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Can you emulate Geoff Capes by becoming the strongest man in the world? That's the idea in this game from Martech in which you must endure the hardships of a strongman championship.

There are six events, some with the computer as your opponent but others are an individual challenge against the clock. The instructions are well written, but list the events in the wrong order, which proved to be a real irritation until I'd begun to master some of the problems.

Before the games start, you must earn some muscle by hammering two keys as fast as you can. As a keyboard saving alternative, a touch of RETURN will grant you a random amount of strength. Having earned your muscle, you then distribute it around Geoff's body by selecting various screen icons.

After this, the first event begins. A car falls on you and you must turn it over. The method is simple: The muscle symbols flash in turn and you move your arrow to that symbol and hit RETURN. There is a time limit but with practice the necessary co-ordination can be mastered. Next comes sumo wrestling. Move left and right and then lunge at your opponent to push him out of the ring. It's easy but what a shame it's all over in two seconds.

Event three is the fairground bell-ring. You move the hammer into position and then wallop the keys to bring it down fast on the button. Positioning the hammer is rather chancy. It depends on which muscles flash and in which order. This one proved an annoying stumbling block for me many times.

In the next event you must chop through a log within a qualifying time. As an axe moves along the log you press RETURN to chop into the soft parts of the wood. This event requires timing, but little else. The tug o' war proved my undoing. The instructions say that the method is the same as for the car roll. However, each time I played, I was pulled into the river, which meant I have not seen event six, barrel loading.

The instructions make this sound quite fun, with a lot of keyboard hammering and precision timing involved, but it's obviously not for uncoordinated weaklings.

As usual with Martech software, the programming is excellent, the graphics are smooth and fast and the sound is sensible. But something is missing. The World Strongman competitions on television make compelling viewing. By comparison, I found the computer simulation boring and rather frustrating.

My best performance has rated me as Mr Puniverse, but more often I end up at Wimp level. I know lots of people who like this kind of game, but I would invest my money elsewhere.

Rog Frost