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Now here's one that's guaranteed to lessen the life of your joystick. Eight events of wrist wrenching action set in sweltering Korea. The Games is a fine adaptation of such joystick wrenching, button bashing arcade hits as Track and Field and Hydro Sports in so far as that it makes use of big sprites, appropriately detailed backdrops and a rich sound that off sets every event very nicely indeed.

You can take part in archery, diving, hurdles and a whole host of athletic disciplines as diverse as hammer throwing and the uneven parallel bars! Very nice to look at they maybe, with split screens and animation that switches between the decorative and the functional, but trying to control the sprites in some of the more complex events, such as the rings, is a different story. The instructions don't provide much help, only minimal information the form of flow charts! The only course of action left is to waggle your joystick until the rivets fall out or your hand falls off - whatever comes first!

Once loaded, there's a great intro with fab music depicting scenes from Korea that add special atmosphere and give the feeling of actual world competition including the "get on with it" factor as there is another long load before the actual game starts. In fact, every event has to be loaded in separately which is a real drag (hey mahhn! - Ed) as some games will take you only 30 secs to complete followed by a wait of up to three mins for the next competition.

Taken on face value, The Games is very impressive, but it's best played in practise mode, missing out on competition but offering the chance to play your event again and again before loading the next one. A great opportunity has been missed.

Label: Kixx Memory: 48K/128K Tape: £3.99 DISK: n/a Reviewer: Steve Keen

Quite mouth watering in its initial stages. Very badly let down by multi load. Not so bad if there was some substance once loaded, but it's all over in seconds.