When Mike Reed's Pop Quiz first appeared we quite liked it - gave it 79 or something, which is quite generous considering that Mike himself is one of the most nauseating media personalities in the universe, but so it goes. Now here it is on budget, and has the fact that it's two years old changed our opinion at all?

Well, yes and no - it's hard to get enthusiastic about trivia quizzes any more, and this is a fairly typical game of the sort, featuring one and two-player options and a database of 1000 questions divided into six banks, loaded separately from tape. Once you've gone through these that's yer lot really, so there won't be any further incentive to play.

The worst part of the game is the horrid digitised faces which represent the members of the teams; I suppose they're meant to be typical pop fans, but they look like a real selection of mutants including Vincent Price, Shakin' Stevens and James Anderton. Even worse, Mike himself pops up every so often, leering hideously and posing the questions. You could always stick a piece of brown paper over the spot where his face appears.

The format of the game is basically the same throughout; a question scrolls across the screen, three alternative answers appear, and you have a short time to use the joystick or control keys to select the correct answer. If you get it wrong or run out of time, the question passes to the other team; if they get it wrong too, the game goes on to the next question, without telling you the correct answer.

There are, though, five different rounds, in which the questions appear in slightly different ways; Jukebox, where you pick a numbered question from a flashing grid on the screen; Spot the Star, where the challenge is to identify the hidden artist; Your Scene, which presents questions on particular subjects such as Heavy Metal, Country and Western, and so on; Name the Year, in which you have to, er, name the year; and the Quick Fire Round, in which the first to get his finger on the knob scores, oo-er.

The screen displays, scrolling captions, scorelines and so on are presented entertainingly, but while MRPQ is as good a way to waste your time as any other, it's nothing to get excited about (especially if you're expecting questions on anything that's happened in the last two years).

Label: Encore Price: £2.99 Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

Decent, if slightly outdated triv quiz featuring Mr Charisma himself.