Producer: Melbourne House
Memory Required: 48K
Author: P. Mitchell

Rumours of an adventure from the Melbourne House stable to match the universal popularity of The Hobbit were rife in February early this year. So complex has the game proved to be that it's taken until this time to issue a working copy and the game even now, at this late date, shows signs it may require some more work before it can be released.

Sherlock is an amazingly complex program based on the famous Sir Arthur Conan Doyle books featuring the super sleuth Sherlock Holmes, fiction's most famous detective. You proudly take the role of Holmes assisted by your ever-faithful companion and fellow lodger, Dr. Watson. The story is authentically set in the dimly gaslit, foggy streets of Victorian London. The plot has intrigue, suspense and danger but much of the early game is about shrewd observation, analysis and deduction as you quiz the suspects at the scenes of the murders. Your objective is to solve a number of different crimes and to avoid getting yourself killed.

A subset of English, Inglish, first seen in The Hobbit, is used to communicate with the program which utilises a large vocabulary of 800 words. Each sentence must have a verb and there are a few simple, and mostly obvious, rules governing the use of adverbs and adjectives. Several actions or sentences can be linked in a manner which allows many different permutations. ANIMTALK is another strong feature, which allows you, Sherlock Holmes, to instruct the other characters what you would like them to do - but each character remains independent and can refuse to cooperate. Where this form of conversation proves most useful is when discussing the case with Watson and Lestrade, an Inspector from Scotland Yard. You can pick their brains generally or direct their thoughts to a particular item or incident. Conversations, as The Hobbit, are structured around the general format:

SAY TO WATSON "TELL ME ABOUT (THE PISTOL)". Common modifiers are "TELL ME ABOUT YOUR ALIBI" and "TELL ME ABOUT YOUR ADDRESS".

Sherlock Holmes never walked where he could take a hansom cab or catch a train and so one of your first tasks once you hit the London streets is to hail a cab. Here you confront one of the strangest things - the cabbie is not familiar with anything other than street names. But before you rush out and buy up all the London A-Z guides the only roads I needed were Buckingham Palace Road (for Victoria Station) and Baker Street. To catch a train you will need to go to the appropriate railway station and find the correct platform. You may be surprised to find steam trains running around the underground which takes you from Victoria to Kings Cross to catch a train to Leatherhead! I'm sure Melbourne House have researched all this and found it authentic - but what a surprise. Movement through houses and around Leatherhead is greatly facilitated by use of the arrow keys.

Time passes as in real life when in a cab or train which can be profitably used conversing with Watson or examining objects. Of course, being an impatient reviewer I just WAITed... This method of accelerating the passage of time can be disorientating since other characters in the adventure do not stop carrying out their actions. Each independent character will act in a manner befitting his/her personality and will vary each time you play Sherlock. The literature even suggests a crass approach to a suspect or witness may not elicit a response.

Playing the adventure has you in the sitting room around breakfast-time, where you sit with Dr. Watson, surrounded by the paraphernalia that marks the place as their abode - pipe rack, charts, diagrams, oil lamp, sofa and acid stained table. You sit and talk to Watson for about 10 minutes but it is only when you open the plain door that he decides to spill the beans on what's been engrossing him. It's an article in the Daily Chronicle. Two close friends, Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Jones, were murdered last night in separate incidents although apparently with the same weapon. The crimes took place in Leatherhead. Inspector Giles Lestrade from Scotland Yard has taken an interest in the case and will be going to the scene this morning.

It's reasonably straightforward to get out of the house and into Baker Street. In the street you are told that to the north lies the front door. Baker Street is a north-south street but since I don't live in London I won't push the point. GET IN CAB seems in order once I've hailed one but it really is some measure of how pedantic this game is if I tell you that this order brings the reply 'I see no cab that you can get' yet GET INTO CAB brings the most welcome 'You get into the hansom cab'. Isn't a game getting too sophisticated for its own good when it appears so unfriendly as to be unable to accept either IN or INTO in this instance? For that matter what's so wrong with ENTER?

