Microvision's adverts for Catacomb Crisis have been describing it as a 'graphic adventure'. On playing through it becomes apparent that it is only just bordering on being an arcade adventure.

This slight misrepresentation doesn't of course alter its quality, but traditional adventure freaks might like to know that the only full word you type in is your name and that movement is totally by joystick.

Setting off with a grumble may appear as if I don't like the game, but the opposite is true. Your objective as with all games is to save your neck, in this case by escaping the numerous vast labyrinths of Tyros mountain. How and why you're there in the first place is irrelevant; you just have the problem of getting out intact.

In the caverns you are shown an overhead 2D view, and as its pretty black (or red in this case) in underground caves you have a lamp which lights up the walls with a green glow. The catacomb itself is made up of a series of simply-drawn passageways interspersed with larger caves where various nasty creatures and also more useful objects are found.

Only a small section of the whole network is shown on the screen and therefore you are able to call up a map which shows all that has so far been discovered. By using this map it becomes apparent that it's not merely a question of learning where everything is on a level and then completing it almost without thinking the next time as a new network is created for every game, adding much more variety.

As well as showing where you are the main screen has a box for displaying messages and commands, and a score panel revealing your status and standing. To pick something up you just move over the object and can then use with various single letter commands. For instance, if you find a dagger to hold the weapon you type 'H' and then its corresponding letter on the inventory, ie the third object on the list is letter C and you therefore enter that. As well as holding weapons threateningly you can put on or take off clothes or armour, quaff potions, read scrolls, throw objects around and eat. Edible objects are normally apples, cherries Or even power pills, though here they're cream cakes - whether you're trapped in a cavern or not you're obviously not on a diet!

You don't only have to eat to survive but to keep your hit points up. How many hit points you have determines how long you can stand the attacks of 'globs' 'sparks' and other monsters.

The more monsters that are killed the higher the experience level and the greater the limit on the number of hit points. The hit point level can be replenished by staying out of attack mode. But this mode obviously allows you to attack your foes and also stops them giving you a fair old thrashing.

There are also bags of gold scattered about for good measure, although they don't look much like money filled sacks, just like the cakes don't look like cakes. None of the graphics are razor sharp like, say Airball, although this is partly due to the fact that the author hasn't sacrificed his four colours just for the sake of accuracy.

There is of course the traditional high score table, determined by gold not experience or cavern level as perhaps would be expected. As for music, well there isn't any. The author obviously isn't a composer as the only sound your Dragon utters is the thud of heavy feet padding up and down the passageways.

As with all good games you want to get that bit further and eventually hopefully manage to complete it. With progression you gradually find more potions to use, tougher armour and weapons with greater power, and as always more monsters - how easy life would be without them!

I must be starting to get reasonable at Catacomb Crisis as I'm now playing games which are beginning to take over the hour rather than over the minute, if you haven't got a couple of hours for one game then there's the old adventuring option of saving on to a handy blank tape and resuming later on - well perhaps it's not so unlike an adventure after all.