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I wasn't too wild about Seas Of Blood but Rebel Planet is brilliant. The problems come thick and fast and the solution is often under your nose but not very obvious.

The scene is set as the mighty Arcadian Empire tightens its grip on the galaxy. The secret Earth organisation SAROS has funded one last desperate mission to strike at the heart of the Arcadians' home planet and this is your mission. At the heart of the Empire lies the queen computer; destroy this and the Empire will crumble.

To reach Arcadian, you must first visit the outposts of Tropoe and Halmurua. As the game starts, your trading ship is nearing its first destination of Tropoa.

The graphics which accompany all of the scenes are amongst the best that I have seen in any game and a certain amount of animation has been used to give impact. Your ship is a merchant vessel called Caydia and you have plenty of time to discover the hidden treasures of the rooms which will help you in your quest.

As you approach Tropoa, you are shadowed by an Arcadian vessel and the onboard computer asks if evasive action should be taken. If you get this question wrong, it can have all sorts of disastrous repercussions later on and it gives an idea of the depth of thought which must be exercised.

Even getting out of the ship can be a problem if you're new to adventures and forget to examine everything. You are told that you're wearing a limcom, of which further investigation shows that there are four buttons marked IH, OH, PS and SS. It's up to you to discover what these abbreviations mean but you won't get for if you don't!

The game is an "eat as you go" adventure so another primary task is to find a food source. Failure to do so will result in death if you don't find the solution early enough.

Disembarking is another problem. On the ship you find a laser sword which seems like a useful weapon, but I tried taking it off the ship with me only to be blasted to pieces by the security forces. I then tried leaving it behind but soon got killed in a brawl with some unfriendly Arcadians who accused me of nicking their parking space. Only by carefully re-reading the instructions did I discover the error of my ways. Really I ought to know better by now, never take anything for granted!

Your eventual aim in destroying the computer will only be achieved if you know a nine digit binary code. This is the combination which allows access to the computer and to find it you'll have to make contact with the rebel underground spy network; a hazardous task to say the least.

Temporal changes can be induced when time is against you. To save you kicking around a few phrases to pass the time while waiting for the Halmurus Pneuma-tube, for example, the Wait 1 command can be suffixed by a number of turns which will automatically mark time while still giving prompts as each turn goes by.

Further time twisting can be achieved by the advance and retard CT (Caydia Time) commands. This is needed because your ship is pre-programmed to blast off at a particular time, so if you miss your departure time, you'll be left behind and the mission will fail. Retard CT can only be used once in the game so care must be taken to save it as long as possible for use in dire emergencies only.

Apart from the expected load and save facilities, there is also the ability to switch off the graphics, but these really add to the game and appear instantly so, for me, it's a redundant facility. Some of the other computer versions don't have any graphics at all, so there's no need for deliberation.

Rebel Planet is an excellent adventure and further help and guidance can be gained by buying the original Fighting Fantasy Gamebook by Robin Waterfleld (Penguin Books).