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The forces of evil and darkness never seem to sit still for long. Last month we had a bunch of merry adventurers slugging it out in SSI's Eye Of The Beholder II, while over in sunny Trazere there was another ripping tussle under way courtesy of Mindscape's excellent Legend.

Now there's Ishar, which brings us yet another chance to go a-wandering in a land ridden with evil creatures, liberally peppered with treasure and stuffed to the gunnels with RPG-style silly names. The interface is in the Eye Of The Beholder mould; a first-person perspective viewscreen, you have to click on arrows for movement, and sub-screens are used for stats, inventories and certain actions. It differs from Eye Of The Beholder in that the wilderness-based parts of the adventure play a more significant role, and differs from a good many other RPGs in that the first-person view is retained when in the great outdoors.

And so to the plot. A chap called Krogh has built a temple called Ishar in the land of Kendoria and is intent on making life thoroughly unpleasant for all your Kendorian kinsfolk. It's your job to find the temple and have a few stiff words with Krogh - or bosh him one if he's not prepared to listen to reason. There are several ways to win, most of which entail scooting about the country trying to build your party up, equip them with the huge variety of weaponry and armour you'll find is available, and bump up their magic-using capability wherever possible, more of which later.

Character generation is very simple - there isn't any. You start with a fighter chappie and must recruit extra party members as you go along. A total of 30 potential recruits - including rangers, paladins, monks, clerics, wizards and the like - are dotted about the game world, so there's no shortage of choice, but there are some added complexities.

For a start, this RPG breaks with tradition and offers - wait for it - five characters! Yes, five. That's four plus one for those of you labouring under the apprehension that all good adventuring parties come in fours. It's a fairly fluid group of five too - you can boot individual members out if you come across someone you fancy more (but see 'Just one big happy family' box, below), and you can replace those killed in action. Then we've got the interaction of party members to consider. New members must be voted in, existing members may have arguments with each other, there's even the potential for internecine bloodletting if disagreements go too far. As if you didn't have enough to do in getting through the adventure proper.

Setting out, the first thing that hits you is the graphics. The landscape is gloriously realistic, as is the effect of distance - buildings show as hazy outlines when they're far away, and are realised in glorious detail close up. Even the trees, grass and rivers look realistic, which all adds to the game's atmosphere. Unfortunately, the monsters leave a little to be desired. They jerk towards you, a la Eye Of The Beholder, and do the usual two or three-frame stutter-swipe swordplay that adds so little to combat encounters.

Once you've hacked your way past the initial random monster encounter, and picked up some gold to boot, it's time to pop into a few buildings at the first village. Here you can buy food and weaponry (if you've got enough dosh), go to the taven to pick up useful gossip, recruit your first party member, train to up your strength (rather expensive this one) and get a hint from a wise old man as to your next move.

There are many such encounters in the game, giving a certain linearity to the plot, but you could feasibly go meandering for days in your own sweet way.

Unfortunately, it's all too easy to end up wandering for days, even if you do stick to the storyline - you've got a map to refer to, but it only shows coastlines, rivers and bridges. It's at times like these you'll go to the orientation function on the actions menu, but the advice given on your whereabouts here is pretty vague. Also, the concept of roads seems to be lost on the inhabitants of Kendoria, so don't be surprised to find yourself trudging about for ages when looking for the elusive bridges that provide the only means of getting on in the world.

That said, however, there is a fair amount to do. As your party progresses, it encounters various folk who will either stop to chat, trade, fight or join your posse. Taking on a magic user (either cleric or wizard) means getting to grips with spells, and, as you'd expect, these increase in power and range as experience points are accumulated and characters go up in level. There's also the facility to mix your own potions, the ingredients for which have to be bought at apothecaries along the way. You can mix ingredients (eye of toad, brain of rat and other delicacies) any old way if you're feeling particularly adventurous - they can have odd results if you don't know what you're doing - or, alternatively, you can look out for people bearing specific recipes. Of course, you'll need to find the magical mixing flask first - and there's only one in the game, so you'd better keep your eyes peeled.

The way the magic works is certainly a move in the right direction, combining the standard rote of pre-formulated RPG spells with the more versatile Legend-style 'make it up as you go along' approach, though it still doesn't match the sheer spellcasting fun of Legend.

In all, then, what we've got here is a game that could probably run a close race with Eye Of The Beholder - the graphics are better and the party make-up is more malleable - but it doesn't quite draw you in in the same way. One reason for that is that it's quite frustrating to begin with, as the game gives you no clear idea of your location of how best to get from A to B. I had to start afresh several times after various party-totalling encounters, including a run-in with an invisible wood spirit - damn frustrating getting killed by something you can't even see. (To be fair, there is a 'helm of clear seeing' to help out with this particular to-do, but you've got to find it first.) Also, a combination of the orientation-nobbling first-person view, the lack of auto-mapping and the vagueness of the descriptions given of one's location makes finding anything in this game world some task.

What else? Well, the inclusion of character interaction is good - you can even visit a psychiatrist for an assessment of the party's karma! - but it's tricky keeping members alive for long enough to build up any kind of meaningful relationship. This is an interesting and unexpected variation on the way things are usually done, though I can't help thinking it'll make as many enemies as it earns friends.

Briefly then, there's enough novelty and more than enough daft names in here to keep the RPG buff amused for a fair while, and some damn titanic encounters in the temple of Ishar that will certainly shake the hack-'n-slash merchant's thirst for virtual murder, but it's no world-beater. Quite frankly, there've been an awful lot of impressive RPGs this year, and while this is a worthy addition, it's not an earth-shaking one.

One of the most original things about Ishar is the way the party members relate to each other. When recruiting, existing members will vote on whether the newie should be allowed to join. Factors such as race and alignment (good or evil) will sway them, so it's not always a dead cert that your paladins will welcome the psychotic orc you're keen to hang out with. You could find yourself unable to recruit potentially useful characters.

That's not all though. Even if you do get someone past the entry committee, often as not they'll behave like a schmuck.

One cantankerous dwarf, for instance, will refuse point blank to give first aid to certain party members - if this winds you up, you can always try to get him booted, though he may have made other friends in the party who will object.

Get him assassinated? You could try that too, but his mates are unlikely to take kindly to it, and you could easily get embroiled in a lot of pointless in-fighting. Similarly, other new party members could easily prove divisive in other ways - one female you'll meet forms seemingly random romantic attachments with members of your party!

So what's the point? Well, it's kinda fun, and adds a dimension not normally seen in FRPs, but (more importantly) this is, I believe, the first time a computer game has ever managed to adequately capture the sort of mindless hostility which so many paper-and-die role players routinely engage in when there's a dispute about the rules. (And if you've ever played D&D, you'll know there can be a lot of disputes about the rules.) Anyway, if you think you might enjoy that sort of bickering, you'll probably quite like this.

Uppers: Great graphics and neat sound effects make this huge game world an atmospheric experience. Many thoughtful and original touches set it apart form the rest of the RPG field - and it's certainly a long way from the same company's earlier Crystals Of Arborea, which it in many ways closely resembles.

Downers: It's tough to get going and far too easy to get lost. You can end up stumbling around for a long time before getting into the real meat of the action.

Good enough considering the competition, but it could have surged ahead with just a little more user-friendliness.