Producer: Melbourne House
Retail Price: £15.95
Author: Philip Mitchell & Beam Software

Ever since The Hobbit was released by Melbourne House, games players everywhere have eagerly awaited the computer version of JRR Tolkien's greatest work, The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit computer game was widely regarded as one of the best programs to run on a Spectrum and even now it still stands as one of the best adventure games you can buy. Its lasting appeal can be attributed to its immense intricacy of plot and the high competency of its programming. Lord of the Rings, dealing with the story found in the first part of the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, sacrifices some of the programming panache of The Hobbit in order to offer as wide an entertaining medium as is possible on a Spectrum. Pictures are relatively infrequent, and where they do pop up, are nothing to get excited about. The program is undeniably slow and the glaring white background to the text gives the impression that Philip Mitchell has been too busy with his own pet project to see the great lengths to which other software houses have gone to impress with their presentation.

You might now think that this review is about to concur with one or two others which have fallen short of praising this new adventure. Not so. Considering the enormous efforts made to make this game deep, intricate and entertaining, one can overlook the minor irritations in presentation, speed and debugging and applaud Melbourne House for a very courageous and worthwhile effort in bringing such a monstrous project to fruition. In short the game succeeds in doing what it set out to do, entertain, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it.

Now that I've got that off my chest let's see what you gets for your money. As with The Hobbit, you get the corresponding Tolkien book, The Fellowship of the Ring, which is the first part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This Allen & Unwin paperback is more than just a sales ploy as it contains important background and clues to your quest. Furthermore, it contains maps of The Shire where you begin the adventure, and the whole of the western section of Middle Earth by which you can gauge the threat emanating from the east. An impressive booklet of very full instructions is also included, which serves both as an introduction to the game and as a broader intro to the whole world of adventuring. It is a most lucid and palatable guide and does a superb job of introducing quality adventuring to the novice. The game itself spans two cassettes. On each is a challenging adventure on the A side along with its beginner's counterpart on the B side. The beginner's games, like the booklet, are simply superb, introducing the concepts and challenges to be found in the games proper in a very informative manner.

The story behind the game will be very familiar to Tolkien fans but probably be pretty confusing to those who have never picked up on the books. It is the Middle Years of Middle Earth and Sauron the Great, master of the evil realm of Mordor, has tricked a great Elvensmith into teaching him the craft of making rings of power. Deep within the bowels of Mount Doom he forged a ring to rule all others. By a circuitous path the ring came into the possession of Gollum who fled with it to the Misty Mountains and the dark caves that ran beneath them. Bilbo Baggins, a Hobbit, found the ring in the goblin's den and kept a hold of it by outwitting the pathetic creature. Bilbo returned to The Shire with the ring, and for the last time, used the ring's curious ability to render the wearer invisible before handing it on to his heir, Frodo Baggins. The ring causes some strange side effects however, making its owner overjealous. Gandalf, a fatherly wizard, warned Frodo of the malevolent nature of the ring. Making too much use of the ring would see its owner fade into a ring-wraith. Bilbo retired to Rivendell to the east, and the ring was entrusted to Frodo, whose struggle to keep the ring safe from the servants of doom is told in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The adventure begins with Sam, Pippin and Frodo at Bag End, Frodo's home in Hobbiton. Merry awaits the party at his house in Crickhollow to the east, by the western bank of the Brandywine river. Now, if the computer game carried on just like the book there would be little point in playing the adventure. The Beam programming team have cleverly devised a plot which has enough in keeping with the Tolkien work to justify its name, but not so much as to make playing futile. There are new paths, new situations and novel twists which will ensure that a thorough knowledge of the books alone will not give an easy victory. At no point is knowledge of the books assumed, although thorough reading is recommended, if only to gain insight into the fantastic world of Middle Earth.

