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US Gold seem to be dipping into the Sierra On-line vaults in America. Following hard on the heels of Ulysses And The Golden Fleece comes Mission Asteroid, a space adventure.

The game is quite old and the copyright date of 1983 must surely be for the C64 version. Whatever the case may be, it's getting a bit long in the tooth now, but it might hold some interest for beginners who don't mind mere verb-noun command systems.

At least the game has graphics even though they are crude and blocky and the game does come on a disk. Unfortunately, this means that just about every command causes the drive to whirr into its customary slow action. This system may have been pretty neat in the days of Apple computers but, with Commodore still striving to produce a drive for the Seventies, it slows the game down quite a lot.

The storyline tells how earth is under threat from an asteroid screaming down from space. As a mere cadet you are given the task of stopping it. As always, there is a problem or two before you can start.

Firstly you have to find the password to gain entry to Mission Control. Not a difficult task as long as you have time before the asteroid strikes. Then you mst get a briefing from the General to hear what the mission holds in store.

From this point on you are on your own and have to find everything that will make your mission a success. This includes physical training in the dym. Now what do Americans call those treadmill exercises?

Once you have collected everything you think you need you can go on to rather antiquated-looking spacecraft only to find that you have not found the gizmo that opens the door.

Guiding your ship to the asteroid is not so dificult if you have discovered the data back on earth but stopping the asteroid in the time given is not easy. Thank goodness for a SAVE facility.

It's a pity that US Gold don't insist on their older imports being tailored to the current state of the market. Why buy an old so-so adventure when there are so many good new ones?