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Squire Lancelot rode his steed towards Camelot, slowing down as he approached a ford. The Black Knight challenged him: "Show you are worthy, before I will allow you to cross!" he exclaimed. So Lancelot did attack him, and before long, being a capable swordsman, he had the knight at his mercy. Behaving in the most chivalrous way, he was rewarded with an invitation to the King's presence the next day, to be made a Knight of the Round Table, for the Black Knight was none other than King Arthur himself.

The next day, after the ceremony, Arthur related that many of his knights were held imprisoned in Logris, a land outside his territory. "Go there at once, and free my men who are under seige, that they may return to me," he commended, the glances exchanged between Lancelot and Guenevere passing unnoticed.

So Lancelot rode to Logris, where treacherous knights roamed. Before long, despite the trickery of Sir Phelot, he had rescued the hawk belonging to the Dame Lyonesse, and driven away the army that held her manor under seige. By now, in company with the lovely Damsel Maledisant, and the stalwart Red Knight, whose life he had spared, he started searching in earnest for Arthur's missing knights.

His quest was not easy, involving challenges all along the way. Sir Turquin, for example, soon surrendered to the sword of Lancelot, but quickly ran off to the safety of his manor house, wherein he had imprisoned many of Arthur's brave knights. However, it was protected by secret devices which concealed the pit in which the knights were held. Sir Lancelot soon decided that rescuing Sir Meliot would be a far easier quest...

The adventure is in three parts, with the first two parts consisting of different areas, Camelot and Logris. On the larger memory machines, moving from one to another simply causes a pause while a new set of data is read in. The third part is a progression from parts 1 and 2, and involves Lancelot in the quest for the Holy Grail. It can be started without the need to complete the first parts.

'Lancelot' is based on the fifteenth century book "Le Morte D'Arthur" by Sir Thomas Mallory. Researched by Pete Austin, it has the authentic flavour of the legend of the knights of the round table.

According to Mandarin Software, Pete Austin of Level 9 describes it as their best adventure yet.

It is a fine adventure, but whilst the atmosphere is excellent, it tends to lack humour somewhat, taking itself just a little too seriously. The graphics, although artist drawn, are nowhere near the standard found in Ingrid's Back. And the game is not above replying in the vein: "You must be mad to say a thing like that."

Adventure authors should be extremely careful when writing in a reply like that - their parser and vocab has got to be 100% watertight if the player is not to be offended. I was offended a number of times, and also a little irritated to be told, "There is no verb in that sentence" after a perfectly legitimate command had been entered. This, it seems, is a peculiarity of the parser when dealing with complex GO TO's (e.g. GO TO MERLIN), although it also crops up when much simpler commands are entered.

In short, the game does not have the same robust feel about it that was characteristic of Ingrid. The OOPS and RAM SAVE commands are more useful than ever with this plot, and GO TO, FIND and RUN TO, take the drudgery out of trudging around from place to place, speeding up the pace of the game immeasurably. But in using these, somewhere along the way I must have tried something just a bit too complicated, and came unexpectedly across a hay-making scene. I can only assume that a bumper harvest was in progress, for I got the reply: "A voice in the distance shouted 'Wod! A stack overflow." From then on, everything went crazy, the Red Knight started attacking me, and eventually, failing to deter him, I was forced to restart.

So whilst it is very good, I wouldn't describe it as Level 9's best ever, any more than I would agree with Mandarin's Press Release claim that Level 9 is the acknowledged world leader in adventure software. Whilst Level 9 are certainly one of the top companies in the field, without a doubt the honour of world leader must go to Infocom, hotly pursued by Magnetic Scrolls.

In conjunction with Lancelot, there is a treasure hunt competition, with a £5,000 replica of the legendary Holy Grail itself, as the prize. This has already been hidden at a secret location in the UK, and competitors for it will have to take part in a two-stage contest based on clues within the game.

Lancelot comes in a sturdy cardboard box, complete with a map of Arthurian England, and a 20-page glossy instruction book, and background story.