LUNAR adventure awaits anyone brave enough to accompany the infamous Sloane Ranger, Charlemagne Fotheringham-Grunes, on his mission to save the earth.

Odin's Nodes of Yesod is startlingly similar in theme to Quicksilva's Bugaboo but there the similarity ends.

You play the part of the intrepid Charlie who has to search the caverns of the moon for a monolith, which scientists believe is used to transmit coded messages through space.

On docking, your best bet is to find a friendly mole who will be of considerable help later on in the game. Moles are able to gnaw through some cavern walls, opening up larger areas for exploration. For some unknown reason, Charlie keeps the mole in the helmet of his space suit.

Dropping through one of the many craters, Charlie descends to a world inhabited by many wonderful alien types. Fish swim quite happily in zero gravity, firebirds and walking limes stalk the cavern floors - all of which will send you reeling. Dancing teddybears decrease your energy, but the mole can be sent to kill them.

Dressed in a space suit, Charlie is able to somersault from platform to platform as he makes his way through the caverns. The graphic detail is excellent.

Eight alchiems unidentifiable objects - must be picked up if you are to find the monolith which is cunningly hidden.

A grid at the bottom of the screen keeps count of alchiems collected, energy levels and has a real time clock. If your energy gets too low you may have to sit down for a rest.

One alien in a red pressure suit must be avoided at all costs - he cannot be killed. As soon as you have found an alchiem he will be along to steal it.

Control of movement when switching from Charlie to the mole is simple and animation is smooth - except when two bears land on the same spot, when they flicker wildly.

The game more than makes up for the reams of waffling prose, spelling mistakes and lack of story on the cassette inlay. What are Rhodendendrons anyway? Despite that, Nodes of Yesod is definitely worth adding to your library of games.

BAD TASTE carried to extremes is the concept of the first release from Triple Six, an ominous name if ever there was one.

Hell is a 50 screen maze, garish and full of cute little animated scenes of torture. Heads explode in gouts of red as spikes crush them. Bodies are stretched on racks, decaying faces are sawn into pieces.

The walls are composed of the bodies of the damned, or fiery pits, and the whole vile picture is set against a background of sound which can best be described as a sinister squelching, like somebody walking in squeaky shoes over pieces of raw liver.

The game is difficult and addictive, but there are no great ideas and programming involved. Spiders pursue you with webs, and other nasties hurl missiles at you.

The quest involves finding seven giant crucifixes culminating in a friendly chat with Beelzebub. For all their horror, the graphics are very much based on the UDG format, with a certain amount of flicker.

Buy it for the sicko humour rather than the game, and you'll not be disappointed.

THE TASK is hardly run of the mill and graphics hardly sophisticated in this drain of a game from Taskset.

Your objective is to keep the pipeline open. No holes or gaps must appear in it and it would be more than your job is worth if water escaped and did not run into the barrels below the pipe.

As foreman Fred you have two helpers who will hammer any hole closed. But first you must collect them and lead them to the leak. Obstacles include evil insects, intent on chewing you to death, and various power tools which have wills of their own.

Despite the awful graphics the player will also be disappointed with the playability of the game - worse than the original arcade version. The graphics could have been at least as colourful, even allowing for the Spectrum screen restrictions.

Super Pipeline II is like Jaws II, all packaging and no bite.

"LORD of the silken bowstring," said Scheherazade, "I'm sick of telling stories. Let's play a computer game instead." And so the great Sultan plugged in his gold-plated Spectrum.

"Aha!" quoth the Sultan. "Tis a tale of the rogue Imrahil and his quest to rescue Anitra from the evil Saladin."

And so the mighty Sultan settled down and began to guide the pale, flickering Imrahil about the screen of his bejewelled Sony.

"See my lord," murmured Scheherazade, "here is the ship of Sinbad, full of gold. Each bag is marked with a letter, and the letters spell out the sigil ARABIAN. Collect the gold and enrich thyself with points beyond measure."

But the Sultan grew angry, for he found it most difficult to spell Arabian. There were three As in it, and which was which, and what was what, and why? Lives did he lose as the night progressed, jumping from deck to deck and mast to mast, avoiding the hazards of Sinbad's ship. And the couscous sat heavy on his bowels.

Then Scheherazade of the nimble wrist took the diamante joystick and showed her master how to negotiate the first screen, and then it was straight down the river by raft to the caverns of Al-Khemizd.

"More gold!" roared the Sultan, and straightway began collecting the bags again. Meanwhile Scheherazade tiptoed out to play much more exciting state-of-the-art stuff with her friends in the village, and was never called upon to serve the Sultan again.

Which teaches us, O children of the desert, that even the simplest of level and ladders games may provide a few hours of escape from the rigours of the harem.

HEY MAN, this is really far out. It's so far out I can't see the point of it.

The latest craze from Llamasoft is called Psychedelia. The author describes it as a computer toy.

You could hardly call Psychedelia a game. All it does is create random, pretty, patterns which you can program and save onto tape. Pressing keys on the keyboard will have one of three effects. You can either change the characters which make up the patterns, change their colours or the overall flow of the patterns.

