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Starting out from the stone gateway that leads to the legendary island of Karos, you seek out the legendary Talisman of Khoronz. Then you must return to the gateway, collecting up any other treasures you may have found on the way.

The cassette packaging gives an interesting preface to the adventure, together with some information on commands and objects. The game starts at the gateway, a sort of mini-Stonehenge, from whence you must venture forth using the odd command BEGIN.

Although I soon passed through a considerable number of locations and my map had begun to look quite complex, it was all a bit tame. Having explored over 60 different places, none of them terribly exciting (moors, forests and clifftops for the most part), I had only come across a handful of objects and no puzzles. As the adventure is supposed to contain some 250 locations and 62 objects, one can only assume that the author has stored all the exciting stuff a long way from home.

Not only were there precious few objects to be found initially, but nothing must in the way of incident or mystery occurred either.

The vocabulary used is quite wide and you are allowed to enter complex, though not compound, commands. However, the usual verb plus noun command is the quickest way around this adventure. The terrain is mostly logical and consistent so that going north then south will bring you back to the same place.

Gateway To Karos is simply not in the same league as Acornsoft's earlier and superb Philosopher's Quest or Castle Of Riddles. It fails to grab one's interest from the beginning. It does get better the deeper you go, but life's short and other adventures beckon.