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Alien-8 in the year 2075. when robots are no longer called droids? Not quite. The game has a lot more to offer with some very devious puzzles and some novel touches. It may not come top in the originality charts, but has lots to keep you hooked.

You control a robot, wandering through a computer's circuit board, that happens to be on a satellite. Guess what the satellite's main purpose in life is? No, it's not to start wars, it is actually there to prevent them. Unfortunately, there was no time to test it properly, which is why the robot is there to sort everything out and ... blah, blah.

These intros get worse. I mean, who on earth would put male sheep instead of ram chips as part of the computer components?

Once the program has loaded, you are greeted to very loud, grating noise which will cause swift hand-to-volume movement. The menu screen allows either keyboard or joystick. If left for a while, a demo mode will start, giving you an insight into the marvelous detail and complexity of the rooms - it certainly makes up for the title music.

Off we go, in search of any defects in the computer's circuitry. The screen layout is akin to Knight Lore and clones; however, the backgrounds are multi-coloured (well more than one colour anyway), and very detailed - a joy to look at. On-screen movement is much faster, this is partly because there are never more than two objects to animate at any one time.

Your robot has a very cheeky grin on his face, giving the impression that he knows something you don't - probably that you will never complete the task in hand.

Control of the droid is not that hot. In fact it can be downright infuriating, especially when you are right on the edge of a precipice and the jump you are about to undertake is a life-or-death situation. More often than not, you will hit the wrong control and - scream, rant ...joystick ...game. Try as I might I couldn't break my joystick; it would have relieved the tension somewhat.

Apart from the pretty graphics and horrific control, what more is there to Sepulcri? Well, there is a tough, devious (possibly uncompletable) and infuriating plot to solve. The idea is simple: locate chips with dip-switches or. their surface and jump on them. This causes the screen to flash and your 'switch' total to increase by one - only 50 of them to deactivate.

This may sound very simple, but putting it into practice is next to impossible (with five lives anyway). There are so many inanimate objects, and of course the marauding male sheep that kill you on contact. It's beyond a joke.

That's nearly it. Just one problem. Once all 50 dip-switches have been 'de-selected', it is then necessary to find your way into ROTTES (Ridiculously Over The Top Exit Security - spare me. please!). The need to enter a secret code into 'code-posts' becomes apparent. The idea is to enter one letter into each of the posts and hope to get it set in the correct order. You are told the 'secret password': LETMEOUTOK - another beauty!

There is a fantastic or rather unusual option to the game. Whenever you pause the game, it is possible to dump a screen image to an Amstrad or Epson-compatible printer. The dump is shaded and can be very useful when putting together a map. It may be rather expensive on printer paper, though, for there are over 250 rooms.

Sepulcri has very addictive qualities. You will keep bashing away at it, with only a sore hand to show for your efforts. Lots of nice touches adding to the humour and overall presentation make this a worthwhile purchase. If you have not yet got a Knight-Lore clone, make this top of the list.

My initial thought was that this was going to be a terrible rip-off. That's only half right. It is a rip-off of many games that have gone before, but it certainly isn't terrible, it has that quality that makes you bang the table in frustration every time you die from a stupid move but you always come back for another go just to prove to yourself that you can do it right this time. With so many screens, there's going to be a lot of proving to do.

Turn five switches on.

Fine, but don't look (?) at the music!

P. Fast movement at all times. Great graphics.
P. Humorous touches add to gameplay.
P. Tough.

N. Pitiful title music.
N. Too tough.