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TALOS stomps across the pleasant pastures of rural England to recover the Crown of Eternity, and restore balance to nature or some such nonsense. All the little furry squirrels and chirpy grasshoppers are going bananas, and the old battle robot is the last chance of stopping the rot.


Trouble is, Talos has been dismembered and lies scattered in seven pieces. You start with just the great metal hand, and must find the other bits to reassemble yourself before finally getting the crown.

The screen shows fields surrounded by fences, and the occasional stretch of road - there are over 200 such screens, fairly spacious, in which the rabid creatures appear. Your main problem is running out of energy, which can be restored by collecting coins, candles, and parts of your body.

You get a magnet which you can drop and which activates the compass, bottom right of the screen. It is a useful marker if you find part of your body but, alas, not one which will link up with what you have already.

Talos is a highly competent maze game, though not exactly original. The monsters are not much of a problem, and you can usually ignore them if you move swiftly enough. More important and difficult is the business of finding all the various bits and pieces. Some only appear after others have been found.

What is fun is the way the robot changes each time a new part is added. It provides a good incentive to find the next piece, and we expect you will be clamouring for infinite lives POKEs before very long.


Publisher Silversoft Price £7.95
Memory 48K Joystick Sinclair, Kempston
****

Chris Bourne

TALOS
Silversoft / £7.95

Dougie: The usual old twaddle of a storyline - but the game's not bad if you're into Ultimate-type clones.
The story goes like this ... the Crown of Destiny (You know the one. Ed.) has been stolen and locked up in an impenetrable vault (and if this game tells you it's impenetrable, you'd better believe it!). Of course, the only way to get the crown back is to call in the help of Talos, the invincible robot. Trouble is, all that's left of the old boy is his hand - so the hand sets off to find the rest of its body ... and no dirty laughs, we're talking arms', 'legs' and a 'torso' here.
There are loads of locations - definitely one to map!
As for the action, the hand must first find its arm, then the torso, and then the rest of the bits and pieces. Once the hand's become a full-blown arm, it does present a larger target for all the murderous creatures, such as grasshoppers, sheep, birds and tortoises, that explode out of the ether in true Ultimate-style.
Apart from the occasional signpost pointing the way, there's very little on- screen to get your bearings from.
A candle burns away in the corner of the screen, waxing and waning with your fortune; however, until you've had a lot of practice, be prepared to snuff it.
All in all, very much like an Ultimate game - but then using one terrific game as a model for another never did JSW any harm. I, for one, would be prepared to give a big hand to Talos. 8/10
Ross: You've got to hand it to them - this may remind you of Sabre Wulf but it's still up there in the addictiveness stakes. 7/10
Rick: You won't catch me forking out an arm and a leg for this one, but it's still worth casting an eye over if just for the neat graphics. 5/10