Beyond the Arcade must be a title to appeal to Adventure fans, who can usually be relied on to have an interest in most games requiring thought and strategy, as opposed to fast reactions and manual dexterity.

By Nicholas Palmer, the book starts off with a useful discussion of the characteristics of most current popular micros from the gamer's point of view. This takes into account the software available, graphics capability and so on. If you are about to buy a computer, and unashamedly admit that it's mainly for gaming, then here's a useful comparison.

The book then takes the reader through the whole range of strategy games, from Adventures, through war and resource games, to play by mail games. In fact, almost half the book is devoted to the latter and it's the most complete rundown on the subject I have come across.

Pure Adventurers, though, should peruse it before buying, as not an awful lot of it is about Adventure games.

Beyond the Arcade, by Nicholas Palmer, is from Mosaic Publishing, priced £6.95.

NOT MUCH VISIBLE BEYOND THE COVER

AUTHOR: Nicky Palmer
PUBLISHER: John Wiley & Sons/Mosaic Publishing
PRICE: £6.95

Nicky Palmer is a very well-known name in war-gaming circles as an author, editor, contributor and critic as well as a games designer. It is therefore with a certain amount of respect that one approaches this latest volume from Mosaic Publishing.

Beyond the Arcade is subtitled Adventures and Wargames on Your Computer. It is a 150-page book covering the subjects that you would expect, given the title. With a noticeably strong bias towards the American computers like the Atari, Apple, PET and iBM, half the book is devoted to a rather critical overview of available adventures.

When Palmer decides to venture into the ground held by British computers, he concentrates on the Spectrum, with the Dragon gaining an honourable mention.

Adventures like The Hobbit are looked at - he says that "it seems unlikely that this is quite the start of the new age of adventuring that the designers would have us believe," and then goes on to say, "a stronger candidate for the New Age is Valhalla."

Adventures are covered rather sketchily - I couldn't, for instance, find any reference, except in the Appendix, to Infocom, or anywhere to Scott Adams, surely necessary candidates for inclusion in a round-up of adventures? There is passing reference to techniques, but really nothing from which a novice would gain.

There is also a very short chapter which gives a few hints on how to market your own adventure.

After a few rather uneasy pages devoted to adventures, Palmer eventually works his way round to wargames, and here he is on much firmer ground. The discussion quickly gives way to a look at Play-By-Mail Computer-moderated Games, and this takes up half of the book.

All the old favourites take a bow in this section of the book Keys of Bled, Starlord and Starweb among others, and they are all accorded much more space than many of the adventures seen in the first part of the book.

Here the novice PBM'er will find plenty of advice on playing these complex games. There follows advice on setting up your own PBM game (advice of the "buy a magazine and get an idea of what is offered by other people" variety).

£6.95 is a very high price to pay for this book - it's a nice afternoon's read, but is too basic for the experienced computer wargame player, and not basic enough for the tyro. Palmer, I believe, wanted to write a detailed volume about Play-By-Mail games, and was pressured into including Computer Adventures to pander to the current vogue. Thus the book falls between two stools, and ends up offering nothing new to anyone.