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I first saw this last May when Games Workshop were marketing it. When they pulled out of the software industry, Firebird bought the rights to the game and, at last, here it is.

The first thing you notice is its similarity to the classic Lords Of Midnight. This is largely due to a technique called 'Venturescope', which produces a similar staggering number of views to the system used in Midnight. But Runestone actually improves on Midnight, which is one of the reasons it's so good.

The once beautiful land of Beiorn is being destroyed: hordes of orcs, controlled by Kordomir, the Dark One, have been roaming around and generally being rather nasty. Your quest is to find the Runestone, which will give you the power to destroy Kordomir and return Belorn to its nice old self. You control three different characters: Morval the warrior, Eliador the elf and Greymarel the wizard; there are also various amiable folk of the land to help you. The game has over 2,000 locations, 40 different characters and is played in real time. Within the quest are many problems to be solved, plus some war-gaming to defeat the orcs, and plenty of treasure to hunt.

The top half of the screen contains the graphics, which are generally very attractive. Since the game was first released, these have been improved with more detail, and like the rest of the game they are slightly faster. There are 8,000 different views, all quite similar, made of trees, mountains, various buildings, lakes and so on. They all look rather cold looking, since they are almost entirely in blue.

When Runestone differs from the Midnight series is in the stylish, lengthy text which appears: location descriptions, battles, conversations and actions. The characters interact with each other, and with you, in slightly random Hobbit style. Plus, your commands are typed. The interpreter is good - a fairly large vocabulary, with fast response and complex sentences allowed.

A few flaws remain. There is the daft character called Skrimnal who will appear from time to time, steal what you are carrying and grin. Getting it back is laborious. Also, if the computer does not understand you, it prints '(your character) scratches his head and wonders what to do next', rather than say what it does not understand. But these are minor points. Runestone is simply excellent: a high class, polished piece of software. It comes in a well designed square package, complete with story book, map and other information. It will keep you going for some time, and all for a very reasonable price! Congratulations to Firebird and the author, Alan Davies, for the very first Mindplay Monster Hit.