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As you start out of the office window at the Washington Monument, you know it's going to be one of those days... It's been one of those days ever since you joined your brother's detective agency.

And it doesn't take a Philip Marlowe to realise that we're back in shamus land again, swapping smart-ass one-liners with hoods and broads in the grainy black-and-white lowlife of the private investigator.

This time the city is Washington DC, and the lengthy prologue finds you slumped behind a mountain of unpaid bills, reading the cheering news about stolen killer viruses, Nazi demonstrations, Reds-under-the-bed paranoia, and Third World power muscle-flexing. A couple of mysterious phone-calls and a folder full of notes and Polaroids, are about to change all that, and reaching for your trench-coat you set off to investigate a mystery so devious it makes a Chandler novel seem about as complex as a Sun editorial.

As you gumshoe it around Capitol Hill, searching Potomac Park, Independence Avenue, 23rd St NW, and 5th & Florida for your kidnapped brother Joe, you bump into a weird, wonderful and decidedly suspect crowd of characters. There's the knock-out blonde Lisa Rothschild, nasty smooth-talking FBI official Dick Powers, Bogie-lookalike Mike Kruger, and the Spanish-speaking taco vendor Estefan. These and a dozen other guys and dames are to be found on the streets and in the bars, hospitals, embassies and warehouses of the city.

The game employs unusual 360 degrees panoramic views of the streets, avenues and building interiors, so that, as you move the cursor keys or joystick, the view shifts to left or right, just as if you were turning on the spot. Above the location window are commands informing you of the options available - you can search, walk, talk to passers-by, hail a taxi, use a phone, or enter buildings and rooms.

Once you decide to button-hole someone, the view changes to a close-up portrait of the character in true film noir style, with effective shadows and animated facial expressions which react to your questioning.

Most characters won't reveal much the first time you talk to them, and you'll soon learn that often a non-committal shrug or nod will elicit as much information as a straightforward demand. Tact and politeness will get you further than impatience; and while inviting a dame to dinner might sometimes win her over, it must just get you a verbal slap in the mouth. Bribing the FBI guard gets dramatic results, and rubbing Moe the bum up the wrong way lands you in hospital with a lacerated face.

There are three skill levels to the game, but even on the easiest it's horribly difficult to cut through all the lies and false trails to find Joe's whereabouts and the key to unlock the door. And then there's the PF13 virus bomb itself, which can only be defused successfully if you've managed to pick up a schematic somewhere along the line.

From the skilful scene-setting of the beginning to the tense countdown of the finale, the tortuous plot has a grip like araldite, and if you succeed in solving the whole caboodle, next time it's an entirely new ball game, with different liaisons and alliances to sort out, new motives and different clues. Sometimes only one character is guilty, sometimes it's a conspiracy, and sometimes one person can be another in disguise!

If you grow tired of solitary sleuthing, you can team up or compete with friends, each controlling an individual 'tec in turn, trading info as necessary. And if you decide to choose the Female option, you'll find that suspects act quite differently, the men occasionally responding to the feminine charm just as the women can be buttered up by macho male snoopers.

With black-and-white graphics which range from the adequate to the atmospheric, dialogue which crackles with ambiguity, wit and veiled threat, and a scenario which moves along at speed (despite frequent disk access) Intrigue! is the most polished and absorbing game I've seen for a long time.

With its multi-player option, male and female interaction (!) and, apparently, 2,000+ possible solutions, the game kicks the stuffing out of any upstart 'tec adventure within spitting distance. A classic.