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The evil Yaemon has struck again. This time he has assassinated your foster father and made off with the Scrolls of Kettsuin [The So-and-so! - Ed]. You have sworn an oath to the Gold Kwon that you will avenge this murderous deed!

The next thing you're expecting me to say is: "You have sixteen moves, and eighteen opponents to fight and..." But, oh no, this is no more a beat-'em-up than, for instance, Gauntlet. What we have here is an arcade-adventure with shoot-'em-up overtones.

Gauntlet is the nearest thing I can think of to it. Speaking of which, it comes from Gremlin - the same company that programmed Gauntlet for US Gold.

The game does play very differently from Gauntlet despite the similarities in layout.

For a start it's one player only. Your aim is to collect keys, find your way around and remember where you have been. Get mapping in other words.

Keys can be found anywhere around the grounds or inside the temple. From my experience they had a regular tendency to be inside a barricade of locked doors - so you end up using about five keys just to win one.

The reason I am going on about keys so much is because they are the main reason for your failure. The enemy, which are easily killed by those spike stars (shurikens to beat-'em-up officianado's like me) if you have them, or with a kick, makes them almost incidental to the game. Run out of keys and you may as well press the abort key straight away.

Normally you will find about four at the same time - but don't overestimate your bank balance of keys. Apart from the dozens of doors that need opening, you will lose a key should you walk over a manhole.

Avenger is the sequel to the moderately successful The Way Of The Tiger and uses some of its ideas - like, for example, your energy level is called the "Inner Force".

Actually, energy seems to be limitless - the only real way to run seriously short was when spikes suddenly popped up out of the ground. If you do run out you can call up Kwon and he will replenish it.

You can't overuse this though - as Kwon gets naffed off after three call-ups and kills you. There is no real need for this to happen. The main cause of death is running out of keys and having to abort.

It's possible to have great fun with this game just wandering around finding keys and lobbing shurikens at nasties - but this won't enable you to find the missing scrolls and carry out your sworn oath.

To get these you have to find a certain something on the first level and some other certain somethings on the other levels - which will reveal the whereabouts of a scroll one after another.

There are six levels in all - each separated by grilles and trap doors on the floor. Lots of other debris litters the floor of the play area - like shurikens and treasure - the only point to which seems to be to give greedy point grabbers the satisfaction of a score.

The graphic display of Avenger is the Gauntlet-ified overhead view with the screen scrolling up to a point and then flipping.

The sprites are brightly drawn and colourful though it is also noticeable that you have put on some weight since the first The Way Of The Tiger game.

Sound is over average. No game tune - just effects. The title tune is reasonably merry though.

I enjoyed Avenger and was not bothered about its overall simplicity to Gauntlet.

Avenger has a tough arcade adventure-style challenge to complement its basic arcade gameplay. It can become quite puzzling and mapping is essential.