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Like a guest late for his own party, Pac-Man finally arrives on the Spectrum scene.

Yes folks, the genuine, fully authorised, accept-no-fakes, original Ghost Gobbler is here. Purists who have been holding out against the hordes of Pac-Clones, this is it!

The best compliment that can be paid to Atarisoft's Spectrum edition of Pac-Man is that it is an extremely faithful reproduction of the original arcade barnstormer. All the ingredients that made the game a classic (ghosts, power pills, fruit, etc) are rendered in easily recognisable graphics form.

In fact about the only thing that shows up the Spectrum's limitations is some rough animation. Sound, however, is very good and manages to retain the characteristic 'wacka wacka' sound of the game.

A high score table, attract mode, keyboard/joystick options and a cute 'interlude' after each two screens round off a generally high quality presentation - which is to be expected of an Atari product.

The big problem of course is that Pac-Man has already been done to death. Atari have attempted to close the proverbial stable door with the horse cold in its grave.

Even those who haven't already got some form of the ghost chomping game in their collections will be hard put to cough up nearly £15 for this cassette-based edition. Atari seem to be blind to the realities of the software marketplace in this country. Someone had better perform some laser surgery on their corporate optic nerve before lack of foresight condemns this particular game to some dusty shelf in a Hall of Fame somewhere.