The four Anonymouse levels show a decent gradation from easy to very hard

DeskGames 2 starts with Icon Match which is Pelmanism for one person. Like all the rest, it comes up on the icon bar and clicking its icon puts a large unsizable window up with five rows of ten blank icons.

You click one and it turns over - no actual animation here - and reveals an icon that the program has picked at random from the system pool, so you could get the alarm bell, printer driver or anything that your system has seen this session.

Then you click another blank to see whether it matches. If it does, nothing happens; if it doesn't, you get exactly the same response so the only thing left is to try clicking another one.

Now if your previous two choices matched they stay on-screen; if not they revert to blanks and your new choice appears.

The game is satisfactory but is only single player - it even lacks an against the micro option, and has no sound effects. Clicking Menu on the window gives you the single option to start a new game.

Pontoon - Twenty-one - is a simple card game and this version matches it.

You have single player vs. micro - as banker and as such it is reasonable, but only proves what any statistician would tell you - the House always wins eventually.

Finally, heaving a sigh of relief, we come to Yahtzee. The graphics are again quite acceptable but it's only a one player game, so what's the point? There is some sound on here - A beep when you roll the dice. So you spend a minute clicking the Roll dice and eventually fill up your score card and what happens when you've completed it? Nothing.

Most of these games are a waste of time and money - with the notable exception ot Reversi. Making them two player - even if it's not against the micro - would at least relieve the tedium of playing through them on your own.

Minerva proved you can make good playable and interesting games on the DeskTop with its Casino collection which had excellent graphics plus lots of animation. If Minerva can do it, so can Anonymouse.

Steve Turnbull