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CRL made the headlines when it had Dracula issued with a British Board of Film Censors 15 certificate. The descriptive text and digitised pictures did not appear to be that horrific, but I for one was concerned that this action may eventually force other software houses to follow suit.

This could have meant more expensive games and possibly introduced long hold ups in the release of certain programs. Fortunately this does not seem to have happened, even though CRL has subsequently released other adventures with BBFC certificates.

Dracula was followed by Frankenstein and Wolfman, all written by Rod Pike. CRL has now produced a Horror Compilation including all three. For some reason Wolfman never came my way until now. To set matters right, I have spent a few days in the depths of a nameless middle European country trying to solve its lycanthropic problems.

Wolfman is a three part adventure with a similar feel to the previous two tales. Like them, it is divided into discrete sets of locations whose puzzles must be solved before moving on to the next. This sometimes causes a certain amount of frustration, as you have only a few locations to explore. On the other hand, there s that feeling of satisfaction when you solve the puzzles and move on.

Despite all the publicity about the digitised graphics, they are few and far between. Most are not that imaginative and add very little to the adventure.

As with previous games in the series, the parser is not always very friendly. It is often difficult to persuade it to carry out what should be simple instructions. The vocabulary does not seem to be very extensive and some of the commands are a little awkward.

Some complex commands are required, but for the most part a simple verb and noun input will suffice. Multiple commands are not recognised.

But the text is highly descriptive and atmospheric and the plot hangs together well.

For all its faults, Wolfman is a good game with puzzles of only moderate difficulty. If you have a little patience to battle with the parser you will enjoy the game. Just remember that SEARCH has a different meaning to EXAMINE - and SAVE often, as you never know when David will turn wolf with decidedly lethal results.