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The object of the game is to beat Brian Jacks (ex-world judo champion) in a series of eight physically demanding events which will test your strength and stamina. This is great, as long as you want to build up muscles in your fingertips!

All eight events (swimming, canoeing, archery, cycling, 100 metres, squat-thrusts, arm dips and football) involve the player challenging Brian Jacks.

The entry screen allows you to choose either keyboard or joysticks and whether to have sound effects. Using the keyboard can be a tiring experience for your fingers, though. The control keys vary according to the event, buy generally the Z and X keys are used, usually to provide strength for your alterego - fast, alternating pressure will increase your power.

After each event the screen returns to a title page that gives your present score against Jacks. The screen doesn't tell you though what event comes next and, as the key-hitting strategy changes for different events, you can be left feeling a bit bewildered.

The sound effects are limited and this seems to be an area that has been ignored. However, if you have the Acorn speech chip the BBC will speak, but not very well! This speech isn't mentioned anywhere in the package and it's hardly surprising. The programmer has added with minimal thought, a countdown (3-2-1) and about three other words. In the darts event for instance a hit on target produces the encouraging word "good" from Kenneth Kendall. A miss, however, makes the machine emit "must" - presumably the nearest word to "miss"!

The graphics are reasonable, though not outstanding. There is a good sense of the athlete's movement in some of the events, especially the squat-thrusts, but here more than any other event the keyboard movements are awkward and very tiring. If you have a higher score than Jacks after compleitng eight events, you go through to the next level to challenge him at the same events but at a greater level of difficulty.

The game held little interest for me and required no thought whatsoever. As for my fingers, they've never been so strong!

Jeremy Vine