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One of the most popular characters in fiction has always been the private detective (writes our crime correspondent). Maupiti Island sets you up as one Jerome Lange, star of Lankhor's previous, and little-known, adventure Mortville Manor.

While Jerome is travelling to Japan on a friend's yacht, a hurricane is predicted. Rather than risk being blown overboard he takes refuge on Maupiti Island. While there, he learns of the kidnap of a girl called Marie, one of the islanders. The locals ask for his help, what with him being world famous and all (well, world famous in France, at least). He accepts and the game begins with you as Lange on the yacht just off Maupiti.

At first you don't have a clue what to do, but as you wnader around, searching things, examining objects, and questioning the characters present, you begin to build up an idea of what happened. Everything is mouse- and menu-controlled, so there's no typing whatsoever.

The characters are one of the main parts of your investigation. You need to keep a close track of what they say and their movements so you're ready to pounce on them when they slip up.

French games have a reputation for graphical wonderfulness, and Maupiti Island is no exception. Each location has an exquisitely drawn graphic which is full of detail and reeks of atmosphere. The characters, when you meet them, have completely individual features and look totally believable. But what really makes Maupiti stand out are its audio effects. Again, each location has a different set of sampled sounds - waves breaking on the sea, monkeys screeching in the jungle - that heighten the atmosphere immensely. The characters actually speak when you question them, and not with that robotic voice most ST speech synthesisers use. It sounds as though Lankhor have digitised individually syllables and strung them together into words. Occasionally the game breaks out into a wonderful burst of samples music that is just sleazy enough to suit the mood perfectly.

There's plenty to look at in Maupiti Island. At first you might think there aren't many locations, but each one is packed with things to examine and you can't get anywhere without searching meticulously for clues.

1. The well, for instance, looks innocent enough. A pleasant setting with butterflies flitting about among the foilage and very little to look at. Give it a really thorough search, however, and you discover a cent.
2. Now where could you use a cent? Well, you just happen to know of this bar that one of the characters owns. In the bar there's a pianola that looks as though it's just begging to be fed, as an examination soon confirms.
3. Stick the cent in and voila! (It's French, remember?) You're presented with a list of songs it can play. Let's see now - anything by Van Der Graaf Generator? Thought not - how about The Waltz Of The Four Drunks...?
4. And the lovely (?) music comes drifting through your speaker. You may not be any further on in your investigations, but it's fun to mess about like this and soak up the great atmosphere. "My old maaaaaan..." etc.

It has to be said, you're bound to be drawn in more by Maupiti's graphics and sound than by its gameplay. But once you're there, you realise there is actually much more beneath the surface than you'd reckoned on.

What appears to be a small number of locations, characters and objects is hiding far more than you'd think, and finding the truth and the welter of red herrings, clues and lies could take you a while. Luckily, you can store any particular statement made by a character in memory for later recall. Clever, though you still need to make plenty of notes.

Special mention must again be made of the game's audio effects. Maupiti is one of the very few ST games that has been really worked on in this department - it's usually a case of a few spot effects and that's your lot. It shows just how some decent sampled effects can enhance a game by several orders of magnitude, and other software houses would do well to take note.