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I've been lusting after a chance to get my mitts on Alternative Reality ever since I saw a sneak preview, and I can tell you that it's been worth the waiting.

It's a little difficult to pigeon-hole The City - the first in a suite of seven or eight games that will eventually make up the whole set piece. Is it an adventure, a role-playing entertainment or a strategy game? Well, it's all three and much more besides.

The City slaps you down right in the middle of the action from the very first moments. At first you'll play safe and explore the place from the relative safety of The Floating Gate, but still you'll have to minimise encounters with other characters until a good night's sleep at the inn restores your stamina.

You have a little money to begin with, and you're advised to put a compass at the top of your shopping list. What to do next? Checking out the status readout at the top of the screen will suggest the tasks you're best equipped to handle. But there are plenty of places to visit and you'd better make a start soon.

For example, the city has several inns and taverns, a number of banks and shops, and a few smithies and healers. Maybe you should make for one of the fourteen guilds. You could try finding one of the many secret doors and one-way walls that are a feature of the city (great sound effects if you're successful).

A smith will sell you a new weapon, a bank may lend you money, and healers can be useful too. Not all guilds will welcome you at first - but you'll always come away with character-enhancing knowledge, and there's plenty of treasure, gems and jewellery to be found... eventually.

You'll also have to learn to live with (and survive) a great many cursers, evil potions and poisons, disease and fights. Not to mention the merchants, couriers, guards, gladiators, dwarfs, wizards, assassins and imps!

In just a few hours of play I won't pretend that I've even begun to scratch the surface of Alternative Reality but it's quality through and through, offering a very superior kind of challenge if you're prepared to give it the concentration and time (lots of that) it deserves.