If The Hobbit set new standards in its time for graphics then surely this adventure does the same for descriptions. These are so copious the game more resembles a novel than an adventure game. Here is the comparatively terse description of your cab journey:

'You talk to the cabbie. You are travelling the streets of London in a hansom cab, the sun shines through the windows onto your face. You can see a hansom cab. In the hansom cab there is a cabbie.'

Notice the clinical end which typifies many descriptions in the game. This clinical behaviour is also seen if you EXAMINE ALL where 'You cannot examine me' and 'You cannot examine Watson' appear in the bottom part of the screen! The examine reports mostly consist of the nauseatingly honest 'You examine the oil lamp. You see an oil lamp.' Here again you just get that inkling that the game's too big for its boots.

As in The Hobbit you must be careful with long scrolling descriptions where a key depression which you thought to be your next input is taken to be a signal to carry on with the scrolling. By the way, about that cab journey, try and be a dishonest Holmes and dodge your fare.

After the cab comes the Underground which, like the railway trains, appear to be free - or did I just miss the ticket office? While I'm with money; during a slack time I counted my money. I had five dollars and 7/6. So Sherlock Holmes was just another American tourist! Back to the railway and you must note that Kings Cross is the terminus for Leatherhead but what I can't tell you is how to get onto the trains. Half the trouble at this stage is getting on a train that comes in without it immediately pulling out on you. Very infuriating. 'You see a steam train. In the steam train is Inspector Lestrade.' At last I've actually managed to get to Kings Cross before he's left for Leatherhead - should have a super long and informative discussion of the case on the journey with him. But No! What's this!

'Inspector Lestrade with a surprised look on his face, says "Well, Holmes fancy seeing you here." The train pulls out of the station.' This program was just designed to annoy me.

Although the game clearly has a lot to offer there are one or two niggles. The silent key entry is as error prone as you might expect after being wooed by all those sophisticated beeps and buzzes that are liberally activated in most modern adventures these days. That bane of all illiterate code pushers - the spelling mistake, raises its conspicuous head, and then there's that enigma; why is Mrs. Brown's house dark at 1.53 p.m.?

Sherlock is an incredibly sophisticated program. The most impressive feature is the convincing way in which the leading characters go about their interrogations and how these can be followed up with meaningful discussion between the protagonists. The unfriendly language is no worse than with The Hobbit and the word matching this entails will be good for the endless articles and help pages which will necessarily ensue. The game can make you feel faintly ridiculous when, after typing in a suitably long and complex sentence, you are greeted with 'I do not understand the word murder.'

Difficulty: Difficult but playable
Graphics: Not many, average
Presentation: Black on white. Poor on colour TV
Response: Fast
Special Features: Interactive characters

Sherlock the so-called sequel to The Hobbit is with us at last. I say 'so-called' because in actual content there's little resemblance between Middle Earth fantasy of The Hobbit and the Victorian setting of Sherlock.

Again, Sherlock is an adventure which has yet to be beaten. It's based (of course) around the famous series of books and follows the detail of the Sherlock Holmes mystery stories quite accurately.

The Melbourne House team, headed by Hobbit programmer Phillip Mitchell, has made a good use of detail and the overall effect is most realistic. From taking a Hansom cab or train from Baker Street (Sherlock Holmes never walked unless he had to), to paying for everything in pounds, shillings and pence, one's taken realistically back to the Victorian streets and submerged in a really impressive adventure setting.

Presumably sheer size and realism have taken their toll of available memory, so the result is simpler than The Hobbit, though not by much. Sherlock also boasts Animtalk and Inglish. Animtalk is a development that allows the player to converse and instruct the other characters in the adventure - including the amiable Watson, the baffled Inspector Lestrade and a host of 'nasties' (from the humblest housebreaker to... no, that would be telling.)

Inglish is a more significant development. It allows you to talk to the characters and control Holmes in a language that's far closer to plain English than has previously been achieved with Spectrum adventures. A sentence like 'pick up the note and take the lamp out of the house', or 'open the window quietly with the large stick' will be happily accepted and acted upon by the computer.

Is Sherlock as good as The Hobbit? I'd say yes and possibly (though further playing would reinforce this) even a little better.

BRILLIANT HOLMES!

