Not a lot of people know this, but light years into the future, men will discover life on Mars. Oooh! Shock! Horror! Gasp! Not only that, but they'll be mining valuable minerals there, battling against horrible slimy monsters and using the place as a sort of penal colony. Nice, huh? Oh yeah, and one day you're going to crash-land, right into the middle of it.

Stranded on a not-so-very-welcoming planet with no ship and no dosh, you've got to find a way to earn some money. Lucky for you that there's a reward out for anyone who finds out why the authorities have lost contact with the outpost Proscenium.

Not that you can drop your dram of billy-goat bile and rush out there straight away: it helps if you've got a few friends and a bit of experience on your side. Until you've managed to explore parts of the planet's other cities you've got no chance.

The best place to pick your companions (only one at first) is... wait for it... the pub. Da daaa. Each individual has personal attribute and skill ratings. In addition to all the usual categories like might and wisdom, there are a few more specialist matters: how clever you are at using automatic weapons, speaking foreign languages (I'm great at that, me), expertise at computer hacking, and so on.

The action is displayed pretty much in Bard's Tale style, with neat and detailed illustrations of your location in the top left hand corner of the screen - and boy, do they take your breath away! They're definitely the most impressive I've seen in a C64 RPG, so far: every inside location has its own sequence of animation and a slick overhead view can be accessed at any time. Not only that, an auto-map draws the areas you've passed through and saves the maps. User-friendly or user-friendly?

Money and experience are almost the only things that count. If you haven't got the cash, you can't go to university or Personal Development Center to improve your abilities and if you haven't got enough experience you won't get on the courses anyway. Obviously, your first job is to get hold of some experience pretty fast. This is achieved by performing tasks for other people and - my favourite activity of all - fighting.

It's in combat mode that the program really comes out well. As in Pool Of Radiance the action switches to full-screen graphics. If you're feeling bored, you can just let the computer carry out your orders (you don't even have to watch if you don't want to!) but if you're not, you can work out the strategies by yourself. That way you have a lot more control over the speed at which the action unfolds.

Anyway, the graphics are great, the scenario's unusual and the environment is outside underpants size, so what more do you want? If you're after an RPG that's just a little bit different, raid your Christmas piggy-bank and check this out.