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Are you weird? Do people stare at your Pacamac, jodphurs and Garfield slippers when you go to the shops? Andy Hutchinson has found just the game for you.

How do you feel about prophecies? You can't possibly take them seriously, can you? Nostradamus was clearly not running on all eight cylinders, Graham Taylor is obviously using the wrong kind of crystal ball and Witch Throbhazzle of The Cottages, New Malden didn't even manage to predict that the borough council would drive the bypass through the local duck pond.

Ween is about prophecies, which is fair enough - games like this are always chock full of wizened old men woffling on about ewes giving birth to two-headed lambs and crotchety old women wittering on about toadstools, the full moon and the blood of a family line. However, Ween takes the prophecy factor to new heights. The deal is that the Master Sorcerer has been weakened (as predicted by a prophecy) and a large demonic chap called Kraal wants to take over the land (as predicted by a prophecy). You (as Ween) have to stop Kraal and save the kingdom from an eternity of Prisoner Cell Block H repeats.

At least that's the hocum you're asked to find credible and on which Coktel Vision hang this weirdsville game.

The best way of looking at Ween is as a series of point-and-click set pieces. Each stage of the game is based around one (or occasionally two) rooms. Within these rooms there are up to eight objects. You have to use these along with the items in your inventory to open the door to the next set piece. It's like a complicated version of that bit on the Krypton Factor where they have to transform a selection of shapes from one form to another, only you don't have to wear a red, green, blue or yellow jumpsuit.

To find out what objects are in the room, you simply search as if it were a metal detector. If you can use an object then its name appears at the bottom of the screen and you then have the opportunity to either pick it up, examine it or to use it with something else in your inventory. This manages to be one of the best and the worst features of the game. On the one hand it's good not to have to type things in, while on the other hand you often have to stare intently at the screen, moving the mouse pointer systematically around the picture for ten minutes looking in vain for helpful objects. Some of these objects are no bigger than a pixel, so you find yourself inches from the screen, scanning for a likely-looking different-coloured pixel.

The problems in the game range from the sublimely simple to the infuriatingly obscure. It's almost as if the programmers came up with a random list of objects and then contorted them into a puzzle. This means that you end up performing the most obscure tasks like rubbing features on chests (ooer), using cauldrons on leaking boats and poking wasp traps with copper pipes. Occasionally you find yourself turning to an imaginary person Woody Allen style and saying, "Can you believe this, I just rubbed a feather on a chest." Or at least you might if you're as mad as Ween's programmers.

It's not even as if your end objective on any screen is that clear. You sit there pondering exactly what the hell you're meant to do with a cauldron, a ring, a tiara, some pollen, some venom, three grains of sand, a feather and an ECU when there's not even a door visible on the screen. It's all woefully weird in a French programmer sort of way. There is a kind of on-line help in the form of Petroy. This chap can be asked about things during the game, but really he seems about as useful as a chocolate tea cup. The general idea seems to be that you clicked on Petroy and then on the object you were curious about, but 95% of the time he'd simply say: "I have nothing further to teach you on that subject." Yeah, cheers Petroy, old mate. Sometimes you can also vall on the services of a fruit-eating vampire bat called Urm. If you feed him some kind of fruit (he's not too fussy what sort you choose) he does something for you. You con't be able to persuade him to go and bite the hell out of Petroy though, however much you plead with him.

One of the most important items in your inventory is a magic copper ball. By collecting three magic jewels you can transform this humble orb into a cauldron, a pipe and a sword and thus spike, poke and transport any number of useful objects such as water or leaves. The process of transforming the copper ball does get tedious however, especially when you have to keep doing it. All of this isn't helped by the lengthy pauses whenever there's a load from the disk drive.

For all this game's infuriating faults it's curiously addictive. You're likely to find yourself sitting in front of your ST for hours patiently rubbing various base metals against wasp traps. The whole thing really is too bizarre for words.

On the graphic and sonic front you can't fault Ween. The static screen shots which you end up gawping at for hours on end are pleasantly drawn and there are a few well chosen samples scattered throughout which add to the atmosphere. The disk loads take an age, but then in a game like this that's not such a great problem and it only becomes irritating when you're desperate to get onto the next bit.

Ween's a bloody curious number it's so odd that Vic "Hatstand" Reeves would be completely freaked out by it. It's also incredibly appealing in a way that fans of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In would understand; even our Art Editor got engrossed in it for three full days - and he was on deadline. Buy Ween only if your ability to tolerate pain is extremely high. You have been warned.

To complete this game you have to master the art of transforming your magic copper ball. You can transform it into a cauldron, a pipe and a sword by using the appropriate magic jewel. To get the cauldron use the ring on the ball, to get the pipe use the tiara on the ball and to get the sword use the necklace on the ball. Don't forget that you need to transform the copper ball back to its original form and into something else, you can't leap-frog from, say, sword to pipe. Oh yes - and the king of the ants sits on the leaf at the top right of the screen with the hidden door.