Previous Next

This game allows armchair sportsmen to become sitting-room Barry Sheenes. Featuring a very fast load (Nova-load, which lets you have a screen display, plays a tune, gives a running count of loading time and blocks left), you are quickly sitting astride your spritely (in both senses of the word) racing bike.

The display is a multi-mode one, with a plain, lower-res area at the bottom for the action, and a high-res depiction of your bike's instruments at the top. This is rather useless - once you're travelling at speed, lifting your eyes will result in a crash. Racing against time and computer-controlled bikes, you have to complete laps without hitting hay bales at the roadside. The graphics are nice - I liked the way the biker leans into the curves and takes a spill - but I found that moving out of first gear was a recipe for disaster. Staying on the bike meant travelling slowly, which was boring.

I also had trouble changing gear, done by pushing the joystick backwards or forwards while pressing the fire button. A nice implementation, but I don't know about its staying power.

P.G.