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Interesting to compare this to Manic Miner, to which it obviously owes much. Here we have a castle with 24 rooms, but again the aim is to collect objects, whilst assailed by assorted moving bits and bobs. The intro music is catchy, but the game itself is punctuated only by zaps and zings.

Unlike MM, access to the rooms can be selected. On the initial screen, which has no "aliens", vast arrays of objects are awaiting collection. Each one represents a further room. When you collect the object you are whisked away to that room to try your luck, and if you succeed in clearing that, you are returned to Merlin's Magic Teleport, to select another object and room. The whole lot can be seen from the demo mode, and they are certainly a challenge!

Graphically, the game is slightly more sophisticated with some multi-coloured sprites, and a better selection of colours, though no green-screen option. One of my tame games testers likened the graphics to those found on the Atari games console. Smooth and impressive but with a slight chunkiness.

One small idiosyncrasy is the movement of Sir Lancelot, whom you control. Surprisingly, he can be persuaded to walk on thin air, but won't jump vertically. He needs lateral encouragement too!

A tricky, addictive, absorbing game which capitalises on the Amstrad's features, without breaking the bank. It may not have the ownership "snob appeal" of the "cult" conversions, but offers many hours of torturous enjoyment. Recommended.

D.M.