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After turbo-loading, the program greets you with a pleasant title screen, showing a (typical?) British 'bobby' who winks every now and then. Also present is Big Ben and a red London bus. How quaint, I hear you say but there is more...

Following the instructions on the cassette inlay, you enter the game proper, and are treated to another traditional scene: that of traffic quickly building up at junctions and forming a traffic-jam.

The part that you play in this common urban story is the role of traffic controller. Using your joystick (sorry, no keyboard bashers allowed here) it is possible to manipulate the various traffic lights in the town centre, thus allowing vehicles right of way.

"Ah, easy!" you say. But try it. For a start, the vehicles move fast, and so build up a jam quickly. What is more, it takes a little time to get the lights to do just what you want.

Complete your task by surviving for a certain length of time, without letting too great a bottleneck of traffic to occur, and you are given another piece of town to patrol.

The graphics are clear, fairly detailed, and all movement is fast. The vehicles, despite being a little jerky at times, corner very well. On the other hand, the sound is not the greatest ever heard, if you can hear it at all!

Having said that, though, it must be made clear that Traffic is still quite a playable game, and challenging into the bargain. This is not least because of its originality.

The game is also a little overpriced, but worth paying for if you want a change from purely reflex games. All credit to Quicksilva for bringing out such an intelligent, refreshingly down to Earth game.

Now here's something different - one for trainee traffic wardens perhaps? Smooth graphics and well-drawn buildings all watched over by a nicely depicted policeman who blinks realistically.

The stopping and starting of the cars is utterly convincing. After a while, the game becomes engrossing as you constantly have to scan the screen and act very quickly on what you see.

The sound was limited to the hum of engines and the changing of the traffic lights (what do you mean, 'traffic lights don't make a noise'?). I would have liked to have heard the horns of a few irate drivers.

If you fancy a spot of traffic duty, you could do a lot worse than flag down a copy of Traffic.

If you see this game in your local software store, take a sharp left and head for the fast lane. The idea of directing traffic is a good one, but the screen layout is boring and playing the game is mindless at best.

Boring, dreary, unimaginative - just a few words which come to my mind playing Traffic. To me, it's about as much fun as sitting in a real traffic jam.