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Okay readers, so Virgin have produced a couple of dodos in the past, but Strangeloop well, welcome back Virgin, all is forgiven. Flex your trigger finger, gather your mapping materials, and prepare to do battle with one of the most challenging arcade adventures on the Spectrum.

On a planet far beyond the reaches of even British Airways, trapped in a robot factory of no less than 240 rooms, stands a noble space-suited gent intent on making his way to the dreaded Control Room and defeating the aliens who have taken it over.

You control this courageous animated figure and must guide him through the different rooms, while blasting the obstacles therein, solving puzzles, dodging other sprites, and trying not to use up too much oxygen.

The main playing area shows the room you're in, complete with gabbing mechanical jaws, spinning fragments of industrial waste, conveyor belts, computers, or whatever.

Bottom right of the display is a map of the surrounding rooms showing their entrances and exits, together with a 'compass' that gives you some idea of the direction in which you must travel to reach the Control Room.

Bumping into other sprites punctures your space suit, resulting in one or more leaks which you can mend (automatically) with your limited supply of patches.

Once you run out of patches your suit begins to lose oxygen rapidly and unless you can either find more patches or visit the hard-to-locate repair room you're headed for the galactic graveyard.

One of the characters you meet is a robot who offers to mend your suit - only you need to pay him some money, which you have to try to pick up in another screen.

A status panel tells you how many laser charges you have left, your fuel status if you've succeeded in finding and mounting your space-bike, and an inventory of the objects you've collected.

There aren't many objects to pick up - about fifteen by my count - but every one is important and they're scattered far and wide. You won't finish this game in a hurry, even when you know where everything is.

Strangeloop is a really great game to play. Even though there's no joystick option, you can define your own keys, and although the action isn't blindingly fast it is smooth and easily controllable. My only quibble is that quite a few of the rooms are featureless save for the inevitable industrial waste. Still, that's what your fire button's for, isn't it?

If this is a representative example of Virgin's new generation of games' then I'm converted. For once the Mega Hyper of the software industry has something really worth shouting about.

This game is a big step for Virgin and, unlike most of their previous stuff, is an excellent game, full of detail and thought.

Throughout, graphics are superlative and sound is well implemented. Control is fairly good, but it's a pity there's no joystick option (there are too many control keys to make this possible!).

But this is one program I shall be playing for a long time.

According to Virgin, even if you know exactly how to solve this game, it still takes several hours of crossing and re-crossing this robot factory before you can complete it - it's that complex.

Simply exploring the factory is fairly easy, the problem is finding useful objects and trying to decide what order to use them in and how. There aren't that many puzzles to solve, but some are very satisfying. I suspect some people will find the thing too daunting, but even on a shoot-'em-up level it's pretty entertaining.

Virgin have really got their act together with this game and look to have a real bestseller on their hands.

The arcade-adventure is the mode of the moment and this is one of the best yet with many novel touches like your leaky spacesuit, the jet bike and the machinery and nasties you find around the rooms.

The thinking element is not neglected either, and finding your way through the puzzles and tasks is more than a match for any Jet Set Willy or Sabre Wulf fans.