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This game is based on that cheerful belief that on dying we must cross the River Styx to reach Hades. But first you must negotiate a maze full of spiders before plunging into the river, swimming across, and finally facing an encounter with the Grim Reaper himself.

To help you in all this you have a laser gun, which is conveniently waterproof but only has a limited amount of ammunition. This is fired using any key on the bottom row, with Q, A, O and P controlling the little man.

Styx is a game for one player, and the fact that you're provided with three lives does seem to be rather cheating under the circumstances.

Although Styx is in three phases, they all lead into one another. The top third of the screen is the maze, which has an exit leading down into the river that flows across the middle, and this in turn has an exit into the underworld at the bottom.

The maze is filled with spiders which emanate from a mother-spider who sits in the top right-hand corner. They're not intelligent enough to come after you, but they do get in the way. Shooting the mother spider seems rather cruel to me, but doing so will recharge your laser (Don't ask me how!).

It took only about half a dozen attempts to master this section and get to the river below.

You have to swim the length of this to get to the beaching point. The piranha fish are harder to get past as they move up and down as well, and you also have to avoid getting caught in the weeds at the bottom of the river.

Why anyone should go to so much trouble to meet the man in the black hood I don't know!

The final part of the journey provides no challenge, as long as there are bullets in your gun, because there's a recess where you can hide until the four Spirits of the Dead pass in front of you. Then it's across to the man in black, and provided you can avoid his outstretched hand you can then send him off to meet his own maker, whoever that might be.

Although the idea and the graphics are quite good, and the responses are quick, the game itself doesn't really come off. While getting through the entire sequence is by no means easy, once you've done it a few times there's nothing much left.