Veil of Darkness - US Gold RRP œ34.99
               (Point and click adventure for PC)

                   Reviewed by Janice Charnley

While flying your old plane over the Carpathian Mountains during a
thunder storm, your windscreen is shattered by vampire bats,
causing you to crash-land. You are whisked away from the wreckage
and taken to a village where time seems to have stood still. On
recovering, you discover you are staying in the house of Kirill
and his daughter, Dierdre. Kirill gives you your first task and,
to complete it, you must first talk to the villagers and discover
their nasty secrets. When your first task is completed, you
receive a scroll which prophesies that you will defeat the Dark
Lord. It also tells you what needs to be done before you can do
away with him.

At first you are confined to a few locations in the village but,
as the villagers mention other areas, these appear on your
on-screen map, and you can quickly travel there by clicking on it.
For the mazes, there is an auto-mapping function, which is a great
help as it shows areas that you have already searched. Throughout
the game you need to pick up objects which can be used for healing
yourself, for trading for silver coins, or fighting the many weird
creatures in this strange land.

The game is very involved and, after an uncertain start, I became
hooked on it!