Now, here's a good game. Shamus, the hard-boiled private eye, is exploring the lair of a deadly demon. Unfortunately 'The Shadow' as it is called, supposedly of menacing demeanor, looks rather like an anaemic frog. However, this doesn't make meeting it any the less fatal, and since it can't be killed, only stunned, it's best to run fast when the Shadow appears.

The accuracy of the nasties under its command is somewhat disturbing and often has terminal results. They appear in large numbers in all of the lair's 32 locations with their bullets coming fast and furious.

To defend yourself you are armed with what are called ion-shivs. These will kill any living life form in the galaxy, except those wearing tri-gamma body armour. (Of course this is what the Shadow wears.) However, you can only fire three shivs at a time, which can leave you in a tricky situation.

There are several things to collect. Keys, which are needed to open parts of the lair and bottles of potion, which give you an extra life. The keys are colour-coded, so before you can proceed you must find a keyhole of the same colour.

Graphically the game is superb - the way poor old Shamus dies is quite tear-jerking. Animation of the other characters is just as good, and you'll soon be sitting there stuck to the screen trying to beat the Shadow at his own game.

It's wise to have the sound on your TV well turned up as then you will hear the eerie noise that heralds the approach of your adversary. The other sounds can be rather irritating since the zap of your ion-shiv has to come very frequently.

This game combines adventure with a good deal of shoot-'em-up, and had me continuously sneaking back for another go. Shamus is one for the collection.

I really liked this one. There's a zap for the arcade freaks, combined with the need for some strategic thought for the less violent types.

The graphics were simple and single colour but very effective. In fact, I think that single colour graphics often look better than multi-colour ones due to the Vic's unusually large pixels. I liked the 'rolling' effect of the maze walls in particular.

The only gripe I had with the colour was the colour coding of the keys. As I normally use a monochrome TV, I found myself having to kidnap the family colour job!

I found that the exploratory aspect of Shamus made for a very compulsive game and I enjoyed every minute of it. Oh - and the tape version loads in thirty seconds flat!

Another Vic 20 game to be proud of. There's plenty of blasting action as the assorted robots swarm to be annihilated and return their own murderous fire.

Searching for the objects becomes of minor importance as you hammer away at the constant hordes of willing victims. But the game's good as a graphics adventure as well, with lots of rooms to explore and objects to find. The characters are a bit rough but nicely animated.

Shamus is a game of quality from the people who brought you Pharaoh's Curse. Graphics and sound enhance the game well to make it very enjoyable. One of the best Vic games, I can't think of any real way to fault it. I'm beginning to like this company!