King's Keep

Firebird
£1.99

'Oh no!' thought I, as T-zer handed me yet another £1.99 game to review. What did I do wrong? Have I upset our bleached bombshell, I wonder? Maybe she got out of the wrong side of the coffin this morning? And yes, I was right - the plot of this particular game is almost as original as one of the Ed's jokes!

You play the son of a heartless King who's locked you up inside the keep because he reckons you're far too soft on the revolting peasants - ugh. And guess what you have to do - yep, get out. I told you this was original. Though this one is slightly different in that instead of being hindered by nasty creatures great and small, you must make your escape by solving puzzles a la Mikro-Gen's Three Weeks in Paradise. You know the kind of thing - find the old man's necklace and the sheet of music that accompanies the lyre. All entertaining stuff.

To begin with I found game control extremely strange. As you jump you can still move left and right, which in a lot of cases is the only way you can get out of some areas, even it you do look ridiculous prancing about like Prince. Nonetheless, King's Keep is very playable - easy to get into and slightly more taxing on the old grey matter than the usual run-of-the-mill cheapie shoot 'em ups. You wont even be able to explore some of the locations unless you've warped, sorry wrapped, your brain round particular puzzles.

It's not the greatest game in the world and it probably won't be a chart-busting success but if you've got two quid dangling about in the depths of your pocket and you fancy a bit of fun, you could do a lot worse than shelling out for Kings Keep.