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Oh no, don't do that to my wizard! Darn it - why didn't I get that flame spell when I had the chance? Where's my barbarian going now? Sorry, can't stop to talk - I'm in the middle of rescuing Sir Ragnar from the evil clutches of the Lord of Chaos, Morcar. Damn, lost concentration for a moment and there's my elf being beaten to a pulp by a big, nasty goblin. That's torn itl Game over!

While the next game loads I'll take this opportunity to sing the praises of HeroQuest. It's incredibly faithful to the original adventure board game with one vitally excellent exception. If you were stuck at home alone (and there were no completely inept thieves around to act like bumbling idiots and make you look like like a hero and not just the stupid, grinning, unbelievably yukky-cute, overpaid American kid brat you really are) then you couldn't play it. Now, thanks to the people at GBH, you can, and for much less dosh than ever before.

It's played over a series of missions, each successive one tougher than the last. To 'win' just complete every mission in the campaign. Sounds easy? It's not. Each of your characters has a limited body score, which reduces by one each time he's hit by one of Morcar's pets. When a character loses all his body points, he's dead.

You start off with the map screen empty apart from the room you're in when you enter the castle. Each time you enter a new room it gets added to the map, and so you slowly build up a full map of the dungeon you're currently exploring.

HeroQuest is so easy to play that after five minutes you'll be well into an adventure and have serious trouble turning the machine off. But if you really do have to drag yourself away from your C64, there's always the Save Game option. Phew!

Loads more fun than being conned into helping with the float for the summer fete, then being told that you're to dress up in a pink dress and be Cinderella for a day.