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Law Of The West gives you the chance to be the sheriff of a wild west town. The vacancy occurred when your predecessor died through a sudden overdose of lead poisoning. Your job is to survive until sunset.

The game consists of a series of "situations" in which you face one of the townsfolk with a superb wild west view as a backdrop.

As the character approaches, it will greet you with a comment such as "how are you, big boy?". You are then presented with a choice of four replies. Obviously which reply you choose depends on the answers available and who you're talking to. The character will then reply depending on the phrase that you selected with your joystick and a new set of phrases.

If one of the answers doesn't seem appropriate, you can always answer with your gun!

The characters that you meet vary from the Doc, whose drinking habits may cost you your life, a gambler, a mexican bandit, the saloon owner and numerous other townsfolk.

Depending on how your conversations go, the character might just walk away, draw on your, walk away and ambush you later or surrender on the spot (Not very likely!).

You then move on to the next situation, and next, until your either reach sunset or bite the dust.

At the end of the game, you are rated out of twelve for your performance in seven categories which include the number of bad guys you shot, the number of crooks captured, the number of innocent people you gunned down, how well you did romantically and how well you maintained your authority.

As you can see from the screenshots, the game's graphics are superb and quickly becoming a trademark of Accolade, but the gameplay is disappointing.

Most of the situations are predictable (a kid isn't going to gun you down) and become obvious after a few plays. Then you are left with the long gaps as the next situation loads in; this you deal with quickly, then it's another long gap.

It's worth looking at this game to see the graphics that are possible on a C64 but then buy Hardball, Accolade's other game, instead.