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After a short wait, the parcel arrived on my doormat. With trembling fingers I carefully unwrapped it to reveal a Morph of my own. No, not the cute little creature devised by Tony Hart by a savage little beast of my own design, bless its scaly little head.

Quickly I dashed off a letter of thanks to Mail Order Monsters Inc. and hurried off to the Transmat Booth to try out my nasty little beast in battle. What fun it was to watch him blast the living daylights out of anything that moved. "That's my Morph", I thought with pride.

If this little scenario appeals to you then Mail Order Monsters (MOM) is for you. There are three options in the game: free trial, rental and tournament.

Free trial allows beginners to try out a selected Morph (Mail ORder Psychon Hero) from a choice of the twelve basic types. Each has its own abilities and weapons so it also enables you to see what effect these have.

Once you have selected your morph, you are transported to the battlefield. This is shown as a map upon which there are two squares which mark the positions of your morph and that of your opponent. Using the joystick, you can wander about at will. If you choose not to attack your opponent immediately, you may meet other creatures as you travel. When you do meet something, the screen changes to give a close up of the battle.

Weapons range from claws and teeth to multiple laser devices. To select which weapon to use, a menu is available at the top right of the screen. It takes time to choose a weapon so this should be done before engaging in battle whenever possible. Any defence against chemical, energy or mind attacks can also be employed.

If your creature encounters something other than your opponent, then he takes control of the new opponent for the duration of the fight. When the battle is over (assuming that you survived), you are returned to the overall map.

Victory goes to the morph who kills his opponent or successfully defeats six enemies.

The intermediate game differs from the basic game in several respects. After selecting your morph from the vats in Morph meadow, you are given 1000 psychons with which to buy extra attributes such as more lives, a bigger brain or more strength. The budget also has to stretch to selecting weapons and defences. Once you are satisfied you can then name your battlefield and the type of game you want to play.

There are three types. The first is the destruction game, which is the same as the free trial game. The second game is a race to collect flags which are protected by guardians. The flags must be collected in numerical order and the winner is the one who collects all eight flags or kills his opponent's morph before it collects all the flags.

The final option is the Horde. Teamwork is called for in this game as your morphs are under attack from a horde of creatures which start at the top of the screen. If the hordlings reach the bottom of the screen, the game is over and both players lose. If the horde is defeated the winner is the morph who killed the most.

In principle, the Tournament game is like the Intermediate game but each combatant only has 500 psychons at the beginning but winning battles will allow you to buy more attributes for your morph later.

Terrain and contest type can be chosen but two contest rules can be selected as well. For example, one player may choose 'no channel attacks' the other could opt for 'no surrender'.

As you can see, the game is quite involved but I found that the computer made a virtually invulnerable enemy. This is especially obvious when playing the flag game. The computer morph makes straight for each flag in turn and all I could do was follow in its wake, hoping to win the final gallop for the last flag (I lost).

Against a human opponent I faired much better and the game started to come alive. Be warned: this game brings out the darker side of your nature.