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They say you shouldn't mess with perfection. Repton 2, which originally came out way back in November 1985, was a landmark BBC/Electron title. A sequel to the first Repton, it was the first game that was epic in scope: a puzzle game that challenged you to collect up 4,744 earth sections, 1,634 diamonds, 42 jigsaw puzzle pieces and the final "finish character". Oh, and you also needed to kill all eighteen monsters and use all 64 transporters. A puzzle game with arcade elements, Repton 2 reached the top of the BBC/Electron gaming charts that Christmas as people up and down the country battled to be the first to beat it and win the (not insignificant) £200 prize money.

But do you know something very, very annoying? Repton 2 on the BBC actually couldn't be completed. Due to a code change that Tyler had added at the very last minute, he had screwed up the diamond count, making the code require one more diamond than it was actually possible to collect. How infuriating for those four or five people who were suicidal enough to invest so much time in the game on the Beeb! The Electron version, however, was perfectly completable. And so it stands, ageless, to this day beckoning all those who dare to its caverns of rocks and diamonds. A work of art in puzzle form, still as furiously addictive and brain-straining today as it was all those years ago. And, whether or not you preferred the other Repton games over this one, you really cannot argue that Repton 3 is not, hands down, one of the Electron's best games.

Except, well, erm, Snuggsy187 has produced a new version of it.

My first reaction to this news was one of bemusement. What possible 'improvements' could have been made, I wondered? Well, just comparing a screenshot from the 'old' version and the new one instantly gave me an indication. The playing area, which was limited to a 7 x 7 matrix of the maze surrounding Repton has been blown up to a whopping 9 x 9 matrix, now filling almost the entirety of the screen. The large Superior Software logo has been junked, and the whole scoreboard and lives icons have been totally rewritten, so that these now appear vertically in the area to the left and right of the new viewing area. And, I have to confess, it's a massive visual improvement. The sprites haven't changed, they're not bigger or smaller, and the puzzles are completely identical. But the larger playing area feels much more 'immersive'. Now you'll recall all that information about the challenge that I outlined earlier (The 1,634 diamonds and whatnot!)... In the original, this information was shown on-screen with a decreasing counter as you collected the necessary items. But the descriptor was in text, i.e. "Diamonds: 1634, Earth: 4726", etc. The new version of the information uses icons instead of text descriptors - which not only looks better and makes it much easier to cross-check when playing the game, but also opens it up, possibly, to players whose first language isn't English.

In addition to these visual changes, the engine of the game seems to have been given a boost too, with the whole game scrolling at a much greater speed.

I don't know what to say other than the obvious: I'm converted to this new conversion! If you've never played Repton 2, forget the Superior version now and play Snuggsy's version instead because it really is the best of both worlds, the same game but looking even more attractive and now running at a smoother speed than you could ever have imagined. And as if that's not amazing enough, whilst the original Electron version played almost in complete silence, this new version even has a stunning one-channel conversion of the original BBC tune which is one of the best pieces of music I've ever heard on the musically-challenged machine.

In conclusion, there's nothing not to like and everything to love. Get it now!