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The original 8-bit versions of this crumbly classic appeared almost three years ago, and sold in vast quantities despite some lukewarm reviews. Does the Amiga version earn a loud hurrah or a miserable moan? Read all about it...

You play a pretty cool dude astride a three-speed delivery bike, skillfully lobbing rolled newspapers into your patrons' porches or mailboxes (the latter give you a bonus). Fail to deliver and they'll cancel their order. Find a house that reads a different kind of paper, and you can break their windows for bonus points. Fair enough.

At the end of your deliveries, it's off to the BMX stunt track to get some target practice in, just for kicks and bonus points. Crash or run out of time and you won't get the adulation of the greasy groupies waiting for you at the finish line.

Each day your success is measured by the number of customers left; lose them all and it's shame, humiliation and unemployment. At the end of each week you move on to the next, harder level.

Life as a paperboy isn't as much fun as it seems, though. Plenty of nerds populate the neightbourhood, lolloping out in front of the bike, letting their kids run riot with remote control racers, unleashing mad dogs and deadly lawn mowers and trying to squash you with their motors. Hit any of these and it's time to get a new bike - and you only have five.

This has got all the addiction and frustration of the coin-op, but the gameplay elements have been changed, unfortunately to its detriment. Fans of arcade Paperboy should warm to it, but the rest of you might want something a bit more substantial for twenty-five quid.

Why isn't this the same as the coin-op? The sound is arguably better (although there's no speech) but the graphics are jeky, and the gameplay has been altered!

It's not a bad game, but it's too old and too expensive to deserve greater praise.