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With a title like that, Firebird are setting themselves up for criticism. Indeed, I was going to start this review by telling you how utterly devoid this product is of any original and creative thought - but then I discovered an endearing and unique feature, which made the title a little more justified than I first thought.

The game starts with you sitting in front of your computer; you insert an unlabelled disc (somewhat unlikely with the Spectrum but never mind) purchased from a bargain box and are presented with a choice of four games. Choosing one of these - a space adventure, war game ("Raid Over Margate"), a fantasy adventure ("Lords Of Half Past Nine") and a platform arcade game - draws you into the screen. (A recap for the confused: this is four mini-adventures in one). Pinching your arm brings you back to reality.

In an age where single games are using several loads in order to provide more gameplay, several games in a single load seemed a strange idea. Necessity of memory means each has only a handful of locations. What prevents me from utterly slating Imagination is that you are not supposed to play each game as an individual adventure, rather move constantly between them, taking objects from one 'game' to another. This gives the problem solving an engaging new angle.

Otherwise, Imagination is unsatisfactory. It's WRITTEN by Peter TORRANCE (Seabase Delta, etc) which means the return OF those IRRITATINGLY random CAPITAL letters in the TEXT. It bears all the other hallmarks of his adventures, most notable a sort of childish feel, as if it were written by a twelve year old: simplistic text, laughably unsubtle clues, generally weak humour. But Imagination also features the other Torrance trademark; entertaining and sometimes ingenious puzzles. Then again, this plus point may be outweighed for you by a number of further faults. The vocabulary seems painfully small (and there are no single letter abbreviations for LOOK or INVENTORY - virtually inexcusable), and what you can do is limited - largely, only those actions necessary to complete the game emote a response, which I've said countless times before is poor adventuring. But not only are you unable to do much, the messages which tell you so are aggravating and long winded, along the lines of "Well, you can IMAGINE that... but you can't do it."

Like Torrance's Apache Gold, reviewed last month this is GACed - and I still think Quilled games are far superior. The graphics are mostly dull and do not enhance the game in the least. Of course, they might seem better if the presentation was not so fire. Glaring white background with black, normal Spectrum lettering (so the CAPITALS stand out even more), and sloppy looking input lines. GACed games also have more sluggish response times and scrolling.

Imagination is cheap and fun to solve - but it's truly primitive. Surely Spectrum adventures can be more sophisticated than this - even at budget price?