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Help Bentley the cute Bear pick up gems and avoid nasty creatures in a budget revamp of an old arcade favourite.

Many moons ago, when video games were in their infancy, Atari launched Crystal Castles, a fast-moving three-dimensional game which featured a cute bear called Bentley. Running around a maze of blocks, Bentley would collect gems which were scattered around.

But life was not all a bowl of cherries for Bentley, and his progress was hampered by mean and nasty creatures who roamed the mazes, guarding the precious stones. But not all were there purely to stop you, they also had a passion for stones and ran riot eating all the gems they came across.

But all this was years ago, at ten pence a go. It arrived on home computer formats a little later, and is here again now as a budget title on the CPC.

The first mazes in the game are quite simple and consist of very few complex obstacles, but a little way into the game the going gets tough, very tough. It is not that the mazes are hideously difficult, although they are hard; it is the poor control you have over Bentley. The poor creature seems to lack animation, apart from moving around the maze! What I mean is that his legs seem to be sewn together and the body as a whole shuffles around - quite aimlessly in some cases. He does not stop when you want him to. and sometimes he even runs into the enemy!

There are many different types of enemy creatures which chase you. The mad marbles will work out the shortest and quickest route to you, and advance with alarming accuracy. Tree spirits also take the quickest route to you but are themselves quite vulnerable: if you jump over one, it will be frozen for a short period.

The gem eaters can be seen wandering around the mazes eating the gems; disturb them when they are eating and they will self-destruct. Other hazards include skeletons and Berthilda the wicked witch.

The mazes consist of various platforms, some level, some raised and some sloping. Some of the high levels can only be reached by stepping on a lift.

Paths which disappear behind large blocks in the centre lead around the back of some mazes. But these paths can be used, and anything hidden behind a block appears as an outline.

Graphically, Crystal Castles is quite good. The colours have been faithfully reproduced, although they are somewhat wishy-washy in places. It is the animation that lets the game down.

Sound effects too are pretty appalling. When Bentley moves, the speaker outputs a mangled mess of audio, which bears little resemblance to anything at all. The temptation to turn the sound off was far too great and I succumbed. The noise gone, I thankfully continued to play. The game itself is quite addictive if you are able to ignore the poor animation and awful sound, that is. I have seen a lot worse.