Memory: 48K
Price: £14.95

The great Holmes would no doubt have been appalled by the sensationalism accorded to his powers by the new Melbourne House game, but the company has produced an adventure in Sherlock to rival The Hobbit in terms of atmosphere and sophistication. The most striking feature is the way in which the characterisation has been developed. Hobbit fans will recall how characters had a habit of wandering off in all directions or sitting on the ground and singing about gold.

In Sherlock you can not only talk to other characters, of whom there are at least thirteen, and ask them to do things for you, but you can also interrogate them and even discuss the case. For example, saying to Watson "Tell me about the gun" may or may not elicit information, whereas a sentence such as "Watson killed the Major" will, even if addressed to nobody in particular, register with other characters in the same location who may alter their actions accordingly.

That, coupled with the Melbourne House use of Inglish whereby the player's input is not limited to nouns and verbs but includes natural sentences such as "Quickly open the front door, go through the door and immediately hail a cab", ensures a high degree of realism. It is unnerving to have other characters, notably Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard, asking you questions such as "Well Holmes, have you any evidence to prove Watson killed Major Ffoulkes yet?" based on what you said earlier in the game.

The game itself opens in Holmes'study in Baker Street, with Watson seated in an armchair with the daily newspaper. It is up to you to discover what the case is about, and throughout the game, as in The Hobbit, you will need to use other characters to help you. Without wishing to give anything away, we can warn you the crime is fiendish, and the plot very complicated. We twice thought we had solved the crime after many hours playing, only to discover a new piece of evidence which blew each theory to pieces.

There are few of the logic problems whereby you need a specific object to continue to new locations, but plenty of evidence is lying about to be pieced together. As in the original stories, Holmes not only has to worry about solving the crime, but also saving the innocent, as the bumbling and self-satisfied Lestrade - beautifully portrayed - rapidly makes up his own mind as to who is guilty.

Thus the game is also a race against time, and a clock is provided on screen showing the time of day to the nearest minute. That is of the utmost importance not only as a guide to how well you are doing but also for catching trains on time. Since there is no train timetable provided, you will have to find out the schedule for yourself. Do not be surprised if your first few attempts are spent wandering around Victorian London; you will have to use the Underground system and hansom cabs very efficiently in order to be at the right place at the right time.

The graphics are not up to Hobbit standard. They occupy only a small section of the screen - about a quarter - but given that limitation are pleasing to the eye.

We also discovered the odd bug in the program. At one point a previously impeccably polite cabbie said "You bloody snob. Don't ever try to get into my cab again", whereupon the program printed out a long list of locations, and promptly crashed. On the other hand, probably deliberately, when night fell and we suggested to Watson that he go to sleep, the faithful old coot replied: "Brilliant, Holmes". He even tried to climb into Holmes' armchair when Holmes was sitting in it. Conan Doyle would have turned in his grave.

Melbourne house say in the instructions that the game cannot be guaranteed bug-free, because of the enormous number of possible events involved with character interaction. That did not seem to put people off The Hobbit, and the discovery of new Hobbitbugs became a minor growth industry in its own right. Since we can probably expect similar cries of delight from the hackers over Sherlock, perhaps Melbourne House should be given the benefit of the doubt.

Familiarity with the Sherlock Holmes stories will help you play the game, although not as directly as a knowledge of Tolkien helps solve The Hobbit. In particular, you should remember that Holmes never unravelled a case by deduction alone, but had great powers of observation. You cannot solve the mystery without the aid of the police, but you will need to strike out on your own account to improve on their performance. The police are also capable of obliterating the evidence, so make sure you see what you need to see early on. Then you can start checking the various suspects' alibis and begin to draw conclusions.

Although there it no book with the game as in the case of The Hobbit, the instruction booklet contains a few clues in the form of examples to help you start. At £14.95 Sherlock cannot be considered cheap, but on the other hand it did take 18 months to develop, and has finally been released six months later than expected. The wait has been worthwhile.

C64/128, £14.95cs
Spectrum, £14.95cs

A rather older game is Sherlock from Melbourne House. When first released this adventure, with its real-time puzzles and strong detective element, was way ahead of its time. It still plays well and offers considerable challenge as you attempt to solve a murder mystery, catch trains, and find your way about a murky, misty London town. Only available on C64 and Spectrum, however.