The first striking feature of the game pops up right at the start, when you are offered the option of playing up to four Hobbits during the one game. The characters of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin are up for grabs, although the booklet warns that it may be easier to begin with just the one character. Indeed, the beginner's program settles for Frodo only. Even in the beginner's program there is still plenty of scope to influence the behaviour of your Hobbit companions via the use of the influential and highly effective SAY TO command. Often the likes of SAY TO character 'HELLO' is sufficient to draw most characters into conversation. As in most commands which are used often, the programming team have thoughtfully provided the abridged form of (GANDALF) 'HELLO' as an option.

Many of the problems you face will be impossible to unravel without the help of other characters, some of whom will only be helpful if you adopt the right tone or ask the right questions. Your fellow Hobbits will, as a rule, follow your lead and can be made to do most useful tasks as with SAY TO SAM 'CLIMB TREE'.

Playing the game you find the booklet isn't kidding about playability. Your active control of characters in combination with the computer's habit of intelligently keeping the action moving along when you are not controlling things is one of the perfectly enchanting aspects of the game. The program really does its level best to act intelligently at all times.

Going beyond the beginner's program you might like to play the game with friends, each on taking on the responsibility for one furry-footed Hobbit. The commands BECOME PIPPIN or I AM PIPPIN, or simply PIPPIN, will swing the game round so it is played out through the eyes of Pippin until it is changed once more. To show who is playing at any particular time, and to indicate which Hobbits are present with you, the screen uses a layered effect whereby the top layer has I AM FRODO etc along the top with his picture, while down the sides are the pictures of any other Hobbits present. Lower layers show the pictures of Hobbits not currently present in the same location. This use of layers slows the game down - with every new location the layers are re-sorted to reflect any splits or meetings in the groups.

When arranging parties to tackle specific problems it might be worth remembering that Pippin is the most agile, Sam the most sturdy, and Frodo the smartest. Sam, being Frodo's devoted friend, always tries to stay close to him. During the course of the game characters suffer weariness from the constant struggle and their strength declines. The best remedy for low morale is a good meal and a rest, but if the Hobbits should chance upon skilled healers or magical herbs this helps them endure the fray even better. In combat, Hobbits are generally thought poor fighters as they normally live cheerfully peaceful lives in the relative seclusion of The Shire - so they should not be thrown into the midst of gory battle.

Towards the end of the booklet an abbreviated vocabulary gives some insight into the 800 words used by the adventure. The rules which govern the use of Inglish (first used in The Hobbit) are related at length and are informative enough to guide even a newcomer to the delights of adventuring. The program is very good at asking for clarification of any input about which it is not sure.

Two features from The Hobbit have been retained in this game. Mapping in The Hobbit could become pretty unreliable owing to the structure of the game, and so it is in this case. The other feature of The Hobbit retained is the need to be ever careful and watchful over what and how many items you are carrying. In addition to adding weight to your burden, some objects increase your effective size, which can lead to trouble when negotiating a small door or tunnel. Liquids cannot be carried without a container and you must ration your acquisitions to just those you can manage to carry.

Lord of the Rings took over 15 months to program. After waiting for so long people may initially be disappointed with the result. The game is slow, the pictures are rudimentary, and, due to the glaring white background for the text, this adventure is almost unplayable on a colour TV. The prose is strangely stilted with descriptions which tell of objects within objects and upon objects, in a very dry and dreary manner. The dubious examples of humour in the game detract from such an auspicious work and there are times when you're not quite sure whether something is supposed to be humorous or not, like, were there really photographs in the original as found described in the first frame? Having said that, the game features a very good and informative EXAMINE command, a super friendly vocabulary which gets just about anything you want to do done, and it takes the interaction of characters to new heights in adventuring.

