Castle Master - Incentive/Domark RRP œ24.95 (Freescape graphic adventure) Castle Master is the fourth in Incentive's series of Freescape games, the previous ones being Driller, Dark Side and Total Eclipse. Driller and Dark Side were set in space, Total Eclipse took place in a pyramid and Castle Master, not surprisingly, is set in a castle! It is the first of these games to be developed on a 16-bit machine, and in all four games the basic idea is the same; you must explore a world of solid 3D graphics, solving problems and puzzles, in order to achieve your goal. In the case of Castle Master, your goal is to rescue your brother or sister from the clutches of the evil Magister. At the start of the game, you have the choice of playing either a prince or princess. Make your selection and your rejected royal sibling is picked up in the claws of a giant bird and, legs dangling, whisked away into the forbidding castle. The game will play slightly differently according to which character you play. You start in a wilderness just outside the castle entrance. A quick walk round (using the cursor keys, keyboard, joystick or mouse - I tended to favour the cursor keys with a bit of mouse- clicking) will show that the castle is surrounded by a shark- infested moat and there is only way in ..... over a drawbridge which is inconveniently raised! In case you need some help at this early stage there is a clue in a nearby building, but entry is, in fact, pretty easy (if I can sort it out, anyone can!) So, the drawbridge drops and you scuttle in. Three exits beckon - should you go left, right or straight ahead? The forward exit looks the least promising as a heavy slab crashes rhythmically up and down across the doorway. Luckily, three movement speeds, crawl, walk and run, are provided so even that is no problem - just get in the right position, select run and - voila! The castle consists, basically, of a square building with towers at each corner and passageways connecting them. All are named (NE Tower, North Passage etc) so mapping this section is a doddle. Some doors will open if you position the mouse pointer on them and select A (A=Action); others will need keys to open them or will turn out to be bolted from the other side! There are ten keys to collect, some are found pretty easily if you don't count the fact that they are guarded by spirits who will have to be dispatched before they do you serious injury. Combat is simple (one or more well-aimed rocks from a never-ending supply thrown using the mouse pointer/button) and luckily the nasties don't move too quickly or erratically (ideal for poor arcade players!). A spirit level (groan) will show how well you are doing at ridding the castle of its ghostly inhabitants; let the level get too high and it's "farewell-press- any-key-for-another-game." Where did the spirits come from? Well, evidently, back in the past, Magister took exception to the activities of the local populace - building a castle on top of your underground home and then insulting you whenever they see you after you emerge to see what on earth the neighbours are doing is enough to give even the most mild-mannered wizard the hump - and Magister wasn't too nice to start off with. So he gate-crashed the latest party in the castle (an evil wizard appearing out of the steaming intestines of a cooked ox makes a change from scantily-clad maidens leaping out of cakes...), cast a spell and turned all the inhabitants into spirits who would guard the castle. The background to the story is explained in a long and tedious tale called The Castle Master, written by Mel Croucher. Steve Carey said in his recent ST Format review of the game that "adventurers will love it to death" - wrong! I think Mel Croucher and his close friends and family will be the only ones who find it at all enjoyable. Anyway, I digress. Apart from collecting the keys, you will also have to collect pentacles to open a vault door. Several of them are in the caverns and catacombs underneath the castle (NOT easy to map) and certain routes within the castle and catacombs are one-way (usually through you falling down a hole in the floor), so it isn't easy to find them all. The A(ction) key mentioned before will also enable you to read the hints found on pictures throughout the castle, pick up and eat food and collect treasure. It also allows you to interact with the excellent graphics as levers found can be pulled, a bellows can be pumped, a chest lid raised and so on. The rooms are very well represented and are far too numerous to list - suffice it to say that any room you would expect to find in a castle is here. The stables even have a horse in them! The ability to change your viewpoint so you can look up and down and being able to crawl also makes the game-world seem more realistic. Crawl is used to enter those inaccessible openings you find hidden in various parts of the castle and also to look under tables and similar objects where you may sometimes find something worthwhile, such as treasure or one of those elusive pentacles. After just a few hours play, I managed to make my way into the higher towers of the castle, but, again, a lot of planning to work out the best route is necessary if you have any hope of completing the game before the spirits get ya! As yet I haven't completed the game though I have a sheaf of maps and notes, several keys and pentacles and a pretty respectable score. I have enjoyed it a lot and it has encouraged me to go back to the earlier games at some date in the future. Don't dismiss Freescape games as being mere arcade-adventures as I had done in the past. Castle Master, at least, is far more than that. Sue