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From Hungary - of all places - comes maybe the biggest role-player ever seen. But is it any good?

It says here on the box that "Abandoned Places is the new standard in role-playing". Such a statement, considering the successes of Mirrorsoft's Dungeon Master and SSI's Eye Of The Beholder, necessarily heralds something pretty damn special if it's to mean anything more than mere hype. A quick look at the game reveals many similarities to its forebears - cell movement, party formation et al - but you rapidly get the feeling that there's more going on than meets the eye.

The game's five disks give a hint of the hugeness - a quick glance at the world man shows we're looking at more than just a quick wander down some paltry dragon-filled pit here.

The story goes that we are plunged into the troubled world of Kalynthia where, as one would expect from a D&D-alike scenario, an ancient evil is thought to be re-awakening. And, as is the norm with insomniac ancient evils, terrible creatures are once more abroad and creating a damn good excuse for a posse of adventurers to wander about the place slaughtering them.

Luckily for the Kalynthians, a bunch of heroes were frozen in stone a few hundred years back and are now just itching for another pop at arch magi Bronagh, the chap causing all the bother. There are eight heroes to choose from but, because the local wizards have been a little too laid back of late, there's only enough sorcery spare to resurrect four of them - a damn peculiar conincidence considering the fantasy game designer's usual predilection for four-member parties.

Character generation is a simple affair, you can rename each member chosen and, er, that's it. The manual advises that each character has particular abilities that will unfold as the game progresses, but you're left completely in the dark as to what they are until it's too late and your happy band has already sallied forth. Oh well, at least you've got time to sit back and appraise them once the game proper starts.

Actually, that last sentence was a complete lie - it's no messing and straight into the action, as a bunch of fire-breathing nasties appear immediately the party is free of the crypt. Bereft of all weaponry, armour and provisions, the heroes literally have to slap the monsters up with their bare hands to escape.

This being the case, you have to become pretty adept with the control panel very quickly - not an easy thing to do. The characters, their statistics, magic capabilities, positioning relative to other party members and their possessions are all accessed from the main screen, which makes for some frantic mouse manipulation as you try to move them about and get them about and get them slapping. It's been said that the multiple screens of Eye Of The Beholder and Dungeon Master are a hindrance when trying to get your party organised, but whopping the whole lot - statistics, inventories, the works - around the main viewscreen, as here, makes the interface far too complex.

So, burned, bruised and bleeding - and that's not just my mouse hand - our battered bunch eventually emerge from the catacombs beneath the castle of Heaven's Light and into the outside world, having picked up a few useful oddments that will help them fare in wider Kalynthia. And this is where Abandoned Places departs from the run-of-the-mill dungeon adventure. Rather than providing one huge underground complex that has to be thoroughly delved, level by level, to complete the game.

Abandoned Places offers a chance to go walkabout in the great outdoors. However, unlike in Mindscape's similar Knightmare, what you do above ground is every bit as important as your endeavours below. There are towns and cities in which to trade and gather information, there are other dungeons scattered about and there are loads of monsters to bash on the way. In fact, with more than 100 levels divided among 36 dungeons and a whole heap of settlements to visit, you could feasibly spend days just wandering, horse-riding, boating or even flying (oh yes, there wizards are tricksy with their spells) around Kalynthia in search of firepower sufficient to rid the world of evil.

To cope with the overground adventure, there's a second interface featuring a scrolling map of the surrounding terrain and an icon panel below which enables you to decide such group actions as making camp, choosing modes of travel, searching, trading and generally moving in interesting ways. A small animated figure reminds you of what you're doing at any one time and it too moves in an interesting way, which brings me to one major downer - the game's graphics.

The screens veer from fairly bog standard stills of town scenes to very 8-bit-ish screens when fighting. The animation is similarly lacklustre. Agreed, it would be pushing it to expect some kind of rotoscoped extravaganza, but when a figure adopts the mincing strut of someone in need of Diar-eze, it somewhat knackers one's credulity - credulity being hefty prerequisite for embarrassment-free fantasy role playing. Perhaps I've been spoiled by the panache of Eye Of The Beholder and similar's graphics, but when so much effort has been put into every other aspect of something as huge as Abandoned Places, it seems a shame that it's so completely outgunned in such a very important area.

Gripes about grotty graphics aside, the whole thing stands up well gameplay-wise. It's hard enough - both in terms of fighting and getting your head around the scale of the plot - to make it a challenge. There's just so much to be done to achieve the threefold aim of this utterly agoraphobic experience. First, get out of Heaven's Light and build up the party - you'll find oddments of treasure for buying those essentials that can't be found just lying around. Second, go questing for the items - a sword, an orb and a globe - that will have you crowned King of the World. There's quite a bit of legwork involved here and plenty of opportunity for meeting monsters in the wild, should you want to (the map screen reverts to the underground interface for a quick scrap or two), and, indeed, for exploring some of those aformentioned 'abandoned places'.

The game is structured so you'll collect sufficient experience, hit points, spells and magical devices to meet the final conflict well prepared, and boy you'll need them. Bronagh is not the sort of chap to take things lying down and, when the moment is right - boof! You're teleported into the Halls of Rage to face a pretty awesome test before dealing with the man himself. (And no - I'm not going to make it that easy. There's no way I'm telling what the test is.)

Electronic Zoo reckons the final stage of Abandoned Places is as big as the whole of either Dungeon Master or Eye Of The Beholder and that the game will take you at least two months to play. I am inclined to believe it. Having made my way across leagues of Kalynthia and engaged in numerous subterranean sorties. I'm still daunted at how much there actually is left to do.

Abandoned Places may not represent the new standard in RPGs - it's a bit too scrappy in certain areas for that - but you can bet your bottom dollar it'll be responsible for a great many hours of lost sleep among the die-hard D&D fraternity.

Uppers: You can't deny that it's absolutely massive - like phew! You'll be lost in it for ages. It'll have RPG fans "role-ing" in the aisles for many an hour and give them fore-arms like Arnie's - it's mouse-driven, you know.

Downers: Poor graphics and animation detract from the playing experience, while owners of single-drive Amigas will get somewhat peeved at the number of disk swaps.

I would have liked a little more gloss on the graphics and a tad more finesse on the control system, but the D&D enthusiast will find it a reet riveting role.