The Famous Five 1

Crash

Presentation 75%

Graphics 73%

Sound N/A

Playability 79%

Addictivity 80%

Overall 78%

Mark Caswell 80%

Nick Roberts 76%

Enigma Variations £11.99, £14.99 SAM Coupe Gosh! Aren't adventures fun! Yes! They certainly are if you're a fan of Enid Blyton. Based on her books the Coupe's first adventure follows the antics of Julian, Dick, Anne, George (short for Georgina) and Timmy the dog (give me strength!) on their hols in the seaside village of Kirrin. You start off the game as Julian, the eldest, on a train waiting to be greeted by Aunt Fanny at the station. It's programmed in Worldscape which allows many characters and lets them interact with each other. You can change the control of the adventure to any of the Famous Five mob, except for Timmy, because he's a dog. The ability to change character makes the game far more complex; different people can see different things when they examine objects. If you don't use the correct character you could miss a vitally important clue. The screen is divided into two windows, the top one gives the descriptions of each location (in Blyton speak) along with graphics, if there are any, and the bottom is your input window. The thought of adventuring around an island as the Famous Five may not be very appealing to all you butch shoot-'em-up wizards out there, but I really enjoyed the game and I'm no sissy! it took a bit of play to get into because the vocabulary is limited. However, you do get somewhere eventually and then you just can't put it down! The adventure is set at just the right difficulty and should suit players of all ages... as long as they can read. Accompanying graphics to some of the locations are really quite good, although they don;t use the Coupe's graphical capabilities to the full. Five On A Treasure Island makes an excellent introduction to computer adventures for the younger players and will also provide the more experienced with a challenging task or two. NICK 76%