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Just as you thought Konami had exhausted all the sports events with Track & Field and HyperSports, they've come up with a multi-event circus game. In it you control Charlie, a likeable fellow with a funny little red hat, trying not to make a fool of himself in front of his suspense-filled audience.

The first act involves him riding a furious lion to jump through a series of burning hoops. One mistake and he and the lion are burned to cinders. Occasionally, a smaller hoop with a bag of money comes along. Jump through it carefully and you get extra points. The graphics in this first event are excellent. The animation of Charlie and the lion is amazing. I can't figure out how they managed to do it.

There are altogether five events. The second is a tightrope act. The problem with this one is not keeping your balance but avoiding nasty little monkeys from pushing Charlie off by jumping over them! The brown monkeys are OK, but the purple ones can manoeuvre quickly and jump over the brown ones.

The third involves riding on a series of huge balls. Timing is all important in this event because, as with all the others, Charlie could fall off quite easily.

In the next act, a horse rides through an obstacle course. The fifth event, however, is the most difficult. It's the flying trapeze with trampolines. I can't get through this bit yet, but I shall, I shall...

Compared with the lion riding, the graphics in the trapeze event are rather jerky due to the fast movements of the background. It seems that Konami have pushed the MSX graphics to the limit.

Circus Charlie is a difficult game. I could not get through any event without coming to my last life and to me going through the entire five events with just three lives seems impossible.

Simple and playable, yet unusual. Why the British software houses can't think of an original game like this I really don't know.