Computer games answer numerous what if? questions that flit through the mind from time to time. For example, "What if I were to drive a Formula One car around Silverstone? How would I get on?" F1 Grand Prix helps you find out. Or, "What if I were able to jump several times my own height, manipulate myself into lots of pliable shapes and call upon the help of a devil cat from Hell?" Putty Squad would answer with flying colours.

Petty theft
The Clue takes a similar theoretical concept and explores how capable of committing various thieving crimes in post-war London you would be. To help realise these plans, you're put in charge of Matt Stuvysunt.

As with all criminals, you start with small crimes before graduating to the big time. To add extra intrigue to things, your story is narrated in retrospect by an older, wiser Matt. This is quite handy in that it keeps the proceedings in perspective. If you want to try the same job from an different angle, it also lets you analyse where you could have planned proceedings better.

Initially, Matt's faced with a minimal amount of choices over his actions. But as he proceeds, meets people, visits more locations, turns over various buildings, gathers more possessions and gains an overall feel for the environment he's working in, the options he can use increase. The player feels more in control of Matt's destiny, has more freedom of manoeuvre and can act accordingly.

The crux of the game lies in your ability to plan, vet and coordinate people while holding numerous variables in your head such as times of police patrols, reliability, abilities of accomplices and expected financial reward. Become accomplished at planning and the game world becomes your oyster.

The gameplay is an old fashioned adventure style point and click interface. In a way, it complements the period setting. But the graphics don't. They're flat, make minimal use of colour and due to the lack of any animation, verge on being boring.

Several other mechanisms don't quite work either. For example, it's possible to loiter at a location for as long as you want - occasionally Matt interrupts to say that he's going to 'root to the spot' or something. But it doesn't make any difference to what's going on.

Frankly my dear...
And there's a character called Frank Maleya who hangs around outside the Fat Man's Pub. If you decide to wait for 48 hours, he stays there and smokes the same cigarette. It's hardly conductive to the atmosphere.

The same thing happens with the hotel you live in. After you've paid for the first three days, no more is said about your failure to pay the cumulative bill. Strange fare indeed.

Gripes aside, The Clue piques your curiosity and engages your theoretical criminal abilities. This fast becomes addictive and you'll find yourself thinking more and more like a burglar. Whether that's a good thing or not remains to be seen.

Never having so much as paid a gas bill late in all my life. I know little about the criminal underworld. In fact, I didn't even know there was one until Panorama did something about it a couple of weeks ago. As it turns out, there are members of our community who, rather than earning an honest living as bus drivers, or coal miners, or creators of the world's mightiest computer games magazine, prefer instead to simply enter people's houses while they're out and take whatever they need. Without even paying for it.

IT PAYS
And it's just this sort of behaviour that The Clue aims to reproduce. You are Matt Stuvysunt, a young chap who's arrived in 1950s London to seek his fortune. (Or, rather, other people's). And, although you don't know much about the ins and outs of crime, you do know that burglaries are pretty tricky to pull off on your own.

So the first thing you need to do is scour the city's pubs and bars for accomplices. Various people will present themselves, and it's up to you to decide who's got the necessary skills and seems trustworthy.

In doing so, you'll come across one fellow who'll set up your first 'job' for you, suggesting a location (a news stand in a remote location) and providing a getaway car. Ideally you'll need someone to drive the car, and something to prise the till open with, but otherwise this should be pretty straightforward.

As your heists get bigger and more complicated (there are 20 buildings to infiltrate, the last being the Tower of London), you'll have to worry about alarm systems, guards, safe doors and police patrols. And even if you bag the loot and escape, you'll need to evade capture by the police, so be careful not to leave any clues, and consider having your car resprayed if it gets spotted.

SHOOTERS
Yes. This is a German game, and the translation is rather patchy. It's never impossible to understand what's going on, but the atmosphere does suffer. The user interface is pretty shambolic, too. You have to keep moving the cursor between the bottom of the screen where you click on words to perform actions, and the top of the screen, where lists of options scroll past for you to choose from - the pictures in between are purely 'decorative'.

But the bit that matters - the burglary planning bit - does actually qork quite well. Having 'cased the join' to locate alarms and things, you then go back to your hotel rooms and work through each step of your raid on a map. Everything needs to be planned, down to who'll keep lookout, who'll disable the alarms and how you'll escape afterwards. Once you've done al that, click on 'Run the plan'(or something) and your team will go into action.

