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If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise. At least you are if you happen to be the good King Graham of Daventry. While out on one of his morning constitutionals, an evil wizard by the name of Mordack saw fit to kidnap Graham's castle, with all of its contents, magically whisking it away to the far off land of Serenia.

Fortunately, this bothersome event was witnessed by one Cedric Owl, companion to Serenia's local good wizard, who informs Graham of what took place before flying him, once again magically, to his master's home.

Graham's task is to find out where his home is, why it was taken and whether or not his family are all right. All without the help of a chainsaw - I don't know, these modern heroes...

I suppose the most important question that has to be asked is whether it's worth the money or not. Forty pounds is a lot to ask for any game, so you'd expect the product to be something pretty special, doubly so when you consider King's Quest V comes straight from those American giants, Sierra On-Line.

Well, it certainly doesn't look like anything that's come before - the graphics and sound are nothing short of incredible.

Of course, that usually means the game itself suffers, but not so here. The only problem that the story has is its 'fairy-tale' feel - not everyone is going to be turned on by magic owls and fairies at the bottom of the garden. Plotwise, it's pretty intelligent and the puzzle logic is well-balanced, allowing experienced adventurers to have a run for their money, while not putting the younger player off. The new system works fine, managing to incorporate all of the features of previous Sierra titles without losing the flow of the game.

But is it worth the money? Yes and no, really. Yes, in that technically it's the best adventure to be seen on the Amiga since The Secret Of Monkey Island, and no, unless the previous King's Quest stories appealed to your taste. It does promise a bright future for Sierra though and will greatly reward anyone who gets stuck in.