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To nick this or to nick that, that is the question. Well, it is if you want to join the notorious Guild of Thieves because, make no mistake about it, thievery is what this adventure is all about.

In this excellent follow-up to Rainbird's The Pawn, you have applied to join the Guild and must qualify for membership by proving you have the necessary knocking-off skills.

Cast away on an island (in Karovnia, naturally), you have been tasked with stealing every bit of treasure you can lay your light fingers on.

The game starts in a boat near to a jetty. Nearby, the head of the Guild, the Master Thief, beckons you to jump ashore and begin ransacking the island.

When you disembark, the Master Thief disappears, but that's not the last you'll see of him. Throughout the game, he reappears briefly at the most unlikely moments, adding an extra bit of spice and fun to your escapades.

Your first step is to get out of the boat and on to the jetty. And because the parser seems a bit unhappy with this opening, leaving the boat isn't as straightforward as it should be.

But it doesn't really matter - failure to leave the boat fairly promptly causes the Master Thief to lose patience and drag you bodily from the boat anyway.

Generally speaking, the parser is very good at handling your commands. What is odd is that it seems better at handling really complex input than some of the simpler commands. For example, EXAMINE ALL (very useful) describes all the objects in a single location but not those which are inside another object, even though they are clearly visible.

Two commands that really make progress much easier are GO TO a place and FIND an object. Provided you have already visited it, GO TO will take you directly to the location specified taking you through any intermediate locations on the way without halting (unless there is something that physically prevents you from going on).

The FIND command similarly takes you straight to the location of a previously discovered object - so handy if you have been littering the island with items and failed to take a note of where each was last left.

There are plenty of locations to explore on the island, not least of which is an imposing mansion. Getting inside calls for some suppression of your natural thieving tendencies - who said chivalry was dead?

The mansion is large and there are many unusual objects to discover and locations to search. You have to be careful what and how you smuggle items out of the mansion - the Gatekeeper is always on the alert.

He is also a gambling man and will offer you the chance to bet on a real rat race. Don't pass up or be late for the opportunity when it arrives - you could do with the winnings.

Some of the puzzles you'll find here include a beat guarding a chalice, a rat-infested cellar and a secret laboratory. Make sure you visit the loo and stay a while there, if only to see one of the sudden and humorous appearances of the Master Thief.

Outside the mansion, you'll come across a cave entrance leading to an underground complex. Again, puzzles abound and you'll need to learn, for example, how to cross a room of hot coals, how to get a macaw to speak and how to deal with a venomous spider.

The Bank of Kerovnia is nearby but always seems to be closed. You should eventually discover how to deonstrate that there are still signs of life within (a nice touch, this) but it will take some time to make the bank fully open up to you.

Make sure you visit the cemetery, not only for the picture accompanying the text but also to have a look at the three graves you'll find there. Bet you didn't know that this is where they ended up!

And speaking of pictures, the 29 scene-setting illustrations built into the game are well up to The Pawn's standard. One or two are a little on the predictable side and add little to the atmosphere, but most are good and some quite outstanding.

Guild Of Thieves comes on two discs with a die, a Kerovnian credit card, a Guild contract of service and a copy of What Burglar magazine.

The latter serves as a guide to the game and will give you a few hints and belly-laughs into the bargain. The game needs a minimum of 64K to run it.

I much preferred Guild Of Thieves to The Pawn. For one thing, it is much more logical, for another it hangs together in atmosphere and detail so much better. The puzzles range in difficulty from easy to mind-bending so there is plenty here for all adventuring skills.

This is an absorbing, funny and tantalising adventure and guaranteed to be another sure-fire winner for Rainbird. Don't delay - buy it. The Master Thief awaits you.