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Yet again Tony Crowther and co hit us with another 'Classic' game, or so the inlay card says. Mr Crowther has been author to a fair number of good games, but it seems he may have lost his touch...

Gobots is not what I'd call a Crowther classic. It lacks the pulling power, graphical quality and other Crowtherish features which made Suicide Express, Potty Pigeon and Trap such great games.

The Gobots are machines which can transform themselves into various types of vehicle at the drop of a hat. Each one has his/her (what sex is a robot?) own type of vehicle, be it plane, tank or scooter.

Most of you probably know this already, because these characters have their own cartoon series, which I must confess I haven't actually seen.

The plot of his caper, entitled 'The Moebius Strip', is all about an evil Prof. who plans to destroy the Gobots once and for all. His plan is to capture the Gobots' human friends, and when they come looking for them, he will zap them with his new bases.

Having sent two evil henchmen out to get the humans, they return to their master with an extra gift, the powerful Gobot called Turbo who is, for the present time, out cold.

Well, to cut a very long and extremely tedious story short, the Gobots come to rescue their buddies. One gets captured and turned against his pals, and another discovers that he has the power to produce clones of himself.

Using this new found and amazingly handy skill, Leader One comes up with a plan, which goes something like this: Step one: Drop a clone into the nearest base. Step two: Watch it explode. Step three: If there are no humans around, repeat procedure - if there are, pick 'em up!

This is where you actually, at last, enter the game. Using your joystick to manoeuvre a very wobbily Leader One, you must scoop up the Scooter clones and attempt to drop them into the nearest base.

But, needless to say, it's not that easy.

Whilst you're attempting to demolish the base, attacking baddy Gobots, called Cop-ters, or something like that, will try to stop you by crashing into you.

Flying your Gobot around is really no easy task in itself, as the controls are far too sensitive, and I found myself constantly crashing into the planet.

You may also land on the surface of the planet, and there you can dig large rocks which, if you are in the mood, can be thrown at oncoming traffic.

It seems so strange that Ariola have released this, usually you get a thoroughbred from the great Ariolasoft stables, but this I'm afraid is just an old nag.