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The biggest surprise about this package is that Epyx - who wrote the original program for the C64 - