Ok, I'll admit I was surprised to see that this program contained a pretty large amount of BASIC, but I was determined not to hold that against it, since one of my favourite games (Apocalypse by Red Shift) was written in much the same way.

However, what I do hold against it is the almost complete lack of content, excitement and action involved in the game.

Up to eight people can play (can you imagine eight people crowded around the Spectrum keyboard?), and once you've chosen your bait, type of line. and size of wetly-boot. all you have to do is sit and look at an (admittedly very good) picture of a lake, whilst waiting for your "peg" (the numbers 1-8 scattered around the lake edge) to flash. You then leap to the keyboard, press the relevant number key, and are rewarded with a picture of a little fish swimming towards a fisherman on a bank.

By pressing the appropriate key you can attempt to hook the little blighter (which I failed to do, but I gave up quite quickly out of sheer boredom).

The press release assures me that all sorts of subtle tactics are available to the enthusiast, but I can't imagine a fishing enthusiast being lured to the screen by this, and for the non-enthusiast it's boring in the extreme.

Some sports lend themselves to computer games, but on the evidence of this one, fishing is probably the least suitable sport I can think of.

C.J.