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I'm lost for words. And not in a good way. Profanation 2: Escape From Abu Simbel is diabolical. I'm warning you. Stay away from it. Don't even think about playing it.

Having spent three decades learning every last little joule of pressure that must be applied to every touch of the keyboard to make it safely through Profanation, Profanation 2 invites you to give up your twilight years in the temple of Rameses II. Your task: work your way through four separate zones, mastering the pixel-perfect jump and solving the puzzles that you'll likely never even see, never mind attempt.

This game may be the biggest waste of programming talent I have ever seen. Great graphics, atmospheric music, an intro and backstory that's suitably interesting... and then what? Well, if you can stomach this game for more than ten minutes, perhaps the chance of seeing screen two of zone one. For Profanation 2 is so difficult that it is practically its own new genre. You could likely learn more about the universe than Stephen Hawking in the same time it would take you to plough through all four zones of this monstrosity of code. Forget the phrase "seconds count". This is more like "fifths of nanoseconds count" as you struggle to long jump tremendous leaps but land within a one pixel tolerance range. Over and over again. And where death, which comes so frequently that you may well lose all of your lives within ten seconds' play, sends you all the way back to the beginning again.

There are two types of people who will bother with this. Number one: people who "like a challenge". And by that, I don't mean a challenge in the sense of working out that item B opens door G. I mean, those people who only specifically want to complete this particular game. Those who are willing to play it every night for an hour or two until, like the first game, they know, to the last millisecond, how long they need to press a particular key control and the order is ingrained on their brain. Number two: people who cheat, either by hacking an infinite lives cheat into the game or by using an emulator save state every few seconds to guarantee progress.

The game is for the first type of person, a type of person that, in 2018, I believe simply doesn't exist any more. Ask yourself: Do you really want to have to invest more time in a game than a Ph.D, just to see the layouts of later zones? No, I thought not. And fiddling around saving your position hardly feels very sporting either. So what'll happen? Well, like me, you'll persevere with the first screen for half an hour or so, start foaming at the mouth, tearing out clumps of your hair and, to preserve your sanity and remaining life, the game will go straight back in the box never to be re-loaded again.

Seriously, 4Mhz, what were you thinking? Profanation 2 is just a waste of everybody's time. All that time spent programming it (It's so good-looking that I don't doubt I'm referring to years of work!) could've been spent on producing something that appeals to the gaming public at large. Instead, this could be tagged "The game so frustrating that you'll give up before you start"... The fact that this managed to come second at CPCRetroDev 2017 almost makes me scared to even look at those who were placed lower. And if you're not convinced enough to place yourself at the opposite end of the longest bargepole Profanation 2 is touching, then the icing on the proverbial cake has to be when you're told "You felt under the power of Abu Simbel. Game Over" in the stunningly pointless (and completely unskippable) throngs of your despair.

Don't even think about playing it. In fact, don't even look at it. You can thank me later.