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If you were mourning the death of the Dragon then mourn no longer, because this is one of the best games seen on it for a long time.

As the Bandit you have to explore the three worlds of fantasy, space and the Wild West in search of keys, locks and treasures to boost your score.

You start in the Timegates Zone where you have to get a key to unlock the gate to the three worlds. Once through you can select any of the timegates and enter them.

The gates take you to a new landscape where you again have to find the key and lock to get to a timegate. This will return you to the initial screen where you can go to another gate.

Throughout all the lands, there are evil portals which release creatures to sap your energy. These can be blasted with your horizontally firing gun and your energy regained by collecting treasures.

The action is very hectic and, when the time limit on each screen runs out, your energy ticks away as well. To keep your energy and score high you need to keep moving, constantly picking things up and exploring.

Once your power falls low enough the screen starts to flash as a warning and makes play extremely difficult. The infamous green screen can also be avoided with a choice of three background colours.

Some of the scenes are more than one screen large and the scrolling is smooth. There is a nice range of characters but some of them are tough to recognise, mainly because you are too busy avoiding them.

Movement is a little annoying since you continue in the direction moved, even with a self-centring joystick. This serves to make the game even more frenetic.

One thing that appealed to me about Time Bandit was the possibility of a fair amount of strategic thinking. To get the best score, you have to decide when to abandon treasure-hunting and head for the next gate, keeping a careful eye on the time and your energy level.

Then there's the pleasing, easy-on-the-eye non-green screen plus far more playability than most other Dragon offerings.

Good punishment for the fire button, a bit of exercise for the grey matter, and a nice display - definitely a winner.

Another good Dragon game from Microdeal, which gives you *non-green* (!!) backgrounds

Although the graphics are simple, with trees in the fantasy world and what could be spaceships in the Space world the way it's presented is very good.

However, use of the Dragon joystik unless mastered well, could ruin enjoyment of this game. Another thing I didn't like is the way the screen flashes frantically when your power is about to fail. Despite these complications in play, I enjoyed the game immensely.