On the whole, despite unfavourable reviews from other quarters, this adventure is worthy of a Smash as it reveals enough features to place it above the usual release. In particular, its friendly vocabulary and its options on character play add to the standing of an already monumental work.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: not difficult
Graphics: to be honest, poor
Input facility: well beyond verb/noun
Response: slow

DEAD RINGER

Many moons ago in a far away land, a small band of fellows embarked on a task that no-one but them believed possible. How, the doubters said, could they turn Lord Of The Rings into an adventure game? Night and day they toiled together and at last they triumphed. Now the Grim Reaper considers whether their game really does run rings round other adventures.

Prepare to go on a quest. You will be away a long time and you will face many dangers. You will travel the length and breadth of the land in pursuit of your final goal and many times you will lose both your way and your will to continue. You will meet many tall, dark, not at all handsome strangers and they will kill you. Your quest is as perilous as the one that Frodo the Hobbit embarked on when he travelled with his companions to Mount Doom to destroy the Evil Lord Sauron's ring. It is that quest...

Even if you haven't read Lord Of The Rings you'll know what an enormous book it is. Maybe that's one of the reasons you haven't got round to it yet. And when you consider the limitations of the Speccy's memory you can appreciate what a formidable task Melbourne House has taken on with its new adventure and what an amazing job it's made of it.

Lord Of The Rings, the game, follows the plot of the first book in Tolkien's trilogy, The Fellowship Of The Rings, pretty accurately. Not only that but it also manages to capture the rich atmosphere of the book - not that there can be a real substitute for sitting down and reading it. Luckily, the book comes as pan of the package 'cos if you haven't read it you're in for a pretty tough time trying to crack the adventure. Your best bet is to make a start on the beginner's game on side two of the cassette. There you'll find that the map is slightly different from the main game as it's only meant as an introduction.

Talking of maps, this one's a real Ordnance Survey job but it's well worth taking care over if you want to find your way around. Oh, and don't forget to save the game at strategic positions - you'll find you get killed fairly frequently at the beginning. The main game is split into two parts so you'll have to save the game when you complete the first part if you want to take some of the objects you've collected with you.

Lord Of The Rings is a true adventure - the graphics are only included to jazz it up a bit - the ones in The Hobbit are probably better. No, the big attraction with Lord Of The Rings is it's like the TV Times (or YS? Ed) - there's just so much in it.

You can choose to play the part of any one of the four main characters in the game, Frodo, Sam, Pippin or Merry. You can even be all four if you like though this tends to slow things down somewhat. The command interpreter is one of the most sophisticated I've ever seen on the Speccy. You can almost talk to it in English - Inglish anyway. My only real criticism of the game is that you have to reload the game each time you're killed but then again you can't have everything with a game this size.

All in all, the sophistication of the program and the subject matter combine to make Lord Of The Rings one of the all time great adventures and it deserves to be as successful as The Hobbit.

RINGBEARER RICHARD PRICE USES SWORD AND SORCERY TO SAVE SOULS OF DARKON

Publisher: Melbourne House
Price: £14.95
Memory: 48K

I first read The Lord of the Rings in the strange summer of 1968 - when the conflicts between the forces of oppression and freedom were in sharp focus from the invasion of Czechoslovakia and the seemingly endless inhumanity of the Viet Nam war.

The book had been around a while then, but it seemed to reflect some mood of the time and rapidly developed a following. I borrowed three tattered paperback volumes and shut myself in my damp student hovel for four days where as Tolkien himself said, in his writings about fantasy, I went 'out of myself', immersed, convinced and entranced.

The tale of the Ring wars is so involving not just because of its theme, but above all it is the vast scope and coherence of the world of Middle Earth which hooks you into the story.

There are many strange races, each with its varied tongues and cultures, obsessions and preoccupations - the clever, quarrelsome dwarves and their greed for wealth; the powerful elvish lords who dream of the past and the imminent end of their world; the hungry hobbits whose main aim is a well-filled belly, a comfortable chair and a pipe of fine Longbottom or Old Toby. And over all lies the shadow of Sauron, the millennia-old undead sorcerer whose spells and armies threaten to engulf and enslave all the free creatures of Middle Earth.