NOT SO ELEMENTARY!

My copy of Sherlock arrived before the instruction booklet was ready and I found it frustratingly difficult to do anything worthwhile. After spending more than two hours before I succeeded in leaving the first room, I found I could not progress much further without consulting Melbourne House. The problem was not what to do, but how to phrase it.

Sherlock, like its predecessor The Hobbit, features Inglish - MH's name its multi-word input implementation. Unfortunately, Inglish is not like what English is spoke! When the instruction booklet finally arrived, it was very clear about the language required, and anyone about to embark upon Sherlock should read booklet very carefully before commencing the game.

Even then, they will not discover how to exit the first room - OPEN MY DOOR or OPEN YOUR DOOR will do the trick, but not OPEN DOOR, OPEN THE DOOR, or OPEN SITTING ROOM DOOR. There are other glaring inadequacies in Inglish. For example, in a room with two armchairs, SIT DOWN gives "I do not know the verb DOWN SIT", and GET UP is similarly converted to UP GET.

OK - that's the tortuous input covered, what about the output? There's little doubt in my mind that the dreaded Hobbit-bug will soon be a thing of the past! The trend will be towards the more advanced, state-of-the-art Sherlock-bugs!

There is a phrase or two that will set the cabbie off in a complete circle around London for a couple of hours, constantly repeating the phrase "Well, are we goin' anywhere guv'nor?" There are also some blindness bugs, as in the kitchen which, if you try to examine, elicits the response "I see no kitchen". Sherlock even has a half-letter-delete bug. When this appears, you should abandon the command and enter it again in full.

These frustrating features spoil an otherwise excellent mystery Adventure. Although its opening sequences strongly remind me of The Curse of Crowley Manor, what follows is quite different. If you do the right things, you will learn that a double murder has been committed and you, as Sherlock, must solve it.

The murder hunt takes you out of town into the sticks and this is where, by taking action appropriate to a super-sleuth, you can come by much useful information. Lestrade will allow you to witness his scene-of-the-crime activities and you can listen in on his cross-examination of the suspects. But of course, being Holmes, you will no doubt decide to wander off the straight and narrow and carry out a more detailed investigation of your own!

On screen, the game performs well when it fails to crash or be obtuse. A split screen is arranged so that conversation scrolls below a band displaying the time. The narrative is to the left of the graphics (if any, for not all locations have a picture) and these scroll above the band. The graphics are speedy, but nondesript to the point of being superfluous. Far better to have dispensed with them altogether and made the program more intelligent.

The interesting thing is the display of the time in the separating band and this puts the game almost in a class of its own (not quite, though, for it has been done before - notably in Pettigrew's Diary.)

The game commences at 08.00 am and, should you decide you have a train to catch, you'll need to make sure you're at the station before it leaves! If you fail to move fast enough, then time will tick away and Lestrade will catch it without you, leaving you high and dry!

I get the feeling that Melbourne House, with Sherlock, is trying to do an Infocom without requiring the use of a disc system. Infocom games have full sentence input, using a system called Interlogic and it works well. Inglish doesn't quite make it.

My overall impression of Sherlock is of an intriguing and absorbing game written for the wrong machine by someone who doesn't speak the vernacular. A game featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson should a least recognise and preferably understand the word ELEMENTARY. Otherwise, there is just no answer Watson's occasional admiring words: "That is brilliant, Holmes!"

Sherlock Holmes is 48k Spectrum from Melbourne House, priced £14.95.

IDEAL HOLMES

The world's most famous detective made his first appearance 100 years ago in a magazine story called 'A Scandal in Bohemia'. Today, he lives on in the form of a computer adventure from those Wizards of Oz, Melbourne House,

Evening was falling over Baker Street and Sherlock Holmes and I, as was our habitual wont at this time of day, were smoking our pipes and reading the evening newspaper.

"Great news, Watson!" said my friend. tapping his pipe out on my knee, while simultaneously measuring out a "fix" of cocaine.

"The game's afoot, Holmes?" I replied hopefully - for life in our Baker Street lodgings had, of late, been dull indeed.

"The game, old friend; replied he, "is more than a foot. It's ahead!"

