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"Let it be known throughout the land - The Quest is about to begin".

That's what it said in the blurb, so I girded up my loins. Well, you don't want to be caught with your loins ungirded, do you? You can't beat a quick gird I always say, especially if you are about to go on a Quest.

In the latest adventure game from Penguin, you play King Galt's newest adviser. There you are, quietly minding your own business, when the king decides to send you to sort out a dragon who is pestering Princess Diana and her people.

Well, actually the king sends his champion, Gorn, but although Gorn is a good fighter, he was at the back of the queue when grey matter was being handed out... Gorn orf, you might say.

Your job is to tell Gorn what to do. But don't bother telling him to talk to anybody - he reserves all his best lines are rebuffs for your less obvious instructions. If it sounds like another American Standard hi-res adventure game, that's not too far from the truth. However, Penguins do it differently, so there are a few extras.

The major difference is that there is more than one route to the solution of The Quest. When you make it to the end (which is not as straightforward as it might initially seem), you will almost certainly have missed some bits.

This means you can continue to explore and find another route, unlike other adventure games which become "swaps" when you've done them.

If you want to get somewhere quickly, you can toggle into text mode and move without generating the graphics. You can also issue multiple commands which, combined with text mode, makes for really rapid movement. For example: you can use a string like N,W,N,W,S,S,E to make seven moves at once. You can do this in graphics mode too, in which case you can then sit back and watch as the screens are generated one after the other.

Of course, coming from Penguin the graphics are very good, having been created with The Graphics Magician. They seem to have paid particular attention to the female form, which raises some interesting possibilities for future adult-oriented games (excuse my chauvinism)!

However, if I had to nominate my all-time favourite piece of hi-res art it would be one of the still life studies in The Quest.

In monochrome, "trees reflected in a lake at duck" doesn't look all that good, but in colour the effect is wonderful. It makes me wish I had a colour printer so I could take a permanent copy to hang on my wall.

For some reason, each keypress produces a click, a bit like working on a manual typewriter. I can't think why Penguin chose to include such a feature. It does not detract from the game, but it doesn't add anything either.

When you do complete The Quest, you are rewarded with a party in your honour. Watch out for the juggler - he's magic! It makes a nice change from the usual "well done" message that greets you after hours of toil and tears.

In terms of difficulty, The Quest is about average. There are some tricky bits, but nothing the intrepid adventurer couldn't cope with. There are over 200 locations, filling two sides of a disc, but a large maze accounts for at least a quarter of that.

Even so, it's a big game and I enjoyed playing it. I've only found one and a half routes so far, so I suppose I'd better leave my loins girded for a bit longer.