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Prepare yourself for a tale of woe. As a youngster, the hero of our fable was stolen from his parents and forced to live in slavery in the temple of Necropolis, home of the Beast Lord. The infant fell victim to the Mages' dark arts - years of vile potions and brainwashing transformed the child into a lithe and powerful half-human with no emotions - necessary preparation for his task ahead: the herding of humans for sacrifice to the Beast Lord.

One day, an old man catches his eye. A sliver of recognition pierces the creature's mind... it's his father. Suddenly the years of conditioning peel away. Ancient memories come flooding back and the half-human, saddened and enraged by his new-found truth, turns against his oppressors and decides to destroy the Beast Lord. Gosh!

En route to the big show-down with ol' Lordy himself, the quest takes our half-human hero through forests, into the depths of subterranean caverns and onto the final assault in the labyrinthine interior of the Beast Lord's domain - an awesome castle.

This visual masterpiece starts in the great outdoors where the creature has to traverse the landscape, running from left to right past trees and greenery to reach the entrance to the first underground level. The scrolling on this section has to be seen to be believed - eleven layers of parallax (including the clouds) with full-screen trees gliding smoothly past (guaranteed to make ST users sick with envy!).

The Beast Lord's minions (further creations of the Mages' experiments) are out to stop this attempt on their leader's life and pop up out of the ground, fly out of the sky and bounce into view. Contact with any of these drains the half-human's energy. Care is needed - no blundering headlong into danger (although at first this is the only way to find out where the abominations appear).

Once their locations are learned, our hero-creature can wait for them and give them a kick in the tentacles, a swift punch in the mid-section or a flying kick to the head. With only these three moves, combat's a bit limited, but halfy's fast and responsive to control.

Below ground, a fair amount of exploring is in order to find keys for access to later sections and for the weapons needed to destroy the guardians that await - and what guardians they are! As well as mid-level monsters, there are some hu-u-uge end-of-level jobbies. First on the menu is the Rock monster, a grey creature who fills the screen. If you haven't picked up some serious firepower by now it's a short battle, one touch and you're dead meat.

And that's another drawback - you only have one life. Once that energy level zeroes out, it's back to square one (well... screen one). Mind you, this doesn't prove half as painful as if it were a disk or tape multiload!

Without a doubt, Shadow Of The Beast is a stunning demo of what's possible on the 'humble' C64. Poor old SID is working overtime, pumping out some moody tunes, while the number of huge characters plus the eye-popping parallax makes Beast one of the most visually appealing C64 games ever, following in the tradition started by the Amiga version.

However, the conversion is a little too accurate - instead of listening to the many reviews of the Amiga Beast which argued "nice graphics, shame about the gameplay", the programmers have ensured that the C64 Beast is much the same. It's merely a matter of mapping your route, finding the right order to collect things in and being prepared for when the creatures appear.

It shouldn't take hardened gamers long to complete but the journey is long and arduous and there's plenty of action to get your teeth into. There won't be too many disappointed buyers.

1. Eye-bulging graphics with amazing scrolling and some of the biggest guardians you'll meet on a C64!
2. Moody tunes keep the ears interested as well as the eyes.
3. Exploration is made more inviting by the promise of visual treats in store.
4. The inclusion of a few mazey levels and items to collect helps to pep up the variety.
5. The challenge is long and difficult - you won't go far without mapping and preparation.

1. Gameplay is a little too repetitive, and the action too sporadic.
2. Main sprite is a tad plain.
3. Limited combat moves and the predictable monster attacks don't make the quest overly exciting.