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It's six o' clock, Monday morning - time for Paperboy to start his paper round. His customers are all Sun readers - not the soar-away, topless, fascist national newspaper so despised by the more small-minded inhabitants of our realm - but the Daily Sun, a snooze-away, parochial journey of the locality.

This boring organ has scrambled the brains of Accacia Avenue's residents. They don't like Paperboy in the slightest and try to get him sacked by ruining his round. So, Paperboy plays safe by staying on his bike and throwing the newspapers at his customers' front doors. He can try to throw the papers into the post-boxes outside the houses and gain extra points. But if Paperboy misses, the paper may break a window, annoying the house owner so much that he cancels his order for the paper. Failure to deliver a paper to a customer also results in a cancellation.

Some of the residents don't subscribe to the Daily Sun, which is evident as their houses are grey and have graveyards instead of gardens. Paperboy doesn't respect this type of person and radio-controlled vehicles must be avoided. Even the dogs are totally insane and attack the poor cyclist. Contact with these hazards causes Paperboy to fall off his bike and one of his three lives are lost. Hitting the kerb or a grating has the same effect.

If Paperboy manages to reach the end of the road he has to ride over a BMX stunt course. Finishing this course within the alloted time limit gives a damage bonus and a deliberately hurls papers at their windows, dustbins and gravestones in an attempt to break them. This adds to his 'damage total' which is added to his score at the end of a round.

The landscape scrolls diagonally as Paperboy makes his way along the road. The joystick is used to steer his bike, and pressing the Fire button throws a paper in the general direction of a house. He starts the game with a reserve of eight newspapers. Extra supplies can be picked up en route by running over the bundles of newspapers which appear at regular intervals.

As Paperboy pedals along, the residents of Accacia Avenue attempt to assault him, Skateboarders, joggers, C5s, tyres and time bonus. A map of the street is then shown, with successful deliveries highlighted. Failure to deliver any newspapers earns Paperboy the sack (sob sob) and the game ends.

I wasn't that impressed by Paperboy when I saw it in the arcades, and now it's come home to roost I'm neither enthralle nor excited by its arrival. It appears to be hit or miss whether I was killed off when I hit an obstacle - sometimes I could quite happily sell through the hazards and the next time I'd be killed before hitting it.

This might have some appeal to ardent fans of the arcade game, but it left me feeling cold.

Why Elite bothered to convert Paperboy to the C64, I don't know. As far as I'm concerned it was a waste of time, effort and money. The tunes and spot FX are good, but the backdrops and sprites are rather crude, and the colour schemes are bland. The playing area is relatively small, leaving little room to manoeuvre and resulting in much frustration.

Even so, Paperboy is quite playable, but nothing special and vastly overpriced for what it offers. If Elite are going to continue releasing conversions of this quality, then they should do so at a budget price.

Take an arcade game which relies heavily on its brilliant sound, speech and graphics to enhance its rather boring gameplay. Then remove them. What are you left with...? A repetitive and uninspiring arcade conversion.

The graphics are awful, with poorly defined sprites and very bland backdrops. The sound is poor too - why not try to copy the tunes that featured in the arcade original? The game itself has plenty of niggles: the 'damage total' doesn't seem to work properly; the papers disappear if you try to get them on the doorsteps; the sprite/sprite collision doesn't work properly, and the actual playing area is tiny when compared with the original.

A very poor and disappointing conversion.

Presentation 78%
No options, but reasonable title screen and high-score feature.

Graphics 48%
Simple backdrops, badly drawn and animated sprites, and bland use of colour.

Sound 79%
Good tunes and spot FX ice a poorly baked cake.

Hookability 63%
Any initial interest generated by the arcade game soon fades.

Lastability 40%
The lacklustre feel and repetitive gameplay soon give way to boredom.

Value For Money 35%
Not enough variety or playability to warrant the expensive price tag.

Overall 44%
A dull, second-rate conversion.