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There's a trend in the computer games business to base all sorts of games on books "of the same name". The Horse Lord from Century is either loosely drawn from the novel, or the book is one of the dullest fantasy novels to hit the streets in recent times.

The game is well packaged, and the cassette includes numerous protection devices. The most ingenious is a rewrite of the cassette operating system to produce a loading sequence, completely devoid of the comforting clicks of the cassette relay and on-screen block counter. There is also something supposed to prevent copying. But it's a shame the program isn't worth all this effort.

You take the part of the Horse Lord, a latter-day knight bent on the delivery of a message to a distant castle. In your path are footsoldiers, moats and - for variety, guess what? - footsoldiers and moats together. The full path is depicted in the first screen and shows your route as a sort of square spiral to the castle in the centre.

Your old 'oss shuffles along to the first obstacle, which you combat on a second screen. If it's a moat, you have to jump it, if it's a soldier you have to cut him up with your trusty blade or pierce him with a deadly arrow.

The Horse Lord is depicted as a large helmet above a horse's head with a sword apparently protruding from its mouth. The moat is a horizontal strip of blue across the screen, and jumping it means taking a run and pressing Return at the appropriate point. If you get it wrong, it's back to the start.

The soldiers, which you meet one at a time, are also helmets wielding swords. By getting close and tapping the Return key, you can usually inflict enough damage to beat them.

The whole procedure is timed by a small band slowly decreasing across the bottom of the screen. It runs out much too fast and provides the main exit from the game. The closing image is that of a grotesque head with blood gushing from it - not for the squeamish.