RIGHT. There's this planet popping out of a black hole somewhere and, as you might be in similar circumstances, it's unstable. Rotten to the core, in fact. So Blob, the Bio-Logically, Operated Being - groan - is sent out to repair the core before it blows up.

All of which is a rather thin excuse for 500 screens of Ultimate-style mayhem as Blob battles a colourful mob of inventive nasties - giant fleas, small spiky birds, who cares as long as they're fast and deadly? - while collecting the various bits needed.

Starquake is not just an Underwurlde clone. There's a profusion of special features to suss out. A teleport system is of great use in moving swiftly from one set of caverns to another, but you have to know the codename of the appropriate teleport. Blob has a set of little platforms which he can use like a ladder and there is a number of flying pads about. But ... you can't use a teleport if you have a pad, and you can only leave a pad where a pad should be left, so life gets hairy.

Add to that the ubiquitous credit card which gives you access to various doors and special swapshop pyramids where you can exchange objects, and there's a bewildering variety of strategies to explore to win.

The graphics are of the highest quality - fast, flicker free and attractively detailed. The ingredients needed to repair the core vary from game to game so it's always a challenge. Fortunately there are extra lives available so you can get your head down for a long game once you gain a little cavern-credibility. We love it, and if Ultimate hadn't done most of it yonks ago we'd have given it a Classic. Buy and enjoy.

EVER WANTED to be a crazy inventor, building amazing contraptions to boil eggs or toss pancakes?

It's been a well-loved theme for centuries, culminating in those wonderful illustrations by Heath Robinson for the Professor Branestawm books. Now Software Farm, previously associated with hires ZX-81 games, has transferred the whole idea to the Spectrum.

Potty Professor isn't really a game at all, in the conventional sense. You are given six problems to solve, and a variety of objects to build a machine which will do the job. By way of example, the first problem is to flush a toilet, using a dog, cat, bucket, watering-can, one ton weight, seesaw, balloon, blowtorch and tongs.

A cursor selects objects and moves them around the screen. When you think you have a workable machine, you press a button to set it going and watch the results. If you are not successful the contraption falls apart.

Objects can be used two or three times in a machine, and some won't be needed at all - they are there to confuse you. You should experiment by seeing what small combinations of objects do to each other.

The animations are well-done within fairly crude cartoon limits. Outstanding is the steam engine used in the egg-frying problem, which puffs and shudders most convincingly. There are a few problems with the way some objects connect, graphically speaking, but that is inevitable.

It's a super idea for a program, marred only by the fact that once you have solved the six problems there is not much else you can do. Although the problems are extremely difficult, the program has a limited playing life. Mind you, you'll probably want to show the inventions to your friends anyway.

Had the game included an option to design your own machines, which would have given it unlimited playability, it might have achieved a higher star rating. As it is, Potty Professor is still well worth buying for it's originality and sheer good humour. It's certainly a fine omen for future Software Farm productions.

RUPERT has been left behind by his pals, who have gone off for a taste of ginger beer and cream buns at the Toymaker's party.

Ravenous beast that he is, Rupert just has to get to all that food and you can help him past the guards and into the castle where the party is held. Just guide him through the eight levels, picking up the invitations which his friends have left behind to guide him on his way. When you have picked up all the invitations on one level, you can move through to the next.

Each level consists of four linked screens, which in turn have three floors. You can jump on barrels, potted plants and staircases to move up to new floors. If one of the soldiers or birds collides with you, Rupert will be forced down to the ground level again.

In each section of the castle you have a limited number of lives which Quicksilva has decided to call Tumbles. The number you have will depend upon the level of difficulty. If you run out of tumbles you will be abruptly marched off the screen by a soldier. Disgraceful!

Rupert must be starving if he insists on being submitted to the gruelling tests of the Toymaker's castle. Why won't the guards let him into the castle? Has he collected enough invitations? Where is he putting them all? Why is a grown-up playing this game? Those are not the sort of questions which young children will ask and Rupert is a game for the kids.

They might find that it is almost impossible to get off the third screen, or that the graphics are fairly simple, but that might not bother them.

The game is a disappointment, I used to be an avid Rupert fan and his appearance in this game is not how I remember him.

CAN DALEY THOMPSON keep up the pace of Decathlon with his new Super-Test?

There are eight new events with all but one requiring the agonizing bashing technique of successive key pressing or rapid left and right joystick movement for building and maintaining speed.

Events such as cycling, pistol shooting, rowing, goal scoring and tug o' war are straightforward, while others - spring board diving, ski jump and slalom - require speed and additional co-ordination.

With the ski jump Daley descends the slope, takes off near the edge and lands safely. All three movements are controlled by you. In the diving event his take-off height, number of somersaults achieved and entry into the water are again your domain.

The format remains the same as Decathlon in that scores and qualifying times are displayed, but there are no stamina plus energy-sapping combinations, like the 400 metres, and only one event has an 'angleometer'.

The graphics are large, clear and colourful. Great care has been taken to create an environment allowing you to enjoy watching and playing. For instance, the ski jump scene is split into three windows, one showing a close-up side view of Daley on the slope while the other two show side and elevated views of the course.

