On yer bikes, you leather lovers - CRL's new motorcycling simulation is a beaut for bikers with brains. It's not, as you might think, a high adrenalin arcade but a solid strategy puzzle - more akin to Football Manager than Pole Position.
Quite simply (ah! if only it was!) you have to prepare your two superbikes to compete and win a motorcycling endurance race that varies between six and twenty-four hours in length. A complete season comprises seven races, all requiring different skills, each with five different levels ranging from trainee to expert. So this is one cunning cassette you won't have sussed in a week.
The real skills are off, not on the track, then. No frantic joystick juggling here. Indeed, so swiftly do the Supers zoom by, you'd be hard pressed to see what's going on. But don't worry, race order is shown in front of the grandstand. Then you'll know if you managed the right engine tune, handling and tyres.
Variations exist once the race is running. Weather conditions change, accidents happen and pit stops occur through choice or fate.
Although these stops aren't as frenetic as the real thing, the sight of little men whipping off your wheels or cowling whiles away the winter nights.
With no obvious loopholes (though no imaginative leaps either) the game, like the graphics, is functional not thrilling but a solid buy all the same.