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Based on the 'CyberPunk' novel of the same name by William Gibson, Neuromancer stars you as a cyberspace cowboy, looking out for yourself in Chiba City in 2058. The skyline is dominated by the corporate towers of Japanese electronics giants while down below, the streets are the domain of the city's low-life; techno-criminals, racketeers and other scum.

A cyber cowboy is a sort of 21st century hacker. He breaks into company databases to access secret information and software - useful stuff if you want to stay alive. The real trick though is to go one step further and access 'the Matrix' - Cyberspace itself. Cyberspace is information represented in its 'pure' form. The idea being that with so much information knocking around, nobody will be able to make much sense of it.

The game takes place on two levels, in 'real life' you can wander around the 3D flip-screen city, talk to people do some shopping, get arrested and all the other things that citizens get up to. The other level is Cyberspace, in which you can attempt to gain access to bases by overcoming the defence software and hardware. In order to do this successfully you will need to pick up a few things in the real world before attempting to access Cyberspace.

You function in the real world by means of a pointer and six icons which allow you to talk, talk, connect with the PAX, use things and skills you've picked up and save the game. The PAX is a bulletin board/news/home-banking service and is well worth a look early on in the game to pick up some hot tips.

To access the commlink system, via which you can get to Cyberspace, you will need to pick up your desk and comms software which is at the pawn shop. Your deck is, however, an abysmally cheap effort which, although giving you normal Commlink access, just isn't good enough to get you into Cyberspace. For that, you'll have to raise some cash. A fast way of doing this is to sell some bodyparts. The downside being that the cheap plastic replacements don't work so well and a Cyberspace defence system like ICE or AI - which drains your brain, will undoubtedly leave you for dead. One good thing about being dead is that the body ship will revitalise you, but the charge will be all the cash you're carrying - so travel light.

Things you can pick up in the real world to help you crack the Cyberspace systems include, on the software side, ICEbreaking software, better comms and decoders. Skill chips can be implanted in your brain to make you interrogate like a cop, speak foreign languages and so on. Having a whizz bang Cyberspace deck helps (you can buy good ones at Asano computing) as does having a lot of dosh. For one thing you are charged for connect time on Commlink, so no money, no fun.

You could hardly fault Neuromancer for lack of depth. There's a hell of a lot to it. Unlike a lot of games I could mention it has a sense of humour, though the plot is not so simple as to be laughable. The graphics are nothing to shout about, walking around town can be frustratingly slow (it's a multi-load job with four discs), but in a good RPG that's not too important. Neuromancer has got all the important bits right.