Both sides of the cassette have been filled, which makes it very reasonably priced.

THE COBRA'S huge engines moan into life as you sit tensely at the controls waiting to be shot out of the space station.

Your ship is the best of the medium-range, medium capacity, fighter traders and is ideal for transporting legal and illegal cargoes across the universe. It incorporates defensive screens, pulse lasers and missile launch facilities, while also being able to handle the jump to hyperspace.

Once you have cleared the Coriolis space station, orbiting around the planet Lave, you can look out into space, turning your 3D display window to look at the star fields.

Space travel can be achieved with small spurts of engine power or hyperspace, but only if aliens or police are not in the vicinity. If they are you must stand and fight. At the bottom of the screen you will find the flight grid scanner which displays other space ships or stations in your area. It is by using that, and the compass located on the right side of the screen, that you can track aliens.

You will know when the enemy approaches as everything is shown in gory graphic glory. The craft grows from a speck to a shape which is barely recognisable. Then it grows bigger until you can identify it as one of the 10 ships in the game. Those include Adders, Mambas, Pythons and the deadly Thargoid invasion ships.

Each has its distinctive shape which is illustrated in the bulky, but indispensible, Space Traders Flight Training Manual. If you miss it with your lasers or missiles it will approach quickly, trying to keep out of your sight, and either spin past you or fire its weapons systems.

The authors have built range factors into the laser systems so that you cannot, for instance, use them to destroy a ship which is small and hundreds of light years away.

In some ways Elite can be described as a simulation. You are piloting a space vehicle which will only take so much stress and strain and steering is more complex than in most space games. You can even become disorientated and have to rely on your instruments if you bank too sharply.

The aliens will not sit still while you target your weapons and you will find that on many occasions you must control your ship's movement as well as operating the lasers or missile guidance system. You should be careful, too, not to over-compensate on the controls. Such action can send you into a wild spin.

The alien ships react in a believable manner. If hit hard enough they will not explode into nothing but break up. You can pick up the odd piece of cargo in that way, but beware the larger debris.

Fighting the forces of law and evil in space is only part of the game. You must earn a living, by buying and selling commodities from different planetary systems.

Home in on the planet of your choice, using the long range scanner, and ask for a report on inhabitants, the political climate and products.

The political climate is important and can influence trading links and attitudes. If you warp into a system where anarchy prevails you will soon find pirate ships on your tail. Goods are there for the taking.

To get to a particular planetary system, you must switch your display to the long range scanner, position the cursor over the planet of your choice which is within range - and press the hyperdrive activation key. You will, however, only get to a new system if you have destroyed all the aliens in the current sector.

When you arrive at a planet you can look at the list of available commodities. They include shipboard resources such as fuel, textiles, food and even illegal substances. If you decide to traffic in black market goods you will be regarded as an outlaw.

Elite is an unbelievably complex game with arcade, strategy and adventure elements. It will, inevitably, be compared with games such as Starion from Melbourne House. The graphics on both games are similar, but Elite has the edge with its 3D control panel, instruments which are constantly updated, and denser star field.

When you are not playing the game you can read the novel included in the package. The Dark Wheel by Robert Holdstock, a noted science fiction writer, develops the background to the game.

Take up the challenge. You are unlikely to find another space game of Elite's calibre this year.

IF YOU DON'T like spiders, don't buy Maze Craze. If you're not mad about mazes, you may not love it either. If, on the other hand, your idea of bliss is to squash six-legged beasties while rushing round Hampton Court, then Maze Craze is what you've been waiting for.

The mazes are all contained on a single screen, and you must paint the whole maze yellow while collecting a set number of different butterflies. The mazes and butterflies vary from game to game so there's none of your 'how-to-get-past-the-first-screen' nonsense here.

The butterflies hatch out of eggs laid by various creepy-crawlies which are deadly in themselves, so you'll have to be careful. There are also monstrous beetles which eat up your yellow paint. Respite comes in the form of special mazes, which you enter when running over frogs and bugs - there seem to be be at least half a dozen of those which can add to your bonus points.

The graphics are blocky and simple on a white background - a pleasant experience to the aching eyes of a hard-pressed reviewer, though hardly state-of-the-art. What the graphics lack, however, is well made up in intelligent gameplay, so that the mazes do represent a genuine if increasingly difficult challenge.

Maze Craze is a good, unpretentious game, with plenty of extra lives to enable you to play for some time, and lots of challenge. Just the right sort of refreshment after a couple of months of high-powered arcade-adenture mega-quests to keep good game-players on the straight and narrow.

MONOLITH'S Rockford's Riot is the sequel to Beyond's Boulder Dash, featuring the same stick-like, foot-tapping character.

Guide Rockford around a boulder-strewn maze and pick up as many jewels as the diamond-crazed little chap can hold. Boulders hang precariously and the lightest touch will send them tumbling and crashing.

There are 16 caverns - each progressively more difficult. Getting past the deadly fireflies on the first level is no easy task and working out how to activate an enchanted wall may make you run off screaming. Luckily the demo mode gives a clue.

