And they all lived happily ever after!

Don't you sometimes wish when you're watching or reading Shakespeare's Hamlet, that Ophelia stays sane, Polonius minds his own beeswax, Claudius repents and Hamlet relents?

Well, now you have the chance to reconstruct Hamlet in your own image. According to a story in the Hollywood Reporter, the Pantheon company, in conjunction with Castle Rock film studio, has created a CD-ROM game version of the tragedy where you can actually make the sordid events of the Danish castle events turn out okay. The game utilizes footage from the recent Kenneth Branagh film version of the story.

Said Jean-Pierre Isbouts, the game's producer, ''Unlike the film, we tried to make it a positive game, not a tragedy. You have to try to kill Claudius, but avoid the deaths of Polonius and Ophelia ... And if you do something wrong, the army of Fortinbras descends on you - game over.'' The software, which cost $400,000 to design, was presented at the Milia multimedia market in Cannes by the French CD-ROM distributor EMME.

Hamlet: The Game includes 30 minutes of footage from the movie, 20 minutes of animated video, and 25 different games and puzzles. --By David Lefkowitz