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The year is 3065, which doesn't surprise me at all as we work so far ahead on magazines that anything's possible. I'm actually writing this in 1979 on a ZX-80! Such is the magic of publishing. Players is releasing some interesting adventures, and while The Zacaron Mystery won't be setting the adventure world alight, it's still a very playable adventure and worth a couple of quid of anyone's money.

In the year 3065, it seems, the earth's fuel supplies have just a few months to go, and having only had about 1500 years notice of this, naturally the governments of the world are taken by surprise. The only way out seems to be to send someone in search of two Zacaron crystals, each of which will guarantee enough energy to heat the earth for thousands of years. Hot stuff. We could do with one of those here at Rathbone Towers for when the radiators are playing up.

The first crystal is apparently to be found on a place called Prutor, where conveniently enough you find the password you'll need to get to Myra, where the second crystal is, along with acid-filled rivers and a burning sun. Sounds nasty.

The text has been nicely redesigned to be futuristic, but not so much so that you can't actually read it, as often happens, and there's an option to save to memory and a self-evident START AGAIN command. You'll need to make regular use of the SEARCH command as well as EXAMINE - SEARCH a location and it magically reveals things you didn't know were there. There's a good use of sound effects too, but I found it fairly easy to get quite a way into the game, as I suspect will most people. Don't expect this to keep you occupied till the year 3065 (remember to stock up on thermal undies if you plan being around that long), but at £1.99 it's entertaining enough.