It is Sauron who dominates the story. Wherever you travel in Middle Earth, his never-closed eye or his servants may see you as they search for the One Great Ring. The magic in this ring is so great that it can, in a sorcerer's hands, be used to conquer the strength of the other rings of power in the world. "One Ring to rule them all... and in the Darkness bind them, in the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."

Sauron's Mordor is the embodiment of hate, evil, unthinking violence and foul sorcery. From this smoking, shattered desolation Sauron sends out his slaves to destroy all nature and all friendship. He will succeed when he recovers his lost Ring... and once again he becomes aware of its finding when a silly hobbit called Bilbo Baggins steals it from a wet cavern in the Misty Mountains.

If you played The Hobbit and had never read The Lord of the Rings you would never realise the importance of Bilbo's chance find. Nor did Bilbo. Now, after a long wait, Melbourne House have produced the giant sequel to Bilbo's quest. Lord of the Rings - Game One covers the first volume of the trilogy and deals with Frodo Baggins, Bilbo's adopted son, and his journey towards Mordor.

Bilbo is now very old and Gandalf the Wizard arrives at Bag End one day to set Frodo a mission. The mission is to take Bilbo's ring, the One Ring, into Mordor and hurl it into Mount Doom, the volcano where it was forged and the only power which can destroy it forever. If the Ring perished then so does Sauron.

So poor old Frodo not only has to do some extremely unhobbit-like adventuring but has to save the world into the bargain. His servant, Sam, and his relatives Pippin and Merry persuade him to let them come with him... the game begins.

The Melbourne House programmers in Oz have spent 18 months developing the programs and, after the success of The Hobbit, were given a free hand by the publishers and Tolkien's heirs. They have stuck very closely to the story but have added episodes so that you will need more than the books to be able to solve the various parts.

The package is huge and contains two cassettes, a paperback copy of the first book and a comprehensive instruction booklet. Each cassette holds one part of the game and there are also two beginners' adventures. Those are smaller, less complex versions of the main games, intended as an introduction for those people who aren't too familiar with the story or who want to play an easier scenario.

Generally they have more graphics and less text, objects and locations than the main game and there is no multi-role option. These programs can be played in their own right, without having to carry data over from the first to the second part.

However, if you play the second part without loading in your final saved position from the first you will find that you don't have all the friends and objects who will make life a lot easier along the long road.

The first section of Game One takes Frodo and his pals from Bag End out of the Shire to the wild lands beyond Bree, almost to the ford at Rivendell. The second section is the journey from Rivendell, through the mines of Moria and the tree-kingdom of Lothlorien, ending where the company go their separate ways - Sam and Frodo to Mordor and the others off to the war in the south. Melbourne House tells me that it intends to bring out the game of the second book hopefully by Christmas '86.'

You play through the eyes of Frodo and his friends and can choose at the beginning whether you want to be Frodo, one of the other three or any combination of the four. That means more than one player can take part and all the characters can have independent lives. If you're on your own any characters you don't have the time or energy to order around will be run by your computer.

When you load in the game you will probably notice that a whole block doesn't load after the initial screen illustration. Don't stop your tape and start cursing Melbourne's copying machines or wailing in frustration - as I did. Let the tape run until the main program loads in - the missing chunk is a restart position which is only needed when you want to start from the beginning again after being cast into oblivion by Sauron. If you are wise enough to be a regular saver you'll probably never need to use this portion.

The game format is text adventure with some location graphics for the principal places. The screen shows four overlapping 'pages' - whichever character is currently playing is shown on lop with his portrait. Above that is a strip showing the pictures of the characters you've chosen to use and who you are.

The main text scrolls up the screen and the input buffer is the small area at the bottom. You can type in up to 128 letters at a time and instructions can be separated by punctuation. That lets you do a lot in one go. Melbourne has used Inglish again, as in The Hobbit, and with some limitations you can enter fairly normal sentences - I certainly felt that this works well and seems to be better and more responsive than earlier Melbourne games.

