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It has often been said that a really good computer game would put you in a world and allow you to explore. You could go anywhere, and look at objects from any angle. This will happen when computers become more powerful.

Well you don't have to wait. You don't even have to buy a more expensive computer. That world is available here and now on the Amstrad.

Driller is intended to be the first of many Freescape products from Incentive Software. Freescape is a graphics technique which involves the sort at 3D mathematics which makes your head hurt.

The computer stores a model of the world and then uses the Freescape routines to build this into a 3D image. You are a free agent within this. So if a block is suspended just above the ground you can try going under, over or around it.

All this processing takes the computer a fair amount of time - recalculating a whole screen is not an easy task. The result is a game which runs a little slowly. Incentive has been very clever in tackling this problem - the game doesn't need to be played quickly.

The scenario is that the moon of your planet is about to blow up. You need to release all the pent-up gasses and avoid a calamity.

This is done by visiting key sites on platforms suspended above the moons surface and drilling for gas. Hence Driller.

The drilling rigs are teleported from the home planet but you have to find the 18 sites. This can be done from one of two craft, a tank or a plane.

The plane is much quicker at getting around and can fly between platforms without using special doors. Unfortunately only the tank can lay the rigs. It is best to explore by air and then use the tank to lay drills.

In many ways Driller is a bit like an adventure. OK, it may sound like an arcade game. It does even more so when you discover that there are hostile gun emplacements and killer sats which can be disposed of with a quick blast of your laser, but essentially Driller is a thinking game.

Looking at problems and deciding how to solve them before rushing in like a fool.

You need to cross a gaping chasm; there is a monolith nearby. By shooting the monolith you can build a bridge; knocking it over with your tank yields more points.

Changing one thing - such as shooting a block, may affect another - opening a door for example. By learning and mapping, you will conquer this game. What's more you will want to.

The packaging aspires to the standards of Rainbird or Microprose. There is a novella with crisp artwork and a keyguide. The program is novella protected - a laudable form of piracy protection.

It falls a little short, the story in the novella is not much cop sorry but the actual instructions are fine. Driller will do well because it requires such a wide range of skills.

In fine Incentive tradition the program works better on the Amstrad than any other 8 bit machine. A future classic.

When Elite first came out, it was fashionable to run down the Novella. I felt this was just the sci-fi buffs being arrogant. The Driller story is poor - who'd send a rookie on a vital mission? An unnecessary lack of precision in a well-written and designed game.

Buy it for the disc, and forget the book.

I was worried. After all the hype, Driller could not possibly be as good as Incentive claimed. So the Freescape demo was impressive, but other things were going to slow the whole shebang down.

It is thanks to a good awareness of these problems that the game design pulls it off. Freescape is clever, but it is Driller which makes it a good game.

Driller has got it all, novella protection, 3D solids, an exploding moon, a new programming technique. It's enough to make you expect a pretty naff game.

It is not the most exciting collection of magnetic pulses to find their way on to disc; it's an absorbing and playable game, but nothing is worth all that hype, particularly something which is quite cerebral.