I laughed - somewhat dutifully. I confess, since I had not the faintest idea what he was talking about and feared that the evil drug already coursing through his veins was rendering him incoherent.

"Ahead of what'?" I ventured, eyeing the revolver on the nearby table and wondering if I could possibly get to it before he did.

"Of the competition, dear boy!" replied my friend. "See, it is here, in the newspaper. Melbourne has struck again!"

I replied that I did not know the gentleman, adding that I presumed it was yet another alias adopted by our old adversary, Professor Moriarty.

Holmes eyed me with a measure of impatience. "Sometimes. Watson, I wonder about you..." he sighed, then his gaze resumed its original piercing quality, "Melbourne, " he said, "is not Moriarty. It is a company with, I believe, Australian connexions.

"Their line of trade is the manufacture of analytical games of a questing nature, to operate in conjunction with the Babbage Analytical Engine. I realise that this is possibly new to you, but then, you, with all your sterling qualities, do not follow scientific developments as closely as I. In brief, then: the company has already scored a remarkable commercial success with a game titled, I believe, The Habit. Naturally there has been pressure upon the directors to produce what is termed a 'follow up', and here, in the Daily Chronicle, is a report on the new product. Allow me," he continued, overriding my protests, "to read it to you. If there are any unfamiliar terms I shall explain them in due course."

He picked up the Chronicle, which crackled in his steely grip. I was pleased to note that the drug-induced brightness in his eyes had given way to the old eager glitter.

"'Mellbourne's new potential blockbuster plays many of the licks and trademarks which made its predecessor so famous: real-time action, a tough and intricate plotline, sturdy if transitory graphics, and a truly enormous vocabulary made relatively easy to handle by the use of Inglish' - that's English with an 'I', Watson."

ALIMENTARY

"With an eye?" I responded feebly, for I had already found he had been correct: I barely understood a word of the report.

"Aye," he replied, and continued reading aloud.

"'The story starts with the two main protagonists in the famous Baker Street sitting room. They are reading the Daily Chronicle. News in the paper of a murder in Leatherhead sets the famed pair off on the scent, by hansom to Victoria Station. In taking up the quest for the murderer(s) they are once again up against Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard.'"

"The same Lestrade?" I asked, astonished.

"The same," he replied, and continued to read. "Getting Watson to read the paper is difficult, as the old boy seems almost paralytic with stupidity' - I beg you, Watson, allow me to continue - 'but perseverance brings its own reward and soon you find yourself in the street.'"

"The bounder who wrote this calumny will find himself in the street fast enough once I get through with him!" I roared, for I was incandescent with rage.

Holmes smiled thinly and continued to read.

"'Use of the Animtalk technique allows the player to give instructions to other characters in the game, a method first pioneered in its predecessor. However, asking Watson to, for example, pay the cabbie produces the usual dim-witted non-response and in the end you have to pay the man yourself.'"

"By God - " I raved, stamping in fury at this unmitigated libel.

"At least the old codger doesn't hang around singing of gold - a small mercy but welcome enough.'"

At this point I snatched the paper from my hawk-featured friend and read it myself.

"As Hohnes, you will find yourself extraordinarily lazy. You never walk anywhere it seems, but stick to trains and cabs - in keeping with the great detective's naturally indolent character." Holmes frowned, but already I was feeling slightly mollified.

"'Moreover, real time passes, kept track of - poor English there, Holmes, I fancy - 'by a digital clock on the screen. Incidentally, Typing the word NO produces what is colloquially known as a "crash".'"

There was a long pause. Downstairs, there was a thunder of crockery as Mrs Hudson, dead drunk as usual, fell over while bringing up our suppers.

"Was that what the writer means by a crash?" I asked timidly, for Holmes was apparently in a trance.

"Eh? What? No!" replied my friend.

"Then what does he mean? And what is the other word digital?" But there was no reply from the Best and Wisest Man I Have Ever Known.

So after some minutes of silence I refilled my pipe from the Persian Slipper and sat down at the desk to compose a letter to my solicitor.

Conan Doyle.

SHERLOCK IS HERE!

The White Wizard was rudely awoken the other morning by an ill-mannered dwarf clutching a small parcel, which contained - No! It cannot be! It is! The legendary Sherlock from Melbourne House has finally arrived. Drop wand, grab Spectrum, and here we go...

