Very rarely is it given to me to comment on a truly excellent piece of Spectrum software. Don't Buy This by Firebird is five such games. Firebird claim that these are five of the worst games ever, and all of the titles indeed live up to this lofty claim.

First comes Race Ace, an inspired title for an excellently bad game. The display is awful, the sound is terrible and the game itself is totally impossible. Any serious bad game freak will simply flip over the blocky graphics and flickery animation.

Next comes Fido, which is not quite as good as Race Ace as the display is almost passable, but the game makes up for this by being excellently boring; this is mind-numbingly boring in the traditional style. After a few hours of this, you could find watching the grass grow interesting!

Weasel Willy introduces a new style of writing for bad game programmers; that is, don't let them play the game until they have figured out how to define the keys, which takes approximately three hours and really isn't worth the effort. Still, the display is rather bad and of course, the sound is pathetic.

Firebird have introduced another new technique with the next game; that is putting the sequel to a game on the same cassette thus we have the long-awaited Fido 2. This was at first a bit of a disappointment as the same, almost good display is used, but the addition of some badly drawn birds and a flimsy storyline to explain them adds a certain something to this title.

Finally, we have Fruit Machine, which is the pinnacle of Firebird's achievements. It combines the awful display of Race Ace with the incredible boringness of Weasel Willy and the terrible additions of Fido 2 to make a game that is indescribable. If you can stay awake long enough to figure out what is happening in this game of games, then you deserve a prize - another copy of Don't Buy This.