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At last - after all the hype and pre-release fanfares, Legend's The Great Space Race is finally out on the shelves of your local software shop.

The packaging, as you'd expect, is impressive. The game cassette is lost inside a giant video-style box - and comes with a 56-page booklet which features game details and cartoons, plus a colour poster.

The booklet explains the scenario of the game, which goes like this.

Once upon a time there was a small unvisited planet at the centre of a small unvisited galaxy.

When the first colonists landed, they stepped onto a lush green landscape dotted with strange purple plants - plants that looked suspiciously like... vines.

Those first pioneers gathered in the purple fruit - jumped up and down on it for hours before someone remembered the pulping machine in their supplies - and left it to ferment.

The first tasting was an historic event, which regrettably nobody present can recall, but at the end of the day - or week - or whatever - the least incapable businessmen rushed samples of this fantastic liquid to every planet in the galaxy. Their message was simple: "Sample new product. Price to follow. Delivery to follow. Name to follow."

The product was duly sampled and that was, pretty much, that. People wanted to know the price. They wanted to know about delivery. They wanted to get their hands on it and naming the brew was the least of their concerns.

"Name to follow" didn't exactly roll off the tongue however. And so, in the absence of any better ideas, it was simply abbreviated - and Natof was born.

And that's where The Great Space Race begins. The idea is for you to take part in an intergalactic Beaujolais race - to get all the Natof you can to the people who want it in the four spiral arms of the Natof galaxy.

You also have to watch out for nasty pirates, like Ghengis, Krone and Zanik. And the equally nasty police force known as PKBs. And the other racers who you failed to hire at the start of the game.

Talking of hiring racers - this is what you have to do at the start of the game.

You must choose four of the oddly-named racers to act for you - delivering the Natof around the galaxy. Racers like Dos, Vindaloo or Gurm.

Once you have hired them, you have to arm their spacecraft with lasers, missiles and shields. They'll need all this as attacks are frequent - and you may wish to launch one yourself from time to time.

Each arm of the galaxy has its own characteristics which you learn as you go along. And each of the characters you control have their own distinct ways of behaving - again you learn these as you play.

As your racers move through the galaxy, they send messages back to you - and ask you what to do next! You have to make quick decisions as you only get a matter of seconds to decide what to do.

The graphics are well done. Each character's face is flashed up on screen when he or she is talking to you. The video "window" also shows the various space stations being visited, space battles between the rival racers etc. At the top of the screen you see a control option window while at the bottom there is a message window - Valhalla style.

Dotted around the galaxy are space hulks full of Natof. But now for the bad news - these hulks are booby-trapped. The traps can be defused using special codes which your racers pick on their travels - but you must be sure to note down and use the right code in the right location if you are to survive an attempt to plunder the cargo.

I found The Great Space Race nice to look at - but there just isn't enough to do. As the instructions say, you can actually sit back and watch the game unfold. But when you spend over £14 on a game I think you want a bit more action than that!

You do have to make split second yes or no decisions and pick the right code to defuse the hulk booby-traps.

You can't control the space battles, though, which I found irritating.

Overall, The Great Space Race is a nice looking game but - despite the nice graphics and all that packaging - not really worth the £14 price tag.