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Seven Cities Of Gold casts you in the role of a fifteenth century Spanish explorer. The court has very generously granted you a loan of two thousand pieces of gold to indulge your wanderlust. Before you actually get your hands on the dough and binge it away in the pub the computer wisely uses it to kit out your exploration with all the necessary gear.

Hence, you set sail with four ships, one hundred men, fifty two weeks food rations, three hundred trading goods and some small change.

Finding the New World isn't a difficult task, even for the novice navigator. Pushing the joystick left sets the cursor moving over the waves in a westerly direction.

After a minute or so and the odd thunderstorm, the first islands appear off the starboard bow. Using a simple menu system, you must drop off a landing party, transferring men, food and goods to trade with the local inhabitants. Movement overland is accomplished as when at sea. Moving the joystick causes your cursor to move over the terrain cautiously, moderately, even recklessly.

When you come across a native village, the view expands to fill the window through which all the action occurs. Now you must make your way to the centre of the village to speak with the chief and attempt to trade your goods for food and gold. This can be pretty difficult at the best of times because the natives follow you around. If you bump into too many of them, they become extremely aggravated and you have to flee for your life.

Thus you make your way around the New World. As well as trading with the villagers you can discover gold mines, rivers and forests.

When you start to get homesick, or food is running low, you can set sail for home. This again is fairly easy to find - I managed to get there despite being on the wrong latitude.

Once back in Spain you can visit the court, where you will be rewarded for your efforts, perhaps with a loan to fund further exploration. If you want a rest, a trip to the pub will enable you to save your progress so far.

Seven Cities doesn't fall into the brilliant category but it's not a bad game. Although I played it for about three hours on the trot I don't know whether it would have held my interest night after night. Furthermore, my conscience wasn't happy playing a game where a white trader makes his way through villages dull of drum-banging, spear-waving black natives. Dubious.