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Having watched a couple of episodes of The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole on television I was not quite sure what to expect when I was asked to review this program. The first thing I noticed was the glossy cassette inlay sheet which unfolded to four times its original size. A third of the sheet is a scene setter giving a potted history of Adrian Mole. Most of the rest is instructions for loading and saving game positions.

The object of the game is to make Adrian Mole as popular as possible over a twelve month period. The program has a colossal 200K of text and consequently it is necessary for each month to be loaded separately.

The game is essentially a graphics and multiple choice adventure where you, Adrian Mole, are given a choice of three possible courses of action to any given situation. To assist your decision a "Help" key can be pressed which will allow you to ask for details on the various characters Adrian comes across.

At ood intervals, a score is displayed together with a description of Adrian's current status ("Lowly creep" for instance). Adrian's status will rise or fall depending upon the success of your responses to the multiple-choice questions. It should be mentioned at this point that the obvious decisions are not necessarily the best as they can backfire with some surprising consequences.

Once the game is loaded, a split-screen appears with the top half displaying framed pictures of fairly simple, but colourful objects, with relate to some degree to the text that scrolls below. The clever and witty text bears a remarkable resemblance to the style found in the popular television series and does an excellent job at making you live the part of Adrian. Beyond the text, I found the game floundered a little, with a slightly shallow plot. I also would have liked more personal involvement during the course of the game. At times I felt I was reading a book rather than playing an adventure.

To sum up, I believe the strength of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole is the text and if you are a Mole fan you will enjoy the game for this alone. If you are not a Mole fan you may find it lacking in variety and the multiple choice element somewhat restrictive.

One final comment, the cassette version takes forever and a day to load all twelve sections required to complete the game and accordingly, I would strongly advise the purchase of the disc version if you have a disc system.

David Glew