You are in your sitting room. There is no graphic display because, to tell the truth, there aren't many graphics in the game - just the occasional 'illustration'. Watson is sitting in his armchair.

You attempt to follow Watson's example, but the program tells you that it can't see a chair for you to sit in. You enter 'armchair', your entry is accepted, and you settle down bra nap.

At this point, Watson usually pipes up with a story from the paper he's reading. It appears that a couple of ladies in Leatherhead have been rubbed out by a mysterious villain and the police are baffled. Sherlock Holmes to the rescue!

Yes, it looks as if Melbourne House have done it again. Sherlock is an excellent adventure, bursting with atmosphere, challenge, and inventiveness. It's extremely difficult to solve, but the joy of it is that there is enough scope within the game for the player to enjoy failing in his quest almost as much as succeeding. Take getting to Leatherhead for example. To reach your destination you'll have to first get a cab, then a train - and make sure it's the right one! Otherwise you could end up at Aldersgate, Victoria, or even Paddington. And of course, you'll have to have enough money to pay your fare.

What's more, everything in the game, including travelling, takes just as long to do as it would in real life - and in the case of travelling to Leatherhead that's quite a time, believe me. You can however speed up the passage of time by typing WAIT or WAIT UNTIL followed by a particular time.

Because Sherlock is so complex, it takes some time to get used to. This is particularly the case with minor actions, like getting in and out of trains for example. The program won't understand 'Get into train' or 'Board train' - you have to 'Climb into train'. You also have to climb into your armchair (not your chair, please note) and be similarly energetic about getting into cabs.

Once you've got the hang of it you can talk to other characters, but in a more comprehensive fashion than in any other game. Not only can you tell them to do things, but you can also ask them questions about what they know, and even tell them things about the case you're working on if you feel the information would be valuable to them. All the characters are entirely independent of you and play a much more active role in other games.

It has to be said that this degree of complexity has its drawbacks. All too often you'll ask a character to 'Tell me about so-and-so' and the character will reply 'I'm afraid I can't help you with that'. Watson also has a strange habit of telling you how brilliant you are when you merely happen to be passing the time of day with him.

One intriguing feature mentioned in earlier publicity by Melbourne House was the ability to send notes to other characters. This has unfortunately been left out of the finished program, but the new methods of communication outlined above are still very impressive.

The game comes with a 20 page booklet of instructions and a train-timetable. The vocabulary is claimed to be in the region of 800 words and you can enter complex instructions using commas and full stops up to 128 characters long.

Yes, the White Wizard can heartily recommend Sherlock. This is a complex adventure that will challenge you, frustrate you, and reward you for long after you've bought it. What's more, unlike The Hobbit, it doesn't matter a jot if you've read the Sherlock Holmes stories or not. For once, here's a game that was really worth waiting for.

The much awaited Melbourne House adventure finally arrives and, yes, it's certainly up to Hobbit standards.

A number of ideas have been added to the basic format of The Hobbit, the most helpful being the fact that you can actually ask questions of other characters in the game, although I did still tend to get a lot of 'You talk to Watson' comebacks. The graphics are drawn in the same way as their previous adventures and could be a lot better.

The plot is lust as complex as its predecessor and is bound to have adventure lovers in knots for ages.

Well worth the delay, Sherlock is a classic adventure in the Melbourne House tradition.

MARTYN SMITH

I'm afraid this sleuthing lark isn't as good as it sounds. Presentation-wise I expected this to be similar to The Hobbit by the same company. In some ways it is similar, with the adventure and communication window, the use of INGLISH and character independence, but Sherlock falls far short of my expectations.

For example, the graphics take up only one quarter of the screen and are not very detailed. Being unfamiliar with London I found it difficult exploring the city and its surrounding areas.

RICHARD BONIFACE

A SEVEN PERCENT SOLUTION?

John Fraser gets on the track of the world's greatest detective.

