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This game looks good value for money at first glance, with four different levels, some of which scroll across the screen, others which rely on 3-D update. The graphics are nice and bright, the sprites big and the scenario nothing more objectionable than the usual, 'the king is ill, you must collect his prescription from the chemists'. Of course, this particular trip to Boots is even more hazardous than visiting the East Ham High Street branch. Instead of old ladies slamming trolleys into you and kamikaze mini-cab drivers mounting the pavement, there are fire-breathing dragons, killer bats and other (bog standard) nasties.

The first level is in a Space Harrier sort of vein, the 3-D update is fine but the animation makes castle warrior's movements as convincing as those of Bod. As you charge down the corridor at an awesomely mundane pace, the idea is to dodge, avoid or just simply slash everything that gets in your way, this would be a lot more exciting, and a lot less frustrating if it wasn't for the fact that, due to the size of the sprites, only a dozen or so onscreen positions are available for your hero. The result is he escapes or is hit in jerky and awkward fashion.

The game then moves on to confront you with a beasty. Don't even try to follow your instincts and leap forward giving the offending creature a flying head-butt, you're firmly stuck to your 3D update. To kill the monsters, you have to intercept the fireballs they throw with your sword. Not exactly the stuff Indy films are made of.

Other levels involve paddling a canoe through an underground stream, but essentially this is much of the same. I get the feeling this is merely different graphics stuck over the same old machine code. The trouble with multi-games like this is well documented: the more games you get, the crappier those individual games tend to be. Castle Warrior is no exception to this, although it is at least well presented. There's also a jumping and rushing across the screen stage. This is an improvement from the constant 3-D stuff, but it would hardly make a budget game on its own. Games manufacturers are going to have to come to terms with the fact that we've all seen games like these before. Packaging them together, and even doing it well doesn't fool anybody.

If you don't have any games like this, CW isn't a bad buy, but you'd have to pretty hard up for software to splash out £25 on it. Mark Heley