Product Reviews

The demise of the Zodiac may have dealt a bit of a blow to Palm OS as a gaming platform, but new titles are still being released. Zane Games' Edge is a fantasy role-playing game in the tried and tested mould, which is far from a criticism: this is good, solid hack-and-slash fun that harks back to the golden age of computer gaming.

The game kicks off with creating a character, where you choose from three different races and four classes, and assign a handful of points to various statistics such as strength, intellect and dexterity. A nice

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touch is the ability to tweak your character's appearance, too, although at the size he or she is portrayed in the game you'd be hard pressed to spot the differences.

Edge gives a 2D isometric view of the world, much like the PC game Diablo. It bears more than a passing resemblance to this classic, too. Your character's wellbeing is measured in health and mana points, and movement is handled by tapping the screen to point to where you want to walk to, though you can use the four-way pad too. Although the small screen no doubt helps, Edge also looks extremely sharp, and it's clear that a large amount of time and effort has been spent making the game look good.

If there's a downside to Edge, it's that it's rather hard to get started, and you'll need to hunt down some weapons and armour before attempting to take on any of the wandering nasties. The Edge website has a few tips, though, and it's certainly worth persevering past the few early levels to get into the game proper. From here on in you're sent on a variety of quests that mix combat and puzzles and should have you glued to your handheld's screen for hours