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Eidolon was always the best of the Fractals games on other machines. Things are no different on the Spectrum. Where Rescue on Fractalus uses the Fractal technique to create craggy landscapes, in Eidolon it generates rough stone walls and arches in a series of underground caverns.

The plot is also a vast improvement on Rescue on Fractalus. Eidolon isn't astoundingly complicated but has enough different features to keep you interested. More than that it has genuine style. The design of the graphics, the fractal landscapes, even the presentation of the instructions all mesh together to create the idea of a world of eccentric Victorian adventuring.

Someone in the Eidolon design team has obviously read H G Wells' The Time Machine because much of the character of the game is derived from that book. You follow the travels of Dr Josef Vincent Agon, a Victorian scientist whose diary tells of his strange adventures in 'The Eidolon', a device driven by the mystical powers of the mind. The mystical powers send you hurtling into a bizarre and terrifying world (don't they always) where around each next cavernous corner lurks an even more fearsome monster.

Put simply the game is this: guide the Eidolon around the mysterious caverns, collect the strange fireballs and discover what fireball kills what monster. Destroy all the combatants and you can take a crack at the dragon, head honcho in the monster department who guards the way into the next level. The assorted unpleasant beings you encounter can be destroyed by launching the correct coloured fireball, and the dragon barrier is removed by having collected the correct jewel.

Eidolon is part maze, part dodge and part reasoning game white at the same time being a Fractals demonstration.

The animation is limited but the excellence of design more than compensates.

Label: Activision Author: Tony Adams Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: Various Reviewer: Graham Taylor

*****

Best of the Fractals games, beautifully converted to the Spectrum. Impressive original touches.