No bowling ball's on shelves this time around.

Stranded 2.5 is the sequel to Bob Smith's 'marble-maze-puzzle-em-up' reviewed in RGCD #02. I must admit, I wasn't a big fan of the original, as puzzle games in general really don't do it for me. Or at least, they didn't until I was given this game to review.

As regards to story, Bob Smith has previously stated that he dislikes adding a story element to his games and as such there's nothing in the way of story accompanying the demo. However, it wouldn't hurt to give the game a bit of background to flesh it out and provide some immersion.

The presentation is flawless, with the menu screen offering options galore. A sorely missed oversight from the original Stranded was a practice mode, which is now present and correct and all but essential for this type of game. As well as great presentation, Stranded 2.5 is immediately accessible and your goal soon becomes clear upon loading the first level.

Like the original, your objective is simple; remove all the tiles in a level by stepping over them until they crumble away into the ether. Building upon the core concept, new game-play mechanics have been added that improve on the original. Progressively destructive and rotating 'conveyor belt' tiles must now be taken into consideration, together with switches that must be activated in order to progress.

There really is a sense of tension involved as you come to one of the conveyor belt tiles only to find it pointing towards doom. Precious seconds are consumed while you wait for the tile to go through it's motions and point you towards victory. All the while you're aware that one wrong move and the level is ruined.

An abundance of exits, but which one will lead to victory?

The graphics and animation have had a welcome makeover. While the game could be described as 'a sequel and a half' it's the new 2.5D perspective that lends itself to the game's title, giving the game a much more substantial appearance and providing the protagonist with added character. An onscreen timer gives a visual clue of the amount of time you *haven't* got left and pausing the game sees your character take a much deserved nap. A clever feature of the original blacked the screen out upon pausing which prevented players from getting a sneaky look at the level before committing to a route. This feature is sadly missing from the sequel, with the full level now visible upon pausing. In turn, this makes the inclusion of a timer somewhat redundant.

On the audio front, Lee Du-Caine has scored an excellent soundtrack that perfectly complements the game (the composer has since released a free MP3 album of the game's soundtrack at http://www.ubiktune.org). While the full soundtrack is only available to 128K users, Spectrum 48K owners are also catered for in the audio department with the inclusion of a couple of extra sound effects not present in the 128K version. Its little details like this that go a long way to ensure that Stranded 2.5 really sets the bar for what fans should expect from a commercially released game. The difficulty curve of this eight level demo is fiendish enough, so the full game should keep you going for quite a while. In short, while the puzzle genre won't appeal to everyone, Stranded 2.5 is highly recommended.