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SUPERB, life like, graphics have been used in Run for Gold, the latest offering for armchair athletes.

You must compete in the 400 meters, 800 meters and the 1500 meters. Qualify first in the local races before entering the main events which lead to the Olympics and gold medals.

Although you can control the speed of your athlete as you guide him through the bends and straights, you will do better if the computer does the steering for you. In both the 400 and 800 meters you start off on a bend, and your wobbly-legged hero has no intention of staying on the track unless you let the computer play too.

Other athletes are a problem - they all look like your boy, and when they all stand together waiting for the starting orders, panic grips you.

Which one is mine? Legs rise and fall, calf muscles ripple and the race is on. Using the joystick, speed is produced by pushing full forward - but wait, he does not seem to be moving any faster.

The answer lies at the side of the screen in two box scales - one for energy level, the other for speed. It is only from those boxes that you have visual evidence that his energy and speed are indeed increasing or decreasing.

Even when the scales tell you that he has run out of both resources he still glides along the track! What a shame after producing such truly gold medal standard graphics.

If you want the finger aching action found in Daley Thompson's Decathlon you will not find it here.

Colette McDermott

Publisher: Five Ways Software Price: £7.95 Memory: 48K Joystick: Sinclair, Kempston

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