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Urban Upstart is the latest creation of programmer Peter Cooke, who was responsible for some of the earlier Richard Shepherd offerings.

Like Invincible Island, Urban Upstart features split-screen graphics, over 70 locations, and come very dry humour. It's not an easy adventure to solve and is good for a few evenings' light entertainment.

At the start of the game you find yourself in a small house in Scarthorpe, the sort of town where the inhabitants dream of taking their summer holidays in Sutton Coldfield.

During the entire game you encounter only five people, none of whom are very friendly. Success depends on perseverance and a magpie's talent for collecting everything in sight.

There is a graphic representation of every location, although a number of the screens are identical, and the program responds to multi-statement commands provided they are joined together with 'and'.

Scarthorpe is indeed a depressing place to look at and the idea of escaping gets more and more attractive the further you go. After a few bouts in jail and some fruitless attempts to order fish and chips I found myself contemplating suicide on Grime Street. However, this is one of those rare adventure games where even death offers no release - you just end up in hospital!