If you want to produce your own patterns the program presents you with one cursor block on the screen. You can change the block into one of the pre-defined character shapes, set the visual synthesiser to record mode and press the keys to control the direction of the whirls, lines, circles and diamonds.

Llamasoft has launched the product into the wrong market. Instead of being on the shelves of high street shops it should be running advertising matter in their windows. The program does allow text to be run with the graphics, so the product would be ideal for visual advertising.

The light synthesiser is an interesting idea, probably generated because Jeff Minter of Llamasoft had run out of things to do with camels, goats and llamas. It is the sort of activity which could make you go blind - or mad. You would certainly be mad to buy it.

"PERFORM revolutionary microsurgery during this fantasy journey through the long lost monsters body. Deposit the secret formula from your especially equipped micro submarine in the bionic implants scattered throughout the body's organs."

Thus reads the ungrammatical blurb on the cassette inlay of Frankenstein 2000. Sound familiar? Don't be fooled. This game bears as much resemblance to Quicksilva's Fantastic Voyage as it does to entertainment.

In the trachea your sub has to avoid the hopping frogs; in the lungs you do battle with cigarette packets. Lurking in the stomach are undigested fried eggs and greasy bacon. What a hoot.

Your rapidly diminishing oxygen supply can be replenished by a brief shoot 'em-up after every two organs, in which you fire at rampaging oxygen molecules. Damage to your craft can only be repaired by locating spanners.

The graphics are large, coloured and uninspired. Arcade nuts will find most screens a doddle, but the infantile humour will defeat them.

As a budget game it would be average. As it is, almost any other game at the same price is better value for money. Fantastic Voyage certainly is.

THE BULGE has nothing to do with eating too much paella on your summer hols. It's all about war, as you'd expect from Lothlorien, and it's set in the Christmas of 1944, when the snow was deep all over Belgium and the Allies storming towards Berlin.

The Battle of the Bulge was Hitler's response to the rapid success achieved by the Allies after the initial D-Day landings. The plan was to blitzkrieg through the American lines, capture Antwerp, and split the allies in two.

Lothlorien's game, marketed under a new deal by Argus, simulates the campaign from either point of view, depending on your tastes. You can also play with a friend rather than against the computer.

There are two main displays, a 'global' one which shows the entire disposition of forces, and the battle map, a large scrolling area where orders are given and units moved. The essence of the game is to set appropriate long range objectives for main units and then adjust to send reinforcements to particular areas.

Terrain and weather are taken into account, and everything is real-time, which leaves room for little error. The Germans must punch through as fast as they can, while the allies must bolster the tattered lines.

The display is clear, if not particularly artistic, with UDG-style terrain and units. Movement is by positioning a cursor, and then pressing SPACE. Information is given on the unit's status and then you can issue orders to move it.

The Bulge begs comparison with the excellent Arnhem from CCS. The game is not quite so friendly to play, but gives as good a feel for the problems of the campaign. It might be improved with better sound effects, and clearer indications of when pieces have been moved or not, as it is possible to cancel an order without realising it.

That said, The Bulge is a good hard fight. It is fast and accurate, and a welcome addition to the new breed of computer wargames.

LET'S DO the Time Warp again and enter the mansion of Dr Frank 'n' Furter.

So here's the plot. Your beloved Janet, or Brad - depending on whether you're male, female, or just don't care - has been pushed into the Medusa machine, the evil doctor's ready-made cement mixer. Your job is to find the 15 missing pieces of the De-Medusa machine.

The bits are scattered in a few rooms around the two storey mansion and you can pick only one at a time. You then carry it onto the stage and fit it into the machine's flashing frame.

The rooms contain laser beams, yin and yang symbols, magic mushrooms and hypodermic syringes, so be careful. You will also have weird characters with which to contend.

There's Riff Raff, the manic depressive butler who serves electrifying experiences. Magenta will take off all your clothes. Is that the ultimate computer experience or a cheap thrill?

The other characters include a groupie, Columbia; Rocky Horror, a Furter creation who appears in odd places; and biker Eddie, whose bag is deep freezes.

Some characters will kill you immediately while others have comments to make about life and death.

The animation has not been handled as well as it could have been. If several characters are moving on screen the action is slowed down.

If you enjoyed the film and want to play a better than average take-off then CRL will be in your favour. I found it weirdly addictive.

PROFESSOR Indiana Smith is no relation of the famous Spielberg archaeologist but he does get into the same sort of trouble.

His exploits are featured in a trilogy of games under the title Saimazoom. He starts his adventures in a jungle, probably 'somewhere in Africa', where he is after some rare and exotic specimens. Some archaeologist! He does not know what he is after or what his finds are until he gets them back to base camp and he has no map.

Luckily, he can pick up guns, axes and canoes scattered around the place. There are 100 square screens, or miles, to be travelled within the game and the journey involves river crossings, monster attacks, and even a spot of GBH on local jungle shrines.

You can get to the shrines using keys which you have found. Just insert one into a lock and you will be teleported to another location.

The unlikely scenario, ease of play and wimp monsters make the game suitable only for those who have not touched a computer or laid eyes on an arcade game.