Dropped in it

When I first saw Tactic my initial thoughts were of Tetris - and in fact, Tactic is just such another addictive game, containing precisely the right amount of simplicity and ingenuity to keep a player going back again and again.

French software houses are gaining an increasingly high reputation for excellent of graphics and innovative game design and Tactic is no exception.

Eterna say that it is a coin-op conversion but I've not seen the original - perhaps I move in the wrong circles. The power of the Archimedes is exploited in that two players can have a go simultaneously and quite independently.

Different coloured shapes appear at the top of your screen and drop down to the bottom and your job is to arrange them in various ways according to the contract you are given.

In phase one you have to arrange spheres into vertical rows of three of the same colour - and you have to perform the feat four times to fulfil the contract.

Movement of the spheres left or right as they fall is directed by user-definable keys. In addition tone key accelerates the fall - useful when time is getting short. A fire button is used to enter your initials on the high score table. Other things also turn up at random on the screen, some bonuses and others baleful to say the least if your sphere - or whatever - collides with them.

In this way you can, for example, add four seconds to your time, add a randomly generated line of objects to the bottom (sometimes very useful!), increase your score by up to 500 points and so on.

Most useful is the bonus which entitles you to move on to the next phase without completing your contract.

One item renders all objects so far collected invisible for a time - just try remembering what colour is where when you are under pressure and the screen is flashing a "Hurry Up" message. It's about then that I start shouting at my Archimedes.

Other nasties take points off your score and reverse the effect of your movement keys for a while.

Phase two is similar, except that you have to arrange things horizontally in groups of three of the same colour - and do it five times. I felt pathetically pleased the first time I achieved this, for it's not as easy as it sounds. Phase three involves blocks of four shapes and diagonal lines of three - harder still.

Phase four is where I am presently stuck. Here you either get coloured squares or spheres, and pressing the fire button changes one to the other as you struggle to complete the contract. No wonder Eterna call Tactic a game of strategy and reflex.

Mad Hatter