For want of a nail...

Iron Lord is another game ported from the Amiga, and as such shows the usual professional polish. It's difficult to classify, combining as it does elements of adventure game puzzles, arcade action and - at the end - wargaming. The storyline is that your birthright as Lord of the local area has been usurped by your evil uncle who killed your father. In order to recover your heritage, you must gain the support of 10 armies, fight a final battle with your uncle and ultimately enter and exit the labyrinth.

To do this you travel about the countryside - compete with animation of your horse - visiting places, talking to people, helping them and gaining their support. Quite early on you take part in an archery contest where you must reach a certain score in order to win and subsequently aid a rather depressed herbalist.

Then there's the problem of the Innkeeper who won't pay for the flour and the monks who won't sell their wine.

Of course rushing around repeatedly asking people to join your forces is liable to worry the powers-that-be, and unsurprisingly you're quite likely to be jumped by an assassin and have to fight for survival. The excellent graphics are exact duplicates of the Amiga version but the music, though good, does get a bit irritating. On my pre-release version there seemed to be no way of turning it off, though you can resort to "Speaker Off" from the command line.

Apart from that little quibble, I can safely say that Iron Lord is superb and will keep you hooked for hours.

Lazarus