An interesting development: the arrival of the "budget compilation". Four games for under three quid sounds like good value for money... but is it?

Probably the best game here is Run For Gold, and even that is absolutely ancient (even pre-Zzap!). You get to 'train' two runners: one runs the 400m, the other competes in the 800m and 1,500m. You don't really train them though - just control them during races which are viewed in 3D, with your viewpoint just behind the runner.

You have to adjust the runner's pace to keep up with the computer runners but also conserve enough energy for a fast finish. In easy mode, you automatically run in your lane, unless you move left/right to change lanes.

On the harder skill level, you have to manually steer around the track bends. That's about it really: do well enough in local meets and you get to go to the big championships and attempt a world record. Fun for a while, but very limited.

Rally Driver is another old Hill MacGibbon game where you get to choose your own route through each of three rally stages, hence the printed map provided. Sometimes roads are closed due to bad weather - you are kept up to date on things whenever you stop at a time control.

Here you must also give a two-letter code, obtained from reading the special roadside boards along the way. Get it wrong and you get a 20-second penalty!

Other penalties are incurred by crashing, going off the road or hitting animals or spectators (you can beep your horn to get them to move out of the way). It all sounds good, but the first-person perspective is very slow and dull. The main difficulty is caused by over-sensitive steering - it's hard not to constantly weave around the road. This is more like drunken driving than rallying!

Another inaccurate sim is Endzone, an American Football management game which (to my cynical mind at least) looks suspiciously like a revamped football management game. All you get to do is buy and sell players, change their position (strangely, only indicated by a number) and hope for the best in the extremely dull matches - watch the clock tick and the scores mount up. Yuk!

A similarly dull match section is incorporated in the final game, Soccer Boss (previously released as The Boss by Peaksoft). Again, the players have only one overall skill rating and no preferred position either.

So strategy is limited to buying good players and, again, just hoping for the best.

All four games, then are decidedly weak - and even at the budget price, this compilation's value for money is highly dubious unless you love nostalgia.