To make the grade these days, action adventures have to be really top class. I don't think that this one has what it takes though I would be willing to be proved wrong.

In many ways it is similar to the action adventure phase which constitutes the final stage of Domark's A View To A Kill, but the graphics are not quite as good.

Twelve of the world's most famous treasures are hidden in the labyrinth of passages which lie underground. There are also the usual collection of objects which may help you in your task and an assortment of nasty creatures and pitfalls between you and your objective. Pits of acid, dragons and vampire bats lurk in the subterranean world and there are also underground streams which may dive into to reach the parts of the maze which other methods cannot reach.

To pick up an object is an unnecessarily complex procedure. First, you stand over the object and a picture of it appears in one of the eight boxes displayed at the bottom of the screen. If you can't tell what it is, pressing H will display a description on the screen. To pick up the item you must move the arrow indicator under the object box and push the joystick up. Then to secrete it about your person, you must move the indicator back to the first box in the row. If you don't do this, the object is still in your hand and any attempt to climb down a shaft will result in a fall which is usually fatal.

If you wish to use an object, you must again position the indicator to highlight the box in which it is located and then press fire. Pushing down on the stick drops the object.

You have three lives but the loss of a life means that you are transported back to the start leaving all the objects you have collected where you met your fate. As far as I can tell, this means that if you fell into an acid bath, the objects are lost forever.

Each retrieved treasure must be returned to the surface, but this does not mean fully retracing your path because various objects along the way will help teleport you closer to the surface.

The market is becoming saturated with this type of game and I don't see anything in this one to make it stand out from the pack. Worth considering though.