Everybody knows how Ocean just love to buy up licences - if an action film is around on general release, the chances are that sooner or later the game will come our way courtesy of the boys from Castlefield.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Kim Basinger and more have all had the pleasure of witnessing their pixellated forms wandering around an artificial world on our monitor screens, and all to varying degrees of success. Now Ocean are moving in a slightly different direction.

"What - leaving the licensing malarkey?" I hear you cry.

Oh no. In fact nay, nay and thrice nay, as Dick Emery (or someone like that!) used to say, because they have in fact done just the opposite. Instead of purchasing the rights of exploitation for a single movie, they've taken a trip to Hollywood, parted with huge amounts of wonga, and walked away with the game rights to all of the Universal Studios' monsters.

Yes, monsters - you know, like Dracula, and Frankenstein, and his bride, and the Wolfman, and the Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. All six have sold their collective souls and appear en masse in this nostalgic isometric adventure.

The story goes that famous vampire hunter Professor Van Helsing has died, bequeathing his thankless job to grandson Alex. The aforementioned ghoulies have long since been captured and banished to another dimension from where they can inflict no further harm on two-bit Tinseltown scriptwriters, but in order for them to remain there a ceremony must be performed every so often - the Rite of the Bloodstar.

What with the funeral and all though, Alex misses the number 39 bus to Other Dimensionsville to perform the ceremony, and the monsters begin to enter our world through Van Helsing's castle. Not only that, but by some mysterious and unexplained circumstance, the Bloodstar has been broken into six pieces, which are spread around the castle. With grandpops dead, it's up to you as Alex to find the six pieces and return the monsters to their limbo.

Considering the limitations of this type of game, the graphics are very nice indeed. The Alex sprite is large and chunky, and the backgrounds, while not differing a great deal from each other, are colourful and reasonably well detailed.

Each Universal monster commands his or hes (or its) own domain within the castle, and in each domain you will find - or at least you should unless you're daft - one piece of the Bloodstar.

Find the all-important bit and you are in a good position to kick the beasty back to where it came from. A good position, but not a great one, because each monster has to be confronted with a particular item before they can finally be vanquished.

The obvious example is Dracula, who will only be subdued by a crucifix. The Creature from the Black Lagoon takes a harpoon and Wolfman a silver bullet and so on.

An isometric perspective prevails, as you can tell from the screenshots, and the rooms of the mansion scroll smoothly throughout.

Apart from the obvious problem of avoiding the monsters long enough to enable you to perform the ritual, there are pitfalls and booby traps throughtout the castle where it's easy to come a cropper.

Minor monsters roam freely in all the levels; unlike the main characters, these can be killed, although it's a tough task since Alex doesn't carry any weapons.

As you would exepct of a rich person, your grandfather didn't trust people with his treasures, and consequently kept most of the rooms in his home locked. Therefore keys play an important role in the game, not only for access to rooms where the monsters may lurk, but also in enabling you to find treasure and magic potions, which provide you with temporary powers of ESP and invincibility.

Hidden platforms, huge remote spikes and a host of other nasty surprises are littered around the place; useful items are the teleporters which transport you from one end of the castle to the other.

A menu can be accessed from any point in the game, giving details of your potions, Bloodstar count, and the remaining strength of your adversaries.

Universal Monsters is a large enough game, and it's important to keep on your toes at all times for threats from all kinds of places.

Due to its size though, there are occasions when little or nothing happens for minutes at a time, and tedium begins to creep in. This type of game was popular about five years ago when Spectrums were still in demand, and Universal Monsters will not be looked back upon as a gaming milestone.

In all fairness though, the programmers have worked hard at bringing the game up to date, and have succeeded to a point. Universal Monsters doesn't make my list of all-time favourite games - in fact, it doesn't receive a nomination - but it's easy to get into, easy to play, and provides a real challenge for anyone prepared to take a step back in time.

Universal Monsters is a throwback to the old days - an isometric adventure in the best traditions. It looks a little dated today, but represents excellent value for money.