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French-puzzle-games-where-you-have-to-fill-in-various-grids-with-a-limit-of-four-different-colours-and-where-two-touching-shapes-cannot-be-of-the-same-colour, eh? Who needs 'em? Nobody I know, that's for sure.

According to the instructions, "The greatest games are usually the ones with rules easy to understand (sic)", which is a fair point, but doesn't actually apply to this one as the rules aren't particularly easy, and it's pretty crap too. The main problem is that the whole concept just isn't fun enough - it's more like the sort of game your Aunty Molly insists the entire family play when you go round to her house for Christmas than something on a par with the likes of Tetris and Klax.

The idea revolves around the theory that you can colour in any type of map with only four colours without any two countries of the same colour touching each other. A fair idea for a puzzle game as these things go, I suppose, but a bit marred by the limited appeal of the horrible block-like graphics they've presented us with here (wouldn't a few wibbly country-like shapes have been better?). Another problem is the lack of challenge - you can fiddle around with so much of the game, including choosing which screen you start on - that there's no real excitement left to the thing. There's not even any guessing what the next screen is going to be like, as there isn't one (each new screen is treated independently as a brand new game). And you can effectively 'cheat' as well by turning off the time limit, going back on your moves and asking for help.

As you may have gathered, this game didn't really appeal to me, although this may simply be a matter of opinion. Perhaps the die-hard puzzle addict (and a friend) will find that the two player game offers more entertainment where (instead of you taking on the computer) each player starts with a different amount of paint, and then takes it in turns to fill in the grid - the loser being the player who's first unable to fill in an area. Overall, I'd say that Quartet is a bit of a try-before-you-buyer.

Dull to look at, dull to play - Quadrel is one of the least appealling puzzle games about. For the same effect get a friend, some graph paper and four coloured pens - then see whether you get £25 worth of fun out of it.