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'Quo Vadis, games-player?' I asked. 'To the Circus Maximus,' he replied, for the chariot races.'

A wise citizen, for this game. from a company I've not heard of before, is full of excitement and pleasure.

Chariot racing, as anyone who's seen 'Ben Hur' knows, is not so gentlemanly as motor racing. The object is not only to go as fast as possible, but also to smash as many of your opponents as you can.

In keeping with the game's classical setting, the two players are sinister and dexter rather than left and right. Each controls a chariot which is seen from above. The team consists of four horses gnashing at their bits.

The players have simple controls for slow and fast, left and right. You try to draw level with a chariot and then force it into the buttresses which project from the walls at regular intervals. Alternatively, you can overtake and then try to back on to your opponent's horses. This is a very dangerous tactic and often backfires.

As if this were not difficult enough, you also have to keep up a cracking pace. Go too slowly and irate plebs will start chucking fireballs on the track; these are deadly and almost impossible to avoid.

Chariot Race is a triumph of programming on the unexpanded Vic. When you see the superb graphics and hear the thundering hooves you will believe the manufacturers when they say that here is '4.7K of machine code squeezed into the unexpanded Vic.'