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There are three new games for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum to tell you about, all of which hail from the Mediterranean. Two are from Mojon Twins (MT), and the other is from ZX enthusiast Raul Pelayo Diez-Andino. I'll start with the MT titles.

Lala Prologue tells the story of our heroine, Lala, who wanted join the Sisterhood of Witches. Fortunately for her, there is the Great Witch Academy that will enrol those who show the right attitude and aptitude for the schooling, such as it is. This institution is led by Mistress Morgana la Marrana, and you are tasked with helping Lala study this ancient and dark art, and it seems that Lala will need any assistance, as she's not a very good student.

The game begins after an unfortunate turn of events; while Mistress Morgana is at the local Witches' Shop, Lala decided to experiment, but with magic and sorcery beyond her comprehension. At first, nothing had happened, until she opened the window and it seems the fresh air has mixed with the magic meddling to cause a right mess. It's down to you to take control of Lala to collect all of the equipment from the educational establishment before Mistress Morgana returns. This game is presented in a traditional 2D platform game, whereas the next MT title is more in line with the explorer Sabre Wulf-styled game.

Again starring a female, Cheril Of The Bosque is set in a mysterious jungle in which she (Cheril) is out looking for giant nuts, as you do. These must be either very valuable, or rare, or both as there are only thirteen to collect. Obviously, though, the game is a little bigger than that amount of screens.

There is the slight problem that some of the game map is closed from the start, but keys may be found to unlock them, and there are surprises along the way. To grab these and other releases, head over to www.mojontwins.com, and although the site is largely in Spanish, there are some English translations on the main game pages.

Now moving onto Radl's game, it's basically a conversion from an LCD game called Mole Catcher, which sticks faithfully to the concept of your main sprite being limited by set positions (like in Nintendo's early Game and Watch collections, for instance). As the title suggests, you must catch the pesky moles before they make a mess of your lawn, and place them in the special container at one side of the screen. Of course, it isn't as easy, as I've just suggested, as mortal hazards include killer spiders, venomous snakes and cheeky monkeys who drop coconuts from great heights to knock you out. Unfortunately, the site is entirely in Spanish, but the giveaway to which file you need is indicated by the link, which says 'MoleHunter.tap' near the bottom of the page. The game's main page can be found at tinyurl.com/MoleHunterSpeccy.

At an educated guess, shoot-'em-ups are one of the most common types of games for the old Commodore 64. And so it won't be the biggest shock in the world to find out that the premium 8-bit publisher Psytronik has Jason Kelk's Co-Axis 2189 lined up for release.

This is an improved version of Jason's first 'real' game (and by that I think it means 'with a professional finish'). The idea is to navigate the horizontally scrolling world with your laser-armoured craft, taking out any aliens along the way. The game isn't quite an out-and-out blaster, though, as the level designs require smart and well-timed movements to avoid the scenery along the way, and expect the usual Psytronik polish to the whole proceedings, with near-impeccable packaging and shiny disk sleeves. To keep an eye on this development, you need to enter www.psytronik.net into your browser's navigation bar.