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It was a time for heroes. Man and machine fused in a gleaming high velocity mass of chrome, stee, leather and flesh. Travelling at speeds in excess of 150mph on death-defying courses, danger was something you ate for breakfast and then went back for seconds! Glamourous uberbabes wilted over the mounted masked knights of this golden era, saluting them in their race towards stardom, but ditching them when they can home in traction. Oh yes, the halcyon days of the 1970s and the glorious sport of racing silver dream machine Superbikes.

Lately the sport has been going through something of a renaissance, attracting a whole new generation of budding Barry Sheens. The likes of Scott Russell are zooming around the world's circuits sponsored by major manufacturers. So to reflect this new-found popularity, Domark have teamed up with Kawasaki to produce the Superbike equivalent to their excellent hit of a few years ago. Hop on your bike and get your motors running.

Domark stormed the world of racing games with the highly successful F1 a couple of years ago and they now make the jump from cars to bikes.

It's a long way to the top of the championship table. In all, 15 tracks have to be successfully completed to claim the title of Superbiker. Not only are you going to be chewing a lot of tarmac, but also jetsetting across to some of the world's most exotic and weathertorn locations. Each track has its individual weather conditions - all of which must be taken in consideration when selecting gear ratio and tyre type pre-race. Any track is selectable for the odd practice session or two, and you can even have your very own mini championship by selecting any number of the circuits.

Aside from your everyday race against the world champions of superbikes, you can also select a number of other play options. First off, if you fancy a boost to your performance, you can select the turbo option and whizz around the selection of tracks at a higher velocity. If this isn't your thing then you always plump for the mano e mano race with the CPU, or alternatively opt for the split-screen race against a chum. There is the opportunity to raise or lower your rank in the championships. The default setting is amateur, but there's always the added challenge of the expert bikers.

Megadrive race games have come on in leaps and bounds since Super Monaco (which I have always hated). F1 was one of the best steps forward, and Kawaski builds on its success, with faster, smoother frame rates and expanded play features like bike damage and the effect of weather.

It only suffers from a rather dowdy appearance - caused both by the simplistic polygons and the dull colours. However, it does have a really good racing feel, quite different to F1, and convincingly like that of a bike. I wouldn't expect this to capture the attention of any other than bike freaks, but it should be a firm favourite amongst them.

But beneath this facade lies a nicely playable racing game with a substantial amount of surprises. Obviously a great deal of time and effort has gone into the feel of the game - small differences in weather have a subtle but often dangerously slidey effect on the traction. In a similar attention to detail, the tracks have enough variation and challenge to keep you going for a long old time.

My only real quibble is with the graphical offering, as this is really not the kind of thing that should be gracing our Megadrives nowadays.

Sound 69%
N. Nothing really spectacular. The engine noises are a bit whiny and the incidental music is on the poor side.

Playability 86%
P. After initial handling difficulties and a fair amount of over-steering, you'll find yourself pushed to the limit chasing after the opposition.

Value For Money 82%
P. Not quite cut-price, but neverless a sensible price tag for a pretty good product.

Overall 83%
Behind this ugly duckling lies a huge amount of superior programming that results in a highly realistic racer.