SILENT RUNNING

MICRO: Spectrum 48K
PRICE: £6.95
FORMAT: Cassette
SUPPLIER: Mikro-Gen, 44 The Broadway, Bracknell, Berks.

As if life didn't have enough problems, you're now the sole surviving crew member on board the Genesis II, an Earth Colony Ship that has been captured by space pirates, and you have to save not only yourself but your cargo as well. No ordinary cargo this, as it is a collection of rare Earth animals being sent to populate a new world, plus a forest thrown in for good measure. Don't ask how you pack a forest on a space ship.

This is the kind of adventure that tests your map-making skills as there are several levels to the spaceship, and having moved NORTH, SOUTH, EAST and WEST to explore one level, you can then go UP or DOWN in the elevator shaft to start again on the next level. Not only that but there are metal grills set into the walls, and once you have found your Sonic Screwdriver you can open all the grills and then start to map out the ventilator shafts which criss-cross the space ship. In all there are about 100 locations, with 60 or so objects lying around. There seems no set rule about how many objects you can carry.

The space pirates pop up regularly, but for some reason wound you rather than kill you, so you need to find bandages to staunch the flow of blood, as well as food to eat. The tasks set you are not quite as direct as normal, though there are plenty of keys to track down to cope with all the locked doors in the corridors, and goodness knows where the forest and animals are stored.

I enjoyed the feel of Genesis as it allows you plenty of initial exploration, giving you fair warning if anything nasty was likely to happen, and while its scale isn't quite in the Snowball class it's a wellwritten and thorough adventure that should be well worth several visits.