Melbourne House has acquired a formidable reputation as the publisher of some of the most innovative adventures around. Now, after 15 months work, Philip Mitchell and his team have finally completed their most ambitious game yet, a graphic adventure which recreates the world of fiction's most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock utilises much the same techniques that made The Hobbit such a success: real-time action, interactive characters and a vocabulary so large that one can communicate with them in ordinary English sentences. As if that wasn't enough, it's also possible to discuss matters with the characters and even argue with their conclusions.

The object of the game is to solve a number of murders and this involves visiting the scenes of the crimes, interrogating suspects and generally doing everything that Holmes himself would have done.

This is far from easy, so you'll need to familiarise yourself with the instruction booklet which is a mine of information on just about everything from the Inglish language to London Transport. There is also a sheet depicting fragments of train timetables which, as you will soon discover, is particularly useful.

At the start of the game a full screen of text describes your Baker Street lodgings in detail. Holmes (that's you) and Watson are sitting there one Monday morning when Watson reads a report of a murder in the Daily Chronicle. In fact two murders have been committed, both apparently with the same weapon but in separate incidents, and Inspector Lestrade is to go to the scene that morning.

Extracting this information out of Watson can be difficult and he delights in making sarcastic comments such as: "This is brilliant Holmes. I don't know how you do it." The first time I played, I got fed up with him and went off on my own. I returned later to see whether he had changed his mind but found a note saying he had gone to see his patients and wasn't available. Another time he stubbornly refused to join me at all and the screen filled with: Watson remarks, "Sorry, I cannot do that now."

When Watson did finally decide to follow me I was faced with having to use London Transport. In keeping with Holmes' lazy character, I travelled either by train or hansom cab. Sometimes the cabbie appeared to be deaf and kept asking me where I wanted to go, even when I told him. Then if I didn't pay the correct fare he would become exceedingly agitated. If I didn't pay at all he would hurl abuse but take no further action. At the other extreme you do get change when you pay too much.

I was also constantly missing trains; they seemed to arrive and depart without allowing me to get on. Eventually when I did manage to get on one, I realised I had no idea where I was going. It later transpired that I had been standing on the wrong platform. Still, I suppose I shouldn't really complain as the trains appear to be free.

As in The Hobbit events proceed in real-time. A real-time clock is displayed throughout the game and you can even instruct the computer to wait until a specific time. This has the effect of speeding time up but does not prevent the other characters going about their business. As in real life, day turns to night or I supposed to, though I have found myself riding along in a cab at midnight with the sun shining on my face.

While it's not too difficult to find you way to the scene of the crime it is possible to lose Inspector Lestrade just as you can lose Thorin in The Hobbit. More than once I ended up wandering aimlessly along winding paths or being shot by one of the suspects as I went on my way.

The Inglish language first made its appearance in The Hobbit and in Sherlock, the vocabulary is around 800 words, which enables some quite complex sentences to be used, as long as you observe a few simple rules.

As Sherlock features 'animtalk' you can tell the other characters what you would like them to do, although since they remain independent they won't necessarily cooperate. The 'say to' format is used, though you only have to type in 'say to' once at the start of a conversation as opposed to repeating the phrase each time as in The Hobbit. You can ask anyone about anything using the command, 'Tell me about...' For example: Say to Watson, "Tell me about the pistol."

Unlike The Hobbit there is no Help facility, so you have to depend entirely on your own initiative to solve the case. However, there is a Print command which sends the contents of the adventure window to the printer and this is useful as it enables you to record your progress and go over events at your leisure.

The screen presentation is excellent. The graphics appear in a small window to the right, while the text scrolls alongside. At the bottom of the screen is the communications window where you type in your instructions and this scrolls independently. Sherlock's graphics were created by Russell Comte of Mugsy fame but are less detailed. Nevertheless, they are quite adequate.

With a little more crash-proofing Sherlock should appeal to the most discerning adventurer. If its success is anything like that of The Hobbit (and there is every reason to believe it will be) we can no doubt expect the inevitable flood of articles and help columns devoted to assisting budding Holmes.

Sophisticated, rich in atmosphere and amazingly detailed, Sherlock is a game which no Spectrum owner will want to be without. Not only do the characters react to your inputs but they also react to the behaviour of others, which means that the problems are slightly different each time you play the game.

If you're looking for something different from the usual fantasy or space adventures then why not try your hand at Sherlock. I suspect even Holmes himself would have difficulty solving this one.