There's a wealth of detail in the descriptions and messages and the screen is often completely filled with words. The response time for the interpeter is not hyper-fast but, given the size of the game and the number of commands you can input in one go, that is not surprising and not a real problem. The only real irritant for me was the way other characters appear one by one - when you're in a large party this process can take a bit of time. Of course, just like The Hobbit, all the creatures live their own lives and you're not likely ever to play the same game twice.

Speaking to the other inhabitants is very important - quite often it will be the only way you have of getting things done. All you have to do is enter 'Say to...' followed by the command in speech marks. The speech system is more limited than the direct command input and the interpreter will only really understand one or two sets of actions at a time.

Play begins in Frodo's burrow at Bag End. Sam and Pippin are with you and you will need to prepare for the journey by collecting a host of useful objects and stashing them into the backpacks provided. That can be a fairly hilarious business at times as the program will sometimes confuse the packs. You may find Sam putting things into your pack rather than his and I spent some time sorting out this pleasant confusion.

When you're ready and have read Gandalfs note it's time to hit the road and head east to meet Merry, who is due to meet you at the Brandywine lord. It's sensible to play Merry as a separate character. I found that if I left his part to the computer he would tend to wander away from the ferry and not be there when we arrived. Going back to look for him is very dangerous - you'll soon realise that the Nazgul, Sauron's terrible Ringwraiths, are already abroad, sniffing you out. Death comes quickly in their presence. These Black Riders will dog your footsteps throughout the game and any unnecessary delays will bring them closer to you.

Before you go east you should explore the Shire a little. Over at Michel Delving there's the Mathom House, a sort of museum. I'm absolutely sure that there are some handy items inside those dusty glass cases but I still haven't been able to get into them.

There's also a book which tells you about the value of elfstones... could an elfstone be the way to open the cases? The main thing to find here, though, is a light source. Without it you're likely to become trapped in the tunnel leading to the forest and the outside world.

From Michel Delving you can, if you wish, go north. There is a maze of 'winding grassy paths' up there in the Tower Hills and, no doubt, something concealed in it. If you don't become hopelessly lost you'll find your way back to the road. It won't take you long to realise that the river bridge isn't passable and a search through the woods and swamps will bring you to Maggot's Farm. If the dogs bother you just wait a few times for help to arrive.

By the time you reach the tunnel you'll begin to realise that the game is pretty big and not at all simple, especially if the four rather quixotic hobbits are controlled independently. Beware of bringing Merry across the river - he isn't meant to be west of it and odd things may happen if you do, like finding that he can be in more than one place at once!

I won't go into detail about the second part of the game but it is worth remembering that if you meet the Elf-Lord Glorfindel in the wild lands you should do what he says and stick to him like glue. Only his power will get you safely into Rivendell and away from sudden death and destruction at the hands of the Ringwraiths.

The game behaves strangely on occasions. Merry's split personality is an example but there are others - I typed in "Dig garden" and got the answer "I don't see any dim garden to I am my name is." Of course, this may mean the interpreter has the odd psychotic episode but I'm sure that it is at least attempting to respond. This is better than endless "I can't do that" - type messages and is often funny. I once asked Sam to give the food to me - eating is essential for frisky hobbits and got back "Sam tries to give the food to you but you is too heavy". Don't worry - dieting isn't essential before you begin playing.

Lord of the Rings is essential equipment for any adventurer. The storyline is solidly based on the book and has been faithfully reproduced. Melbourne has added some ingredients but these don't conflict too much with the main tale. There is also a good sized vocabulary to support the interpreter and large numbers of locations to explore, giving a fine feel of space. The graphics are relatively unimportant and, thankfully, the programmers have clearly attempted to cram in as much text detail as possible, rather than too many pretty but useless pictures.

The multi-role/multi-player option is pretty neat. Very few games have used it before but it helps to extend the breadth of an adventure.

