing.

The game incorporates the usual additional inputs of score, which displays your score so far as a percentage, QUIT to leave the game (if you have had enough), SAVE to save your current position on tape for a future game, HELP to give you help when you need it most, I found this last command rather unhelpful as the majority of times that I called upon its infinite wisdom it told me that help wasn't necessary at this point. Still, all in the fun of the game I suppose.

Finally, of course, INVENTORY, to give you a list of the objects you are carrying and LOOK, to redescribe your location.

Not every location has a picture to go with it but for those that did, the graphics are very colourful and impressive.

You will come across a fair number of animals on your travels in Karn, Bears and Serpents and Frogs, to name but a few, not to mention the pirate but as I said before things in Karn are not always as they seem since darkness fell on the land many changes have occurred. Incidentally, I would be interested to hear from anyone who could tell me what a 'BARROWIGHT' is, so do drop me a line if you think you have the answer.

Avoid the perils, rescue the heroes and banish the darkness from Karn forever.

Heroes Of Karn gets a "highly recommended" qualification from me. Definitely worth having.