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Ghosts 'N Goblins has been the inspiration for some terrible crimes in the world of computer software, and I'm afraid this is another one. Let's get right down to the brass tacks straight away, shall we?

Good Points: Nifty sound effects, a bit different from the usual bangs and zaps; pretty graphics; three difficult levels; reasonably slick presentation.

Bad Points: Utterly execrable animation, featuring the worst jumping and ladder-climbing I've seen in a very long time; slow gameplay; baddies that seem to appear out of the ether, even from somewhere that you've just visited which was quite definitely a baddie-free zone; hundreds of unavoidable 'appearing-from-nowhere' traps (my pet hate in arcade games); quite spectacular lack of imagination in all areas of plot and game design; huge amounts of dull trekking around in what it later (much later) transpires was entirely the wrong direction(s), not that there was any way of guessing beforehand; enemies that need to be shot a dozen times before they die - even the cannon-fodder ones; teeth-grindingly infuriating smug message at game-over time; everything else.

Though superficially classy-looking, Ghost Battle is an utterly tedious game, and a real bind to play more than twice in any given 24-hour period. The game's cover blurb says it all, really - "Thalion, sometimes it's frightening."

Boring, boring, boring. Everything that's wrong with full-price Amiga software in one handy package. (Except the sound.) There isn't a person alive who couldn't find a better use for £25 than this.