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This is the life. Ripping up the track, slamming pedal to metal with the sharp tang of burning rubber up your nose. What could be better than zooming around a course in your favourite four-wheeler?

Hot Rod has thirty tracks with different terrains - just when you've got the hang of tarmac you speed onto rough ground. If you think that's easy, there's also ice, rain, snowdrifts, fatal rock slides and slippery sand. And just for good measure there are plenty of mad drivers whizzing about who aren't even in the race!

Those nifty enough to take the lead are rewarded with first pickings of extra petrol and points - and what do points make? Money, in this case. No race game would be complete without cash to buy a collection of crucial car customisations - and Hot Rod obliges with bigger engines, tyres, wings (for increased manoeuvrability) and bumpers.

Win the race and you get tons of extra money and points. Run out of petrol and you've had it.

Hot Rod is a pretty nifty Super Sprint clone, but lacks the polish to make it a great game. Graphically it's nothing special - the cars are basic and the backdrops don't show much imagination; sound, too, is limited to monotonous music and some feeble burms.

The real problem is the map design: some of the corners are just too tight to avoid, and if you slip behind the leader or bump into an obstacle it's almost inevitable that you'll lose gas catching up.

As a single-player game, it's not tops, because most of the computer opponents are thick and you end up having to beat just one.

The multi-player mode rescues it from obscurity, though - if you've got a four-player adapter, you get the fun of competing against equals.