Some people will want to play as a group and there is endless scope for argument and debates as well as individual heroics. Oh, and if you get fed up of everyone following you around, just wear the Ring. Invisibility has its uses - unless the Nazgul are near. Feel their breath on your neck?

The most anticipated Adventure of all time must be Lord of the Rings. So when the hefty packages arrived - carried by some odd looking dwarfish characters in hooded cloaks - we sent them straight off to our ace adventurers Keith Campbell and his apprentices Jim Douglas and Paul Coppins. Now we present three views of Philip Mitchell's translation of the Tolkien novels.

JIM'S QUEST

When Lord Of The Rings arrived at C+VG, JIM DOUGLAS looked at the package and found a useful way of keeping the Penthouse door open.....

This is probably the most professionally packaged game to come from Melbourne House. The large book-like box and its contents simply reeks of quality!

The novel makes a wonderful doorstop. It is impossible to tell quite how important it is to read the book before you actually start the game. I shouldn't think Melbourne House would include it if it were completely useless, however....

The instruction book is mainly an explanation of Inglish, a few legends and fibs, and a general introduction to Adventures for beginners. The program itself doesn't want to admit that it's loading; you are left with a flashing red and cyan border throughout most of the process - most disconcerting!

The game is very similar to the Hobbit. The graphics are acceptable, although not up to the standard of its predecessor.

There is a clever routine whereby you can choose which characters you wish to play, which, of course, enables you to play the game with friends.

Using this method you are more likely to get another character to do exactly as you request, instead of risking leaving it for the computer to work out.

There is a nagging delay between entering each location and the cursor re-appearing. Whilst frustrating at first, you soon spend much more time thinking about your next move, and the machine has to wait for you!

Lord of the Rings matches all expectations. It is a very good game, but certainly not for the inexperienced adventurer. Don't set off with expectations of solving it - just explore, experience, and enjoy!

PAUL'S QUEST

PAUL COPPINS started loading Lord of the Rings, and sent out for bacon sandwiches. Before they were delivered to the Penthouse, Paul had completed the adventure and washed it down with a glass of Perrier....

Although the text is very descriptive and well-written the graphics are not up to much. The puzzle level is easy to moderate, the main difficulty being where the plot varies from that of the book, in particular, crossing the bridge East of Bree.

One very good feature is the ability to give other characters commands, which means that you can tell others to carry out the lesser tasks, while you take on the more important stuff.

There are three mazes in all, one in part one, and two in part two. Part two is by far the better, having a better sense of humour, and no graphics! There is a bug in part one which makes it possible to become trapped inside Maggot's farmhouse with no means of escape. The only problem in part two seemed to be that the program didn't know the Elvin word for 'friend' (MELLON).

Lord of the Rings is without doubt a far superior game to Hobbit and Sherlock. I would even go so far as saying that personally I believe this to be the best from Melbourne House so far! I can't wait for the second part of the trilogy!

KEITH'S QUEST

Paul and Jim disappeared with a MUDpack and a pile of Madonna records to enjoy Christmas, leaving Keith with nothing but a "Yer, good, isn't it!", a deadline, and a half-empty bottle of Perrier....

LORD OF THE RINGS

The magical ring of Sauron is in the possession of the Hobbit Bilbo, master of Bag End. Bilbo is ageing, and, becoming weary, decides to set off to visit the mountains for a long holiday, probably never to return.

The Ring is a source of evil power, sought by the Dark Lord of Mordor, and wing it can turn its owner to evil. Before the Wizard Gandalf will let Bilbo leave, he persuades him to leave the ring in the keeping of Frodo, who is to be the new master at Bag End.

After some years, it becomes clear that the presence of the ring is a threat to the well-being of the Shire, and must be destroyed. But it is said that Rings of Power can only be melted by Dragon's Fire, and there is no Dragon's Fire hot enough to touch the one Ring of Sauron.

