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As you would expect, with Legacy Of The Ancients there is enough scene setting to make a short novel, but then the Ancients go back a long way. Their legacy is the Tarmalon Galactic Museum, built by the Ancients to 'act as windows revealing the history, legends and cultures of each host planet'.

How you came to be there might interest you. You are cast in the not terribly exciting role of a Tarmalon shepherd. You're a pretty boring sort of a bloke who has never been anywhere or done anything. Then, one day, you have the good fortune to sumble across a corpse - recently deceased. Being an honest sort of shepherd, you quickly divest the corpse of everything bar its underwear. Your loot includes some papers, a gold bracelet, a strange black disc and a leather scroll.

A quick nose through the dead man's papers tells you what you need to know. The man was searching for, and had found, the Wizard's Compendium, a Magical scroll full of evil power. The scroll had been stolen from the museum and the poor bloke was on his way to return it to the museum and discover a way to destroy it. Now that task falls to you. To help you in your quest, you have the golden armband which sometimes does helpful things when you twist it, the disc of access which enables you to enter the museum and a coin or two.

As museums go, the Tarmalon museum is quite an exciting place. Blazing torches light the long stone corridors. From the walls hang the display cases which house the exhibits, some of these are free, others require you to insert a jewelled coin before you get to see what they contain. The museum keepers are pretty cool about letting you keep whatever takes your fancy, so the exhibits are well worth looking at. It's also worth making a map of course.

Not all the action takes place inside the museum, in fact if you want to discover the secret of the scroll you will need to travel to the world outside. Tarmalon itself consists of twelve towns dotted amongst a landscape as varied as you could imagine - sea, swamps, mountains, fields, the lot.

Unlike the 3D scrolling maze of the Tamalon museum, you are not treated to a bird's eye view of yourself as you trot across the Tarmalon plains. Every now and then you are attacked by horrendous monsters. My advice is to run away, to stand and fight in the early stages of the game when you have few weapons and probably no magic is suicide. Your strength, measured in hit points will rapidly vanish and you will die. Once you are more experienced though, monster killing can be a lucrative exercise.

If you don't fancy the journey there is an easier way to get to a town than the conventional means of opening the museum door and legging it. The city of Thornberry is exhibited in one of the display cases. On viewing it you are asked if you would like to visit Thornberry, and the next thing you know you're there.

What do you do in town? Well, the first thing you will need is money and, as you have little of value to sell, the best way to go about getting it is gambling. Approaching and dealing with the townspeople is straightforward. All commands in the game are chosen from a menu on the left of the screen. To communicate you just choose Speak. If you are in the right place, the chap standing opposite you will respond "Would you like a game of blackjack?" or "Want to try your luck at flip flop?" On the other hand, he might salute you, or offer to buy or sell food, arms, or spells, a loan might be offered (extortionate interest rates) or you could have your fortune told. If any of these things happens, it means you are not in the casino.

Obviously the idea is to accrue vast wealth by buying, selling, gambling, robbing or whatever and use the money to increase your strength through good weapons, buy museum coins, periodically return to the museum and discover new things about the exhibits.

At some point in your travels, the scroll will inevitably be stolen by bandits and you will have to retrieve it. In addition to the museum and the towns a lot of the action takes place in the dungeons and castles of Tarmalon. But, before you travel to these, you will need to do more than accumulate a little gold. You will need to be well armed with weapons and powerful spells.

The key to Legacy's success is that so much thought has gone into every part of the game. It's full of surprises. The whole thing works together really well. What I mean is, ordinarily, I wouldn't be caught dead playing a crummy game like black jack or flip flop, it's about as interesting as noughts and crosses. But if winning or losing involves gold, and the gold could buy you a much-needed sword, or raft, or food. And if you don't win you'll have to steal, and fight some pretty mean guards to escape from town, well, it makes it a bit more interesting, know what I mean?