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When they started out, Virgin Games got off to a shaky start. The software industry viewed with trepidation the idea of a record company setting up as a software house. Things were exacerbated by some of the early titles being pretty naff. Virgin soon earned itself a reputation for overpriced software.

To establish yourself in the competitive world of games software is hard enough. Virgin have gone one better and climbed out of a rut. Sorcery is the most impressive game yet written for the CPC464. The graphics are second to none and the game plays well.

The plot revolves around releasing your fellow sorcerers who have been trapped by the evil necromancer (a character you never see). Each sorcerer is trapped in a cage or behind a door of some kind. To release each one requires the use of a specific object.

Finding which object releases which sorcerer is a matter of trial and error. Some objects have other uses, such as opening doors to locked rooms or killing one or more of the varied monsters.

The pictures here show you how impressive the graphics are; the top of the screen is in mode 0 and the bottom in mode 1. The full range of colours has been used to give the image brightness, depth and shading. The turrets look round, the water wet and the doors wooden.

If any feature has been under-used, it is the sound. The game plays an excellent rendition of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, whilst displaying the title screen but the noises within the game are only good while the rest of the game is excellent.

As if producing the best game the 464 has seen wasn't enough, the programmers, known as 'the gang of five', have re-written the tape loading system so that the game loads at about twice the speed of BASIC speedwrite 1. Virgin call this system 'Flashloading'. However, this system has a major shortcoming. It won't work on all machines. This is because they expect more of the tape deck than even the CPC464 datacorder is capable of.

All in all, Sorcery is excellent value for money. It combines the problem-solving and the need to map of an adventure, with the dexterity and slickness of an arcade game. Enjoy!