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All I found out about Universal Hero in the blurb was that it's an arcade adventure. But there are no clues and instructions are minimal. Still, some people like to go into their adventures blind.

Our hero has a pretty everyday sort of chore to carry out, by Superhero standards anyway - to save the planet from imminent destruction.

The culprit is an out-of-control space freighter which must be repaired to avert disaster.

No real problems - but for the fact that the nearest intergalactic Halfords is on a neighbouring planet and the interplanetary shuttle is itself in need of a 5,000 mile service and MOT.

To make things interesting, the freighter is due to smack into terra firma in one hour's time. So the race is on to find the parts to the shuttle and work out what to do with them. Then to whizz off to find the parts for the freighter and fix it.

In your quest, only nine objects can be held and displayed at any one time. Movement is via a jet pack, hindered by occasional aliens of varying degrees of ferocity, force fields and other obstacles

Contact with the aliens may eat away at your air supply or kill you outright. Your powers of logic and deduction will get youo through otherwise impassable barriers.

The game is nicely presented, with good graphics and movement. Use of sound is minimal, which is at least preferable to bad use of sound. I thought the game was immensely playable and addictive.

On reaching a control computer within the caves under the planet surface, and having in my possession all the items necessary to work it, I logged on and was asked to identify myself.

At this point my keyboard locked up and I could do nothing but reset the machine and restart the game. This happened every time and meant I could not progress further!

I mentioned this to Mastertronic who said that they had not come across the problem before, the suggestion being that perhaps I had a dud copy.

This reservation apart, I really enjoyed Universal Hero - well, as far as I got anyway. Full marks to Mastertronic for putting out a great game for under £2 - it's a lot of entertainment for the price and puts many more expensive games to shame.