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Picture the scene: tiny cave at the top of a high, lonely mountain. From this cave, for the last time, exits a newly-trained paladin. Suddenly he stops and calls back to his mentor: "Master, what must I do to achieve true enlightenment?" And lo, comes the answer: "You must drink a Slim Fast shake for breakfast, one for lunch and have a proper dinner." The paladin ponders this, and eventually calls, above the rising wind, "Sod true enlightenment, I think I'll go and kill an allotted amount of enemies, rescue prisoners and destroy or capture scrolls over a series of 20 quests, all within a time limit." And he turns and leaves. There goes another one, thanks the mentor and sits down to a delicious, nutritious shake packed full of vitamins and minerals.

A paladin, as any fool knows, is a legendary hero and a knight of great renown, or so the manual says. It then goes on to say that you are not actually renowned but a freshly-trained novice who has to get to a renowned status. This is all just an excuse to go on a two disk romp through an RPG world with rivers, grasslands, castles and guardposts. Oh, and the odd enemy or 60. There are 20 quests which range in difficulty from easy through medium to hard and very hard. There are loads of enemies, such as dragons, giants, fighters and poll tax collectors, all of which are very partial to paladin flambe (especially if they are using the fireball spell) and tend to home in quite quickly, even on the easy quests. Should 20 quests not be enough, there is also a built-in editor so you can construct your own gameworld and place objects and enemies (or not) in it. There is also a quest disk with 20 more, but the price is a bit steep at £15.

Movement around the landscape is via a very jerky and unreliable click and drag system which really detracts from the overall attraction. If you're a beginner at RPGs you might find it rather difficult and a bit too involved, even on the easy level. There's also no sick graphics when you die (which is all too easy) - just a skull covering your character and an alert box saying you're dead. The graphics are lovely, with every character having his own appearance. This is what the Ultima series should look like. The front end screens are in medium res, and the alert box font is so illegible that it's likely to have you inserting the wrong disk, very probably into the wrong orifice. The music is hardly anything to jot down on a postcard and return to your place of residence, just a bit of bleepy chip music while it loads. Don't argue with Impressions about it though, since they believe the game has "wonderful music and digitised sound effects". Believe us, it doesn't.

If you really, really want to buy this game, then go ahead, it's your choice. But if you do, then for God's sake, don't look at the reviews or boxes of Heimdall, Lords Of Chaos or Ultima VI. All of them have something better in terms of playability, graphics or both. If you do buy it, don't be surprised when it ends up in that dusty box full of PD demos, unless, however, you're a die hard RPG freak in which case it's likely to end up somewhere around the middle of your pile of games and be played once a month or so. Don't bother.