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It's always a noteworthy event when Infocom brings out a new adventure. Planetfall, their latest, is a zany science-fiction saga and is well up to their usual high standard.

You play the part of the lowest-ranked Ensign aboard the Stellar Patrol Ship Feinstein. Your duties are menial and life is made more uncomfortable by your commander, Ensign Blather, a sort of Captain Bligh of the space fleet. Described by most of his crew as a real Krip (excuse the language), he seems to take perverse delight in assigning you to the worst jobs on board and generally making your life a misery.

For missing two pellets of trot while cleaning out the grotch cages, Blather awarded you 100 demerits and two extra shifts of deck scrubbing. Things are so bad you're even considering abandoning ship.

The Stellar Patrol's motto is "Boldly Going Where Angels Fear To Tread" and this is what you must do if you want to rise in your profession. In fact, you'll soon find you have little choice in the matter since your space-ship's about to explode.

As with all Infocom Adventures, there are no graphics, just text - but what text! The location descriptions are long and detailed, the dialogue spoken by the characters is rich and colourful and the various incidents and responses full of interest and imagination. Who needs graphics with written detail as good as this?

You are not long scrubbing the decks before that megakrip Blather appears on the scene, venting his spleen on the nearest human - you.

Half the fun of the game is trying out variations, regardless of the likely consequences. That way you squeeze more out of these particular Adventures than you would if you merely aimed for the winning post.

Protocol forbids revealing too much of the plot but it isn't giving away anything to say that you will eventually find yourself in a strange and deserted land of floods and pestilence.

Don't worry about lack of companions - you might be lucky enough to meet up with Floyd, a mischievous robot.

The colourful and humorous documentation that comes with the game sets the atmosphere for the adventure.

Planetfall is an adventure that is genuinely humorous as well as challenging. This must be another smash hit for Infocom.