AS THE CHRISTMAS SOFTWARE GOES ON SALE SPECTRUM OWNERS ARE SPOILED FOR CHOICE.

Melbourne House have done it again. Their new adventure game, Sherlock, is as exciting, as intriguing, and as puzzling as The Hobbit.

The game begins at Baker Street, with Sherlock Holmes and Watson sitting in armchairs. Somewhere there is a mystery to be solved, but what that mystery is, and where the clues can be found must be discovered by the player.

Like Thorin in The Hobbit, Watson can prove to be a help, a hindrance or just plain annoying. You can discuss matters with him, but his response of "Brilliant" to simple statements of Holmes is an uncritical response and of little help. It is also possible to talk to many other characters in the game. Without talking to a cab driver you will never be able to leave Baker Street, and without questioning the witnesses in detail you have little hope of solving the crime.

Timing is of vital importance in this game. It is not possible to just sit down and wait for things to happen. The clock on the screen shows the passing of time, which passes at the same speed whether you are travelling, sleeping or working. While you remain still the other characters are moving quickly. Watson has patients to visit, Lestrade of Scotland Yard has work to do. Even more importantly, the police cannot be expected to leave murdered bodies lying in the garden indefinitely, and may tidy them away before you arrive on the scene of the crime. Also, it must be remembered that Sherlock Holmes is not part of the establishment, and nobody is prepared to wait for him to solve the crimes. As soon as Lestrade feels he has solved the crimes satisfactorily the game will end, no matter how much of the game you have completed.

An infuriating aspect of many adventures is that you occasionally know exactly what you want to do, but cannot find the correct words with which to convince the computer of your intentions. Melbourne House have overcome this problem. After all, detectives often know what they want to discover, but have to find exactly the right questions to ask suspects or witnesses. It is possible to feel that your problems are due not to your computer's stupidity but to your inept questioning and the criminal's skill.

Sherlock is produced for the 48K Spectrum by Melbourne House, Church Yard, Tring, Hertfordshire and costs £14.95.

The successor to the number one classic, The Hobbit. The game was released after eighteen months of development, six months later than expected. Drawing heavily on the concepts of Inglish and character interaction pioneered in the earlier game, Sherlock takes things further by introducing a wide variety of characters and increased sophistication of commands.

The game requires you to unravel a typically intricate mystery complete with plenty of incident detail to create an atmosphere faithful to the original Sherlock Holmes stories. Despite poor graphics the game is tremendous fun and sure to gain a permanent place in the hearts of adventure gamers.

Position 24/50

SOFTWARE SCENE

While some software houses are taking the Spectrum to its limits and beyond others doggedly continue to churn out ever more diabolical pieces of programmed junk. John Gilbert present a personal pick of the bunch, and Chris Bourne take an irreverent look at the dwindling ZX-81 software scene. Their talents are combinedd in listing the Top Ten Turkeys of 1984. Let the reader be warned.

SPECTRUM SOFTWARE

A cynic may argue that development within the software market in 1984 was non-existent. The same type of game appeared as those which took the lead in 1983, the most popular being of the arcade variety. The programs were written in the same style and to please the same type of customers.

That is only a superficial view, however, and if you look at the games market as a whole, dividing it up into sectors such as strategy, arcade and adventure, you will see that substantial and sophisticated changes have taken place. Despite what some pundits have said you will find that the world of computer games is still buzzing with life.

£14.95
Melbourne House

Text-only adventures were not forgotten by software companies during the year in which Level 9 Computing converted its classic adventures to run on the Spectrum and produced one of its best programs, Lords of Time, which won several rave reviews.

The successor to the Melbourne House classic The Hobbit was released in September. Sherlock uses a format similar to The Hobbit though only few locations are shown graphically.

The game casts you in the role of the famous detective and with your faithful and infuriating side-kick Dr Watson, you must solve a series of mysteries in order to crack a murder case.

Characters within the adventure can be questioned, the evidence is there if you can find it and the atmosphere of Conan Doyle's Victorian world can be felt from the moment the game was loaded. It is bound to become as great a classic as The Hobbit which, incidentally, was written by the same team of programmers.