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Adventure playing is now a weekly activity in the pages of PCN. This week the intrepid Mike Gerrard gives an account of his travels on The Odyssey Of Hope, a stylish adventure. Problems are solved here too, so if you're stumped just write to Dungeon Master, PCN, 62 Oxford Street, London W1A 2HG

Literary works are proving to be a fertile source of material for adventure writers, from The Hobbit to Sherlock Holmes, though of course the adventures still have to be god. The Odyssey Of Hope, for the 48K Spectrum, is not a straight adaptation of any one particular book, but plunders several areas of the Greek myths and does it in great style - one of the most enjoyable adventures I've seen for several weeks.

Side one of the tape contains the introduction, with the game program on side two. This is one of those rare, if not unique, adventures where the instructions are worth looking at for their own sake. That's because they're printed on the pages of a book, which flip over rather nicely as you press the Enter key, and some of them are illustrated.

"Once upon a time," the story begins, "Zeus had one of his master craftsmen fashion a mortal of perfect beauty - the first woman. He called her Pandora - meaning all gifts." The pages turn to explain that Zeus gave Pandora a golden casket, but forbade her to open it.

Cynical readers might ask why bother giving it to her in the first place, but then there wouldn't be a story or an dventure, as naturally curiosity got the better of her and she lifted the lid. This released all the ills that now beset mankind, so if you're bothered by disease, sorrow, hate, jealousy, theft, lies or anything along those lines, write to Pandora... or failing that, Claire Rayner. The only thing remaining in the casket when Pandora rushed to close the lid was Hope (and there are some excellent animated graphics illustrated the escape of the various woes, with Hope remaining in the shape of a butterfly).

Needless to say, some charmer comes along and steals Hope, giving you the chance to become a hero and return Hope to its home on Mount Olympus. Maybe Zeus will even slip you a few drachma and a cup of hot nectar by way of reward.

The game itself is a graphics adventure with the traditional simple noun-verb input, except when you decide to attack something. Then you're allowed the luxury of KILL CYCLOPS WITH FLUTE, or whatever your chosen weapon happens to be. Movement commands are abbreviated to the first letter, as are Inventory, Help, Total score and Quit game (Save option included). Though Look isn't used to redescribe the location as usual, it tells you if there's anything else around in that location.

In fact you don't need to Look in the first location, the oracle's temple, as you can hear what's there: the hissing of a python. That's why I say the game has style as there are other sound effects too, including the buzzing of bees in the meadow south of the temple, which contains a dead cow. The meadow, that is, not the temple, as it's dead rather than sacred. If you linger too long round the bees or the python it might be bad for your health, although both can be put to good use if you can work out how.

Some of the other problems presented to you early on include a wooden hut which contains a table and a workbench with lots of interesting items, but unfortunately the hut also has a door that closes behind you as soon as you go in. I've tried opening it with everything inside, even the fish in a moment of desparation, but I remain resolutely locked in there for the time being. Perhaps I should write to the PCN Dungeon page and ask myself how to get out.

Many of the first batch of locations have you at sea, and there's a lot of drowning going on, particularly if you can't remember how to cope with the seductive singing of the Sirens. Other creatures you might be familiar with, though not too familiar one hopes, are centaurs, harpies and naiads.

The graphics are not stunning but are quite pleasant and do have the virtue of appearing instantly, though I wish the same could be said of some of the responses, which take an age to appear. You can almost hear the program saying "Now hang on, I've just got to check that. Don't go away, I know it's in here somewhere." But it does at least seem to be thoroughly done, with no odd responses or noticeable bugs, though there is one spider outside the neglected house. The house has three floors - quite impressive by ancient Greek standards, I'd have thought.

And by adventure standards this game is quite impressive too, taking you a little bit further each time, with something to investigate in about every other location and one or two nice touches of humour here and there. At £5.95 it's reasonably priced, and published by Software Communications, Martech House, Bay Terrace, Pevensey Bay, East Sussex BN24 6EE. I wonder if they get a lot of trouble from the Cyclops down Pevensey Bay way.

Though sometimes unable to help myself with clues, I'll try to help readers where possible, such as Douglas Jeffries of Norwich who bought Dragon Data's Seaquest which I'd praised in an earlier column. Having encouraged him to by it, Douglas thinks the least I can do is help him solve it by explaining how to open the clam that he's discovered on the sea bed. Provided you can read backwards, the answer is: LEVO HSEH THTI WMAL CEHT NEPO.

Douglas also asked about other recommended Dragon adventures and, of course, the Mysterious Adventures series, successful on other machines, is now available for the Dragon from Channel 8. I'd certainly consider buying The Hulk from Adventure International, though be prepared for a toughie there. I've also just received a copy of Return Of The Ring, Wintersoft's long-awaited follow-up to The Ring Of Darkness, and perhaps there'll be room for a detailed look at that in a later column.

This column is going to be a weekly feature in PCN from now on for adventure hits and Greek myths alike.