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Snooker has always been difficult to play and now with saturation TV coverage it's also hard to avoid. But if you can tear yourself away from the table or the TV this simulation is well worth a look.

The program begins in demo mode to assure you that those difficult pots are actually possible. Just press a key and you are into the game. There are three keys which control the cue, which rotates around the cue ball to allow a shot in any direction. Two keys give you a very fine adjustment of the angle, so much so that the inlay informs you that some adjustments won't be picked up on screen but will be noted by the program.

At the top of the screen is a display which gives you the players' view of the cue ball and by moving the cursor keys you can move a dot next to this ball to put top, back or side spin on the cue ball. You can vary the strength of your shot as it requires a double press of the player's key to hit the ball. The quicker the key is pressed the stronger the shot.

One problem with the game is that it is often difficult to tell which colour the balls are. Sensibly, when you nominate a colour by pressing 7 for black, 6 for pink and so on, the ball you want to pot flashes. Until you get used to the unorthodox colour scheme this feature saves you making a lot of mistakes.

Other good features include a practice mode to sharpen up your play. In this mode you can set up the table as you wish, move or remove any ball and retake a shot if you make a disastrous blunder. During play there is also an instant replay facility which gives you an immediate chance to see where you went right or to see again your brilliant pot of the cue ball.

Tournament Snooker has a save game option so you can interrupt your potential 127 break if you can take the suspense. The simulation is very smooth and realistic in action but, like the real thing, it is certainly no push over to become good at it. It's a difficult game to master but if you want a true simulation of snooker you wouldn't expect anything else.