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Although its lightning fast rallies and claustrophobically small courts have so far prevented squash from becoming a big spectator sport, Jahangir Khan's achievements deserve broader animation: he became the youngest ever professional World Champion at 17, has subsequently won every squash title in the world and over a six year period played in 500 international matches without a single defeat. It's an astonishing record, so can Krisalis do him justice?

The program gives you the choice of entering either the Club Tournament (league) or tougher World Championship competitions - both separate loads on different sides of the tape (or disk). The Tournament is organized in a series of eight rungs, each a miniature league with 4-6 players. Once everyone in the rung has played everyone else the top two are promoted and the bottom two demoted. By contrast, the Championship game is simply a knockout cup.

Both games are absolutely packed with players, each with six individual stats including fitness, tactics and judgement. If you win a match you can upgrade one of your stat bars a unit. You can also change player names, have any number of other human players and even watch a computer player's matches.

On the squash court you move your player into position then hold down fire to begin your stroke, left/right controlling direction with up/down accessing lob or drop shots respectively. The ball moves quite fast and things soon get very frantic. It's as well there's an option change the type of ball - the bouncier it is, the more time you have to intercept it.

Even so, the players don't move incredibly fast and it can be difficult bringing bat and ball together - I certainly found it a bit tricky to begin with. Once you do get the hang of it, there can be some wild rallies with all sorts of weird ricochets. As the ball can bounce off a couple of walls so quickly, picking out the right intercept point really gets your mind working.

Personally I don't think any squash simulation can compare with a good tennis game for depth of play - you don't have the range or degree of tactics. However, this is a very good squash game and certainly makes a nice change.

The squash court is dominated by a wall, marked with two horizontal lines. At the bottom of this there's a short metal strip known as the tin which counts as part of the floor.

Serving is done from one of the two service boxes. All serves must hit the wall above the top line (the cut) before landing in the opponent's half of the court. The ball can then bounce any number of times off any walls before or after hitting the end wall. Then it can bounce just once on the floor before being returned.

The server wins a point for every rally won. If he fails to win a rally, service passes to the other player. The first to nine points is the winner. However, if the score goes to 8 all first, the receiving player has the choice of playing up to 9 (No Set) or 10 (Set Two).

I'm not that much of a squash fan, but I still found this great fun to play. There isn't a great deal of tactical depth to the game - just trying to surprise the opponent by varying your shot type - but rallies are often long and always hectic.

With excellent league and cup options, and some very tough computer players, this should have you sweating over your joystick for ages!

Presentation 86%
Masses of options, including save/load for massive leagues.

Graphics 68%
A squash court and two men aren't exactly straining the C64's limits, but the players are well animated and it's nice how they shake hands before a match.

Sound 59%
Reasonable intro tune and basic in-game spot FX.

Hookability 79%
Club level gives a friendly intro to the game.

Lastability 70%
A huge challenge, but squash isn't a fabulously varied game.

Overall 75%
A great squash game.