Wizard Wars, as the name suggests, is a fantasy role playing game, which usually means an instruction manual thicker than the phone book and more spells than any self-respecting wiz could shake a stick at. I prepared myself for a long night in front the TV - or at least in front of the instruction book.

Mercifully, the instructions only take about ten minutes to wade through and you can get started more or less straight away. This has to be one of the most straightforward games of its kind I've seen. The object is simply to kill monsters and wizards. You start as a junior wizz and battle your way up the rankings, acquiring more spells and power along the way.

The game is divided into three distinct, multi-load levels. Level One consists of seven cities, six monsters, six objects (chalice, sword, orb, crown, key, ermine), some woods, rivers, oceans, mountains and several packed lunches. Visit the city and you will be rewarded with a packed lunch to keep up your strength. Kill a monster and you will be rewarded with one of the objects. Visit the right city with the right object and you get two packed lunches. The idea, of course, is to kill all the monsters and return all the objects to the cities eating the odd packed lunch at appropriate intervals before progressing the next level.

The action happens in the middle of the screen, where a bird's eye view of the land is shown through the... round window. The field of view expands or contracts depending on your state of health and any sight-enhancing spells you might have cast. The left of the screen holds your spells book your mugshot and your attributes - physical, mental and spiritual health. All these bits and pieces are mirrored on the right of the screen for your current opponent. A window at the bottom shows any objects you may have collected.

The first thing to do is arm yourself with a few spells. Initially there are about a dozen to choose from. Typical examples are fireball, Icy Blast, Wall of Fire, Teleport and Mirror - which reflects incoming spells back on the one who cast them. Some spells fire bolts of doom at your opponents and others, like Tower Of Will are protective shields. The spells affect only one of an opponent's attributes, so it's an idea to take along a mixture of possibilities.

Whilst wandering around, the view scrolls in which direction you happen to be walking and it's only a matter of time before you bump into a hairy gorilla, a scorpion or God knows what. You then enter combat mode which is a simple 2D maze. Watch out, you can fall off the edges. The maze is small and you will soon encounter your opponent. From then on, it's simply a question of hurling spells at each other until one or the other of you cops it. A good tactic is to surround yourself with a protective wall spell before entering combat. If your opponent has had the same idea, you'd better hope you're carrying a spell that will break down the wall, or you'll be deadlocked.

If you manage to kill the monster, which, it has to be said, isn't all that difficult providing you have the right spells, you can collect the orb, ermine, or whatever and drag it through all the cities until you find the right one. By this time you'll probably be craving a packed lunch and, having stuffed your face, you can go in search of the next one.

Level Two is a straight fight between you and a whole horde of evil no-gooders. They each have different attributes and straight and you can take them on one at a time in any order you want. Again, when you kill one it yields either a useful object, another spell, a familiar or a complete rejuvenation of all your attitudes - handy when you're feeling a bit low.

It's the same again on Level Three - this time with wizards, or mages as they like to be called. Of course mages are a whole lot more difficult to defeat than mere monsters. They have their own familiars which protect them from certain spells and, unlike you, their spell casting does not reduce their energy so it's up to you to wear them down.

WW is a good game. the second and third levels sound a bit similar, but there's a lot more to it on the higher levels because more spells are involved and the opponents are more sophisticated. I can't see this appealing to the fanatical RPG loonies, but it would be a good introduction to the genre for anyone else.