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Although the real Evel Knievel made his loot from jumping the Grand Canyon and Great Wall Of China, his ambition has been proportionally shrunk for the Game Boy Color. Now his daredevil challenges lie in negotiating small hills, "Sonic-esque" roller-coasters on Las Vegas strip and double-decker buses in London.

With five, well-detailed locations set in each of the four available cities (Las Vegas, London, San Francisco and Hollywood) your task is to traverse a variety of hum drum obstacles as you cruise from one side of the city to the other on your motorbike. And what a bike it is. Developers Tarantula has taken a Gran Turismo-like delight in making your two-wheeled beast a nimble and largely realistic machine, which can be fine tuned to incredible depth before embarking on each course and is great fun to drive... until the first obstacle.

Any game with a Practice mode has got a problem with its game engine, and Evel Knievel is no exception. Tarantula has obviously spent so long cramming the ultimate mini-bike simulation that they forgot to make the actual game playable. Tiny jumps, small obstacles and seemingly harmless barrels all require extraordinary skill and perseverance to navigate, as your bike is just too over-sensitive. All the glory of driving a powerful bike at high speeds is negated by the tedium of cautiously edging along at five miles-per-hour as you suss out the next potentially fatal hazard, as each spill sends you right back to the very start of the level. A token map at the bottom right of the screen is laughable in its worthlessness, and each track becomes a battle of rapidly diminishing returns. Despite the brilliance of the bike handling, this is just too much hard work to be fun...

When we first heard about this game, it looked like it might offer the sort of high-octane thrills delivered over a decade ago by 8-bit classics Wheelie and KikStart, both of which superbly exploited the thrills and spills of two-wheeler action. The bonus of elaborate building-jumping, hoop-hopping action promised real potential here, but sadly Take 2 have instead delivered a fiddly, hugely irritating game that offers none of the thrills but plenty of spills. Crash? I don't remember being on my bike to be honest...

No wonder there are so few stunt-riders. It's too damn difficult! For a while, I had great fun with this game, with the pleasing degree of control over the bike initially satisfying, but the main sprite is just too large so that you can never see what's coming up, and instead of huge dramatic jumps and daring stunts, I found myself wobbling nervously over tiny obstacles terrified I'd put too much power to the backwheel and go head over heels.

If you persevere, there's a real sense of satisfaction to gain from taming your bike, but messing about with the set-up of your bike for every course (which is a necessity) is far too demanding. Making the game so hard seems to be a plot to conceal the relative smallness of the game, and whilst some will glean fun from this title, younger players in particular will find the frustration level pitched just too high.

You wait for ages and then there's two! Motorbiking fans should keep an eye out for Crazy Bikers from Konami, which promises a slightly more relaxed approximation of the sport. With a smaller, less realistic bike, hammering across more convoluted cityscapes, plus ghost, two-player and 'stunt-crazy' bonuses, plus a track designer, this looks a more forgiving (and more fun) title.

Graphics 60%
Brilliant motorcycle!

Sound 60%
Bad musak, OK sound FX.

Playability 60%
Just too tricky to be fun.

Lastability 60%
If you can cope, ages!

Overall 75%
A great idea let down by poor playtesting!