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In this game from new company Icon, you must assume the role of Zorakk. Your task is to search the land of the continent of Ramagora (also known, on the other side of the sleeve notes, as Ramagold) and to find the mystical Crown of Ultimate Darkness.

This crown is in three sections, one in each of the continent's lands. Although the game is billed as a graphic adventure, it is really more of a strategy game with elements of fantasy wargaming.

The graphics are fairly good but occasionally suffer slight flicker and colour clash. Sound is used as an indication of various happenings within the game and, though useful, it is uninspiring.

The interest of the game is strange. Although the idea is simple - you wander around until you find gold, food or part of the crown - it has a strange compulsion which can keep you going back for one more go. As soon as you find the plague potion, or the map, or the Dragonsword you find yourself strangely addicted, wishing for the plague or the dragon to turn up.

The game has no real bugs, but it can be annoying when your regiment of nineteen is wiped out by a group of three brigands. Also, it can take an awful long time to find the parts of the crown. As well as these, it's easy for your group to be decimated and for you to gain absolutely nothing except the prospect of a long trek home. Yes, I know this is the way it is in real war, but I bet real soldiers get as frustrated too.

I'm not really sure I would recommend this game. For some, it will be boring, repetitive and even downright stupid. But others will find it utterly compulsive.

The game comes in a professional-looking video type case and has a very impressive title page. Although it is written in Basic, the response is reasonably fast and the graphics are surprisingly good. In fact, the detailed characters add greatly to the enjoyment of this frustratingly addictive strategy game.

All arcade freaks will loathe it, but other will find it better than most of the strategy games available for the Beeb.

I found the graphics limited, but the game introduces a strategy element which in some way makes up for this. The bartering and battle sequences allow elements of mental as well as reflex skill into the game.

The graphics are not too bad and your little man is drawn quite well. It would have been nice if each location looked different. Also, it might have improved it a bit if the dreaded 'bottle horn' which announced battle sounded a little less like a beep. Despite these minor points I really enjoyed this game and found I kept coming back to it.