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This must be a world record. No less than eleven years after the blockbusting film hit the streets, Mastertronic has released a Star Wars tie-in concerning the adventures of C-3P0 and his dustbin.

Heralded as "a nail-biting drama", you guide C-3P0 around a scrolling landscape with R2-D2 in tow as if he were attached to the end of a piece of elastic.

He is a nuisance, which I suppose is consistent with the film.

Moving around is done in a very strange manner. Instead of the usual left, right, up, down and fire keys, there is a row of icons along the bottom of the screen with pictures representing these functions.

You move a pointer to the icon you want, press fire, and C-3P0 does the necessary, with R2-D2 following doggedly behind.

On your travels you pick up numbered passes and lying around are some very well animated computer terminals. Each terminal has a number.

If you plonk C-3P0 in front of the terminal and press fire, you will be able to open the door, remove an obstacle or control a lift - as long as you have the correct number pass and get through a memory test.

This memory test is annoying. The computer plays musical notes and flashes colours; you have to match these colours and notes by pressing keys 1 to 6 in the appropriate order, rather like the old Simon toy.

At first you only have to remember three notes, but the sequences quickly get longer.

The game ends when the metallic duo's energy runs out. It can be drained by drills, cannons, electric and magnetic fields, sprinklers, sparks and patrolling droids, and C-3P0 can only dodge these hazards or fire crystals at the nasties.

The crystals are limited in number, and have an annoying habit of running out at precisely the wrong time.

The graphics are quite good and the scrolling is smooth. The playing area is very small - it only take up about one third of the screen, the rest being taken up by the icons and the energy and score indicators. Everything is crystal clear in green.

Sound effects are fairly limited, but there is a very good title tune, accompanied by one of those (yawn) scrolling messages.

C-3P0 and R2-D2 always struck me as being lovable rogues, but here they just look flat and boring: there's none of the atmosphere connected with the film.

Yet another "move around a scrolling landscape and pick up everything in sight" game to add to the thousand or so that already exist.