Butterflies and deadly amoeba feature in later stages. You can use the boulders to block off passageways, turn the butterflies into diamonds or merely squash them.

As in Boulder Dash, movement is smooth although scrolling is very jerky and the graphics are basic. The game takes a while to reset when a life is lost and that becomes frustrating.

Having said that, there are some very real problems to overcome.

Rockford's Riot is packaged - in a ludicrous vertical box crowned by a luminous disc - with Boulder Dash, so you see exactly how similar both games are.

HERE'S an oddity - a throwback to Dictator and all those games where you decide how much food to give the peasants and how much land to cultivate and how much longer to play.

Evil Crown is set in mediaeval England, and you have to extend your fame and prosperity as one of those wicked barons of old. Everything's driven by icons.

The main part involves assigning areas of land to be cultivated, setting taxes, deciding what to pay the king to avoid providing soldiers for his risky wars and setting aside a sum for the annual tournament.

Once that's over, you get the hunt, where a beast moves across the screen. You don't get to kill it, you watch instead. Lucky beast.

Then there's the tournament, a real lulu. The two knights thunder down with the sort of stunted sound effects you might expect. Meanwhile you're trying to keep your lance tip on a red shield which leaps about a picture of a knight. Unfortunately you're just as likely to lose anyway - and that goes for the rest of the game. Although our pre-production copy had a bug on the joystick menu, which Argus swears will be fixed, the rest of the game is said to be complete.

If that's the case, then it's also virtually unplayable. Peasants revolt and land disappears for no obvious reason. No matter how much you spend on your, militia, you always seem to lose the battles.

We rang Argus to see what we were doing wrong. After getting some tips, we set taxes and the rest at the recommended rates and out we went again.

Evil Crown really ought to be a good, witty game with lots of detail. Instead it's dull, constructed and ultimately worthless.

FIREBIRD kicks off its new Super Silver range with another Alien 8 lookalike, Chimera. You play a little robot sent to investigate what the Americans reckon is a Russian satellite. Instead it turns out to be - well, you'll have to complete the map to see the ghostly truth.

The idea is to blow up the ship by constructing warheads and priming them in the correct rooms. Your water and food supply provide limits to the game, as well as a straight time limit. Fortunately you can replenish the former two with mugs of liquid or nutritious loaves of bread, but watch out - you may need to use those objects for other purposes so guzzle with discretion.

Mapping is vital, as the game contains a great deal of strategy, and to .succeed requires careful planning of routes. The similarity to the Ultimate games rests on the 3D graphics and movement of the robot, but it falls short of allowing you to jump or move objects around, except by carrying them.

Hazards include radiators, eggtimers and electric toasters. It's a very domestic environment, but they're all deadly unless you have the right equipment to destroy them. Luckily there are computer terminals around which will give you clues, but use them sparingly - they are scarce.

Although not up to the highest standard of the Ultimate games, Chimera does represent terrific value for money, and those who enjoy these maze-quest arcade-adventures should not hesitate to fork out the pennies for an excellent addition to the genre.

MAGIC MEANS mystery and computers can make it even more baffling.

If you do not have a friend who belongs to the Magic Circle, then Magic could put you on the illusory road to stardom. The package contains a booklet, showing the history of magic with some tricks, and all the software you need to produce a show.

When you load the package make sure that you do not have a joystick interface connected to your computer. The rehearsal part of the game will not work if a joystick is connected, although the instruction booklet does not reveal that problem.

You are then asked for a password. The reason for that, so the publisher says, is to stop unauthorised entry to your arcane secrets. The code, however, is so easy to crack that it's laughable and I'm sure you could guess what it is by the time you finish reading this review.

Once through the code you must enter your stage name. I use 'Gilbo' as the computer will only allow you to enter a short name.

You are then confronted with a screen offering Tricks, Sequence and Show. The first option displays a series of nine tricks including 'Magic Birthday,' 'Think of a Card' and 'Total Bemusement.' First you should view the instructions, then look at the tips for presentation and go to rehearsal.

The sequence option on the menu is used to put a show together. All the tricks are listed on a sub-menu together with three pieces of music which can be played between performances.

At last, your chance at stardom arrives. You have practised all the tricks, prepared your patter and rehearsed until your eyes hurt. You press the star key and the computer announces you: Welcome to the Gilbo Magic Show.

It's le crunch time as the curtain sweeps back and your first trick appears. Your audience sits before the computer as you take them through the first trick. At least you can't drop a clanger by dropping your props.

The applause - you hope - covers the music but you are too keyed up to notice and go on to your next trick.

Soon the show is over, the curtain closes and That's All Folks' appears on the screen.

You've either made it or blown it but, either way, you will have enjoyed Magic. The tricks incorporated with the package could be presented in a book but the computer has the advantage of allowing you to see the trick performed and to be able to rehearse it in front of an electronic audience.

Although the tricks in the software package are simple and self-working they are just as surprising in their denouement as some of the more difficult illusions shown in the accompanying book. If you are interested in the practical side of magic you will enjoy this offering.