Label: Celerysoft, Slough House, Bishops Nympton, South Moulton, North Devon EX36 4NZ
Price: £4.50
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Gary Rook

Crom, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting him, is an expletive. Conan the Barbarian tends to call upon the services of Crom when in trouble or perplexed by something which is, basically, all the time.

But in this package, Celerysoft has nicked the name for the barbarian hero of their four-part text-only adventure game.

Anyway, I'm sure you can imagine the sort of thing that's going on here: 'and lo, Crom the Barbarian, mighty warrior, was wrecked upon the shores of a strange land, cast naked and alone upon the sand. And he didst gird his loins and go forth to do battle against the evil ones and the ones who were almost as bad, and to he did win (on about the fiftieth attempt).

Crom is big. We're talking a two-tape, four-Load package. Each time you load in one of the four parts, you have to type in a code - yes even at the beginning! The code at the start of the game is an easy one, especially as Celerysoft gives it to you in the cassette insert. Come to think of it, it'd be pretty stupid if they didn't, wouldn't it? Presumably, it's some sort of anti-copying device.

It's a standard text-only adventure, with all the usual trimmings that we have come to expect of such things. There's little point running through what you are going to- meet in Crom as, firstly, they are the sort of items and locations that you will find in a hundred other adventures, and, secondly, as I haven't been able to finish part one, I haven't seen anything of part two let alone three and four, so I'd be giving you a very limited picture.

While the text isn't up to Infocom standards, say. or Level 9, it is still pretty good. Puzzles, likewise. Put it all together, and you have a very big, very competent adventure that is likely to absorb a lot of adventuring time.