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Grab your skateboard and take to the streets! The city needs cleaning, and it needs cleaning *now*. The evil Phantom Empty Coke Bottle Lobber has been out and about and has spread empty Coke bottles all over the highway. Naturally, this sort of gratuitous pollution can't be tolerated, so you've been asked to whizz around after the litterbug on your motorised skateboard and clean up after him. You can never catch up with the evil do-badder and his trail of bottles always lies ahead of you. At least you can make some impact...

Street Surfer is a 3D race game where you must whizz down a never-ending road, running over as many Coke bottles as possible. The skate boarder can accelerate or decelerate and can turn left and right around corners - although the faster he goes the more difficult it is to steer him around a bend. If the skater whizzes around a bend too fast and runs off the road, he loses velocity, but doesn't take a tumble.

The road isn't empty - cars zoom along it - but it's a one way road, and vehicles only come from behind and try to overtake. If you get up enough speed you'll leave them behind and maybe even start overtaking them yourself.

Some of the cars are rather unfriendly and try to bump you off the road, others are more amicable and hold a full bottle of Coke out for you to grab, although care has to betaken, or you might crash into the side of the car. Collisions with cars result in a tumble that reduces your health status as shown at the bottom of the screen on a bar that shrinks as you get squashed or crash into things. When the bar reaches zero, your skater won't recover from the next tumble: the skateboard whizzes away into the sunset and the game ends. Running over an empty bottle or grabbing a full bottle of Coke from a passing motorist magically restores a bit of health, allowing you to continue further into the game.

Cars aren't the only thing on the road - dangerous oil slicks make the going tough by causing skids and tumbles. Chickens trudge across the road very now and again and must be avoided.

At regular intervals along the road there are neighbourhood bottle disposal dumps where your collection of empties can be off-loaded. Bonus points are awarded for the bottles delivered. Once the drop's been made, your health is restored and you can start on your travels again. At the bottom of the screen there's a countdown to each bottle dump that reveals how far you have to go before you can dump your load.

This is one of the most boring games I've ever had the displeasure of meeting.

The graphics are dull, so is the soundtrack, and collecting empty Coke bottles while avoiding Legoland cars and the occasional patch of oil proves monotonous after only a few games. There are plenty of cheaper, more exciting Mastertronic games available, so I suggest you do yourself a favour and give this one a miss.

There are so many variations on the ancient Pole Position format out on the market, it seems hardly worthwhile producing another one.

Still, Mastertronic have decided to pump out the nth one... and what a pointless exercise. Street Surfer is basically a load of rubbish which is unchallenging, unaddictive and totally boring to play. The graphics are pretty dull, but the gameplay is ten times worse - just whizz along the road collecting bottles. There isn't even a time limit to the game to add a little excitement.

If you see Street Surfer coming along the road, take my advice and string a wire across it at head height...!

I am not at all impressed with this offering from Mastertronic: It appears tacky in the extreme. The sprites are far too blocky to be representational of the character on the skateboard who seems to gather very little speed even though the speedometer registers a high amount. A very frustrating aspect is that cars come from behind, with little warning, and before you know it, you're off skidding into the distance. Even at a measly three quid, it isn't worth the asking price. No, I don't like it in the slightest.

Presentation 56%
Dull title screen and no options.

Graphics 34%
The sprites are chunky and poorly defined, and the road moves like there's an earthquake.

Sound 65%
A short, bearable soundtrack speeds up and slows down as you do.

Hookability 40%
Some initial interest might be generated by the simplistic nature of the game.

Lastability 25%
There's not much to come back to once you've played it a few times.

Value For Money 34%
Low quality game for a low price.

Overall 29%
One of Mastertronic's weakest releases.