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This game will give a lift to even the most jaded gamester a lift. Well, several really. It's a sort of copy of the arcade hit Elevator Action featured in our arcade action pages some time ago.

Mission Elevator is one of the first German written games to reach these shores - and if it's any indication of what's to come then we could be in for a treat.

You play the part of a super secret agent sent on a mission to save a big hotel from destruction. Foreign agents have hidden a timebomb somewhere on the 62nd floor and you have to reach it and defuse it.

Trouble is that each floor is inhabited by an army of agents - dressed in their best trenchcoats - who are out to stop you.

The hotel is split up in units of eight floors each. Within each unit, you can move up or down by using any of the lifts. The emergency exit leads to the next eight floors.

You need a key to open the emergency exit which is at present in the porter's back trouser pocket which together with its owner has gone into hiding in one of the hotel rooms. But to find the porter you need the master key to open the room's doors. But beware, danger lurks behind every door...

To stop the countdown, you need the code consisting of sixteen parts. You will find two parts of the code per eight floors.

Each part of the code will specify a direction. All sixteen directions are needed to defuse the bomb.

Each floor is packed with bits of furniture which must be examined carefully to find parts of the all-important code. You do this by simply standing in front of an object and pulling down on the joystick. A message window at the bottom of the screen relates what you've found - if anything.

Examine a table and you find yourself playing a dice game. You gamble points and could end up with a nice bonus if you're lucky.

Also in the message window you'll sometimes see 'whispers' from the people you come across. These sometimes give you clues to the puzzle. You travel around the floors using lifts and dodging the enemy agents who are pretty quick on the trigger. You have to be as well.

Watch out - some of the agents crouch down to zap you. It's pretty easy to lose your eight lives quickly unless you stay sharp - especially playing the C64 version which appears to be slightly tougher.

Don't forget to go to the reception desk on each floor as this is where you'll find the pass key to the rest of the doors on that floor. And you must jot down all the code words as you find them, the computer doesn't store them away for you.

And don't shoot the beautiful stranger you find lurking behind some of the doors. It only loses you points.

Mission Elevator is fast, well presented and very playable. One of the best games around for the Amstrad right now. And it's not bad on the C64 either. Check it out.