Once again it's cool to be old-school Prince Of Persia (POP) is now available for the Commodore 64, thanks to Andreas 'Mr SID' Varga, Conrad and other contributors. it's been ported using the original Apple II source code of Broderbund's now-legendary platform game. This is a reality thanks to some memory shunting by the Easyflash cartridge system, and the final product's half a megabyte uncompressed. Had this been on a standard 5.25" disk, many of its features and animations would've been cut for sure, to who knows what effect?

POP plays almost flawlessly against Jordan Mechner's original, which tells the story of a gaoled young adventurer who has won the affections of the Sultan's daughter. Alas, the beloved Sultan's away in a foreign land, fighting a war, and Grand Vizier Jaffar has taken power in his absence. You control the dungeon-bound hero who must escape his prison to save the Princess and stop the tyrannical Jaffar from claiming the throne. To make things even more fraught, you have but one hour to save the day. Better get a move on then!

For its time, POP used some revolutionary animation techniques, as described at tinyurl.com/POP-info-site. Now that it's made it to the old C64 it's been very warmly received, gaining the highest accolade that any such production could get: a near flawless 9.9+ out of 10 from the members of the Commodore Scene Database (CSDb) at noname.c64.org/csdb. I'm not saying it's that good, but if you're a fan of the original and you always wanted to play it on a Commodore 8-bit (apparently, there was an Amstrad CPC version available), then head over to popc64.blogspot.com. Remember, you'll need compatible hardware to play it on a real machine, or you could use the latest version (V2.2) of WInVICE until you get the relevant device.

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While talking about near-flawless ports from one 8-bit to another, Skool Daze is making its way to the 48K Oric-1 and compatibles thanks to Chema of Defence Force, who gave us last week's Game of the Week, 1337.

Skool Daze was published for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum by Microsphere way back in 1984. Unsurprisingly, it's set in a school and you take the role of Eric (all characters can be renamed, if you like), who has to ensure that his school report accidentally goes missing before the headmaster sees it, but, to avoid the arousal of suspicion, there are certain rules that must be followed. It's a game of innocent high jinx, with the manipulation of teachers and fellow pupils in order to obtain the code to the safe that holds the all-important reports. Just like school used to be, no doubt.

At the moment, there's only a YouTube video clip to watch in anticipation of what could be another classic making its way to the mighty Oric. And considering the calibre of recent software, especially that from the Defence Force group, who's betting that this won't be another top-notch production? Well, certainly not me. For further information, head over to youtube.com/user/Chemakn.

Platform: unexpanded Commodore VIC-20
Website: tinyurl.com/TheKeepVIC

For such a small amount of memory, games really don't come much bigger than this. The Keep features a fast, first-person environment featuring a massive 256 floors to explore and escape. Believe me, that's quite an impressive technical feat.

This isn't just a piece of technical wizardry or a lesson in compression, there's a very good game to play too. Choosing from randomly generated or pre-set maps, you must quickly explore your surroundings before your lantern runs out and the Grues eat you. A small amount of oil is rewarded for each new floor.

Even with a small viewing area, this first-person maze game is a lot of fun. Your main task is to find the exit to the next floor to escape. You don't need to remember every step you've taken because it'll map the level to your point-of-view. There are keys to collect along the way which unlock areas for you. Once you get halfway, things start to become a little more tense because you lose your lantern supply at a faster rate.