It's definitely better than it appears at first sight, and certainly gets more fun the more you play, and it's undoubtedly an original idea. Refreshingly original, in fact. But... oh, I don't know. The presentation does let it down, and the taking-taxis-around-London stuff gets a bit tedious when all you really want to be doing is breaking into people's houses.

I did quite like it, but I honestly don't think I'll be playing The Clue ever again.

Burglary is a very complicated thing, far more so than you would expect. It isn't just a case of smashing a window, running around turning furniture over and grabbing whatever you can. There's a huge amount of planning involved, as I once discovered in a newsagent somewhere in Islington.

Don't worry, though, it was a long time ago. To give you some idea of how long ago it was, I had unbuttoned the middle fastener on my duffel coat, and was using the opening to stuff as many rubber dinosaurs inside as possible. Needless to say I was deservedly caught the moment I tried to leave, but that's another story altogether.

POOR SKILLS
In The Clue, you are a poor traveler with certain skills, who has managed to find their way to London in the 1950s. You already know that one of the best ways to get rich quick is through crime, and London of the 50s is a good place as any to start indulging in a little burglary.

From this modest starting point you have to collect your fortune, from ripping off small corner shops and newspaper kiosks to robbing the Bank of England, the grave of Karl Marx and eventually going for the big one - the Crown Jewels themselves. OK, so that might seem a little adventurous for an inexperienced thief with no money and no possessions, but then aren't challenges the things that games are made of?

So you start in Victoria Station, with only a little cash and no idea where to go. On entering a cab, you are told that you are the one millionth customer of the company, and are issued with a pass for free cab journeys for a whole year. Then you are dumped in Holland Street and left to your own devices.

On the corner stands a strange looking South American, smoking a cigarette and looking your way, You walk over and talk to him, and find out that his specialty is as a lookout man, and should you ever have any work to push his way, he's happy to accept.

With your head spinning, you walk into a local bar, where you find three more unusual types, including an attracting young housewife who is bored with her humdrum life, fancies something a little more exciting, and has a better than average knowledge of cars. You've done it, you've already been introduced to the fringes of the London criminal underworld.

UGLY DOGS?
Popping across the road, you book in the Ugley Dog Hotel. Realising you have no money, you give a fake address at reception, and are shown to your room, which you know is to be your base of operations for the entirety of the game. Here you can plan your robberies, call any accomplices you may need to contact and, of course, stash the loot.

On entering the room, however, you receive a phone call. A friend of a friend has a job for you, and wants to meet you in the pub across the road in fifteen minutes. You walk over and meet him and he tells you about a kiosk he wants to hit That's it - you're on your way!

Sound exciting? It really is that good, and it just gets better and better. The Clue is more than your average adventure game, taking a very interesting plot, and then spicing it up with loads of humour and some real intensity.

After spending a couple of days staking out an old people's home, another couple of days finding the right group of people to join you, and then another day working out the plan itself, right down to who is in what position at any given moment, you end up on the edge of your seat watching the robbery unfold, and then fall off your seat as you watch the police investigation into the robbery, where you find out just how careless you may have been in any of the stages.

It's a very easy game to play, as you will have found out if you've played our exclusive coverdisk this issue. A row of commands at the bottom of the screen show you exactly what you can do at any given time, and an interactive and dynamic database shows you everything you've seen and heard so far.

Although you start with nothing, in no time at all you have a wealth of information to work with, from building layouts and notes on the times when the police are likely to be around to full character profiles and access to the personal thoughts of the character you are playing.

The game looks fantastic, as you can see from these screenshots. Coming from Austria, the game doesn't paint an accurate picture of London, but more a stylised image which fits the rest of the game perfectly. That said, you will still recognise most of the major landmarks enough for their to be a real atmosphere to the game, and that's what will really keep you playing.

In a way, The Clue is a simulation of being a master criminal. I know that sounds like a strange idea, but it's one that is so original that you just can't help getting sucked into the game.

As an adventure, it throws a lot more at you than just mere puzzle solving. It can all seem a little daunting at first, but once you learn the game systems, it becomes an extremely involving and enjoyable experience.