"There is only one way: to find the Cracks of Doom in the depth of Orodruin, the Fire-Mountain, and cast the ring in there...." Gandalf tells Frodo.

So Frodo sets off in the company of fellow-Hobbits Sam Gamgee and Pippin Took to dispose of the ring, yet afraid even to wear it, lest its evil powers corrupt him.

"You are in a comfortable burrow with a round window and a green door to the east...." So starts the first Lord of the Rings adventure game, based on The Fellowship of the Ring, first of Tolkien's famous trilogy.

The package from Melbourne House is a bulky one, comprising the paperback version of the book, plus two cassettes and an instruction booklet. The game is in two parts, one on each tape. On the reverse side of each is a 'beginners' version, a cut-down adventure in which the player takes the role of Frodo.

In the main game, the player can opt to play the part of any or all of the four main characters. During play, he can change his role to any one of the characters he has chosen, by entering:

"Become ...." This is said to enable a number of people to play the game, each taking a separate character. So it does, but it does not enhance the game any more than if a group of people play together operating all characters. In fact, there is little need to swap between characters unless you decide to split the party up, since 'Inglish', that well known Beam Software command language, accepts phrases like: SAY TO SAM "GET BACKPACK".

The opening sequences of the game require the acquisition of suitable objects to prepare the party for the journey, and this is quite a long process, for there is lot of stuff lying around the burrow.

When Frodo's inventory limit is hit, it is necessary to transfer equipment to another member of the party.

This involves a lot of either BECOMING or SAYING TO, and since backpacks are provided for putting things into, the whole business can become horribly involved unless the player keeps careful note of who is carrying and wearing what, and where everything is at any given time.

I accidentally had Pippin pick up two backpacks, and wrestled with the Spectrum for fifteen minutes before I could transfer one of them to Sam! Alter one of my more ambitious multi-command inputs, I received the following horrendous reply: SAM TRIES TO TAKE THE MAP BUT PIPPIN HAS IT.

SAM TRIES TO PUT THE MAP IN THE CANVAS BACKPACK BUT PIPPIN HAS IT. SAM TRIES TO PUT THE LONG ELABORATELY CARVED PIPE IN THE CANVAS BACKPACK BUT PIPPIN HAS IT. SAM PUTS ON THE CANVAS BACKPACK.

And of course, the more clever you try to become with the commands, the more likely you are to get a reply such as: I DON'T SEE ANY LY PIPPIN'S MATCH FROM BACKPACK TO TALK TO PIPPIN.

As all this takes a tremendously long time, it is highly recommended to save the game once you have got your party loaded up and out of the burrow. There can be sudden death lurking in the forest, and to be caught without a saved game, means you will have to reload initialising data, and go through the SAY TO SAM "GET BACKPACK AND GET MAP AND WEAR BACKPACK AND PUT MAP IN BACKPACK" routine all over again.

In issuing commands to different people in turn, it is possible for things to get a bit out of step, and there is nothing more calculated to frustrate the player struggling to get a grip on the mischievous Hobbits than; PIPPIN SAYS "ISN'T TRAVELLING FUN" in the middle of it all!

The game has an unusual screen layout. The text window a slightly cut-down Spectrum screen, with a top border displaying a row of portraits of your selected characters.

The currently active character is named on the screen, and his portrait is shown in highlight. I discovered after reloading a game which I had saved as Sam, that I was listed as being Frodo, whose role I had taken in the game I QUIT The top border was not updated until I BECAME somebody else.

Below the border is the text/graphic window, narrowed by three grey columns to the left, on which appear portraits of characters not present at the current location.

Whilst the program works out who is going where during a change in location (everyone seems to follow everybody else) it clears and re-positions the portraits one at a time resulting in a drastic increase in response time whilst faces flash off and on and flip from column to column.

The overall response time is disguised somewhat by a few seconds delay AFTER all the replies have been given, before input can be accepted, but in total runs at anything between 10 and 20 seconds when moving from place to pace.

The text window sometimes has graphics in it - there are occasional pictures which scroll up to be replaced with text on hitting any key. They are not particularly artistic, and to me they represented merely another degradation of response time.

Below the text window is the command input area, and messages that are not part of the narrative, such as DON'T BE SILLY when you try something that isn't possible (although probably fairly sensible), appear here.

The trouble with this is that some messages are too long for the three lines allocated, so the top half often scrolls out of sight under the text window before it can be read.

Key depressions cause a short bleep, which is particularly useful on the Spectrum, since it is so easy to press a key off-centre without noticing that it hasn't registered on the screen. Type-ahead of one character is possible, but this causes a problem, since the last character entered is the one that is displayed when that prompt finally arrives.

This is particularly annoying when using quotes. For some reason, there is a delay of about one second between issuing a quote, and its appearance on the screen. If you get into the rhythm of typing a sentence, it is all too easy to find you have the wrong letter following the opening quote. This makes SAYing TO rather irksome.

If the prospect of ploughing through the book seems a bit daunting, then, if you didn't see the film when it was shown on TV recently, you might consider watching the video, available from most good video libraries.

This will put you on the right track, but to get the best enjoyment out of Lord of the Rings adventure, you really should read the book, for then you will have a far better idea of what the game is all about, and how to react in certain situations.

Spectrum
Melbourne House
Adventure
£15.95

I was Merry. The hobbit, you understand, not the state of mind. And as Meriadoc Brandybuck, the first thing that struck me about Michel Delving is that it looked rather like its name - a small suburb whose branch line station was probably closed down by Beeching in the early sixties. In short, the graphics in this game show a distinct lack of enterprise. Things have moved on since the legendary days of Melbourne Houses's first foray into Middle Earth, The Hobbit, and while the structural side of this program is excellent, I suspect something a little more eye-catching is needed to tempt the punters away from their zapping.

Another worrying thing about this game is the incursion of certain futuristic anachronisms. In the beginner's program Frodo looks at a noticeboard which has some photographs pinned to it. Now although hobbits smoke and love to compile family trees, one thing that The Lord of the Rings is thankfully free from is continued heated debates between Merry and Pippin as to the F-stop their cameras should be on when they see a flock of Nazgul flying by. There would have been whole chapters where the irrepressible hobbits tried to cajole the preoccupied Gandalf into posing for a shot - giving a lump of sugar to Shadowfax, maybe. And you can imagine how difficult it must have been to get colour film in the land of Mordor, especially since Sauron cancelled his subscription to Amateur Photographer.

Give 'em their due, it's true to the map, in the book. Get on to the main east-west road through the Shire, leading east and you'll soon come to the Last Bridge. Melbourne House have designed it lovingly, obviously based on the programmer's favourite bridge on the M5. All that is missing is a sign telling how far it is to Heston Services.

There is a bit of a problem with Black Riders at this time of the evening, of course, but if you know the back doubles, south through the forest glade, east into the thick forest and back up north through the ravine with unclimbable sides, you can dodge this particular bottleneck. The Shire Watch are experimenting with contra-flow, but if you keep your Palantir tuned to MEBC (Middle Earth Broadcasting Corporation) or one of the local stations you should make Rivendell and be quaffing a few ales at Elrond's gaff in no time flat.

Melbourne House's special Inglish language is supposed to make adventures less hard to play - but real adventurers will be glad to know that things have not really been made easier for the younger generation. Ask Gildor for help and you will be told that the computer doesn't know "for". Ask Gildor to help and the computer is sorry, but it doesn't know how to do that. Of course it lets you talk to Gildor but you never get to know what the conversation was about. It doesn't know the word "listen" and a really good wheeze is typing in "Hear Gildor". This generates some of the most spectacular rubbish I have ever seen a computer utter. Good fun for adventure freaks.