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Terminus is the latest game from those awfully nice people at Mastertronic. It is another in the try-and-find-something-in-the- maze-and-escape-with-it- before-your-energy-runs-out (phew!) series of games.

It's got a couple of things going for it. For a start, it is actually fun to play. In the game, written by Glass author Philip Hargreaves, the Chief Wangler (whatever that is!) of your colony has been captured by a horrific alien force, and taken to a huge prison complex. Being utterly bemused without their leader, the other Wanglers decide it would be a very good idea to go and rescue CW. A party of four is sent to the area with the mission of rescuing him. Will they succeed!

Fortunately, you can become whichever wangler you desire. Each has his/her/its own characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. The character names are predictably 'whacky': Spex, Mobod, Xann and Magno (not to be confused with Mango) are the names. Pick the one you feel less embarrassed controlling, off you go into the maze.

Once you find yourself in the myriad of multi-coloured rooms, it is astoundingly easy to get utterly lost. The locations are very colourful, and there is a large amount of, er, stuff to keep your interest, long after the initial thrill has gone.

To hinder your efforts further, there are a good number of stationary monsters, who are very large, and very hazardous. These beasts are virtually indestructible. However, one's blood-lust can be partially satiated by wiping-out the waves of aliens which will descend from on-high.

Essentially your wangle-choice is determined by which part of the maze you wish to explore. If one location has a large number of lava-pits, it makes the most sense to choose a character who can either fly, or will stick to the ceiling.

Once Spike (Chief Wangle) has been rescued, well, that's anybody's guess. The maze is 512 rooms in size, and so will, as they say, 'keep even the most hardened gamer guessing to the very end.' Well, I'm sure someone says it.

Label: Mastertronic Author: Paul Hargreaves Price: £2.99 Joystick: various Memory: 48K/128K Reviewer: Jim Douglas

****

A tried and tested formula of zap, map and explore. It works wonders, though, but there are games of equal value around.