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Every once in a while a game quietly appears which pushes the standards of excellence a little higher. Impossible Mission from Epyx (marketed in Britain by CBS) is one of these.

On the face of it, there's little remarkable about the game - just another platform outing in the mould of dozens of others. What makes Impossible Mission different, and better, is the imagination, execution and attention to detail. Things like the brilliant animation and the superb use of software-generated speech.

The scenario is familiar - mad scientist threatenst to destroy the world. The secret agent (guess who?) has to penetrate his underground complex, evading the security robots and collecting part of the master password. Once you have all the pieces you must assemble the code and save civilisation as we know it.

The game begins with your agent in a lift. The bottom of the screen shows the display of your portable computer which automatically maps the complex as you explore it. Passwords are hidden in items of furniture which are searched by positioning your agent in front of them. Search time is related to size, so a bookshelf takes longer to search than a table lamp.

Occasionally you will find parts of the master puzzle, or utility passwords. The latter allow you to turn off the robots for a while, or to reset the lifting platforms.

But there's more. The puzzle pieces are like graphic jigsaws. The master password is made up of nine smaller puzzles, the smaller puzzles require four pieces each. Using your portable computer you can fit the pieces together, rotating and flipping them or changing their colour until they match.

To help you, the portable computer has built-in communications with the master computer at your base. You can call it up to determine whether a solution for any given puzzle exists, or to flip the pieces to the correct orientation. When you complete the password you go to the main control room.

The outstanding feature of Mission Impossible is the speech software. On entering the room, Atombender commands, "Destroy him, my robots," in a voice that sounds remarkably like Boris Karloff. If you fall to your doom, your demise is greeted by fiendish laughter, but success brings a message of congratulations in a woman's voice. This is easily the best artificial speech yet heard on a micro.

Impossible Mission is perhaps the best game released in 1984 for the Commodore 64. Other software hosues will have to work to match if for sound, graphics and features.