Bob,
Firstly thank you for your welcome and secondly it seems to have fixed the matter as I went on the game and played it for five minutes with no problems. So a big thank you as I was getting a tad worried.
Right to be a tad worried, as a system driver can cause the real-time protection we depend on against malware to not work properly, or not at all. (aswsynx.sys is an avast! system driver).
BTW, either here or in the Avast! Free/Pro/Suite section is appropriate to post when asking for help. You got virus? System won't start or boot? Then go to viruses and worms for that.