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The Rigellian war raged. Harper dropped down from the scoutship. A nearly explosion ripped off his night-sight goggles, plunging him into darkness. Nearby, a moan emanated from Elliott, lying mortally injured.

"The Rigellians have a doomsday device. They plan to use it to devastate the planet if they lose the way." He urges Harper to find and destroy the device. He is halfway through telling him now, when he dies...

Harper finds the town in ruins, in the grip of war. Shattered flexiglass from the dome which once enclosed the town lies everywhere. Rubble, barricades, and broken windows are all around. He sets off in search of the device, first, of course, getting anything he can lay his hands on, that might help him in the task ahead.

The graphics are not merely representations of the locations - they actually contribute to the game. For example, examine a door that has you worried, and you will get a couple of pictures - a distance shot, and a close-up of the handle revealing a trap. All instantly displayed, and removed from the screen for the resumption of text play.

The problems are there, and although some take a bit of thinking about (the first one had me worrying for at least five minutes!) none of them are too difficult, and the vocab and alternative commands allowed do not frustrate the solving process.

Some of the replies have a footnote reference to them (shades of Infocom!). Type in FOOTNOTE 2, and you will get advice to write to an Adventure Helpline, if you can't solve the problem in hand! The way this is handled is yet another example of what sets the game apart.

Despite its somewhat grim theme, a sense of humour soon becomes apparent, when, for example, Harper gets lots in the desert. There is obviously a clue in the sand that will help get him back to town - but EXAMINE SAND does not give it.

The game has a RAMSAVE and RAMLOAD facility, as well as tape. Despite being non-Quilled, there is so much held in memory, that the adventure comes in two parts, and data must be tape-saved to move from one to the other. Once into part two, however, a restart is possible with that part, without having to reload the saved data.

The character set is very clearly legible, displayed as white on black, adding to the very professional performance of what must be one of the highest quality budget titles ever! The only thing lacking is its price - at £1.99 it's a snip. If Mastertronic continue to release adventures of this quality at this price, they could well revolutionise the cassette-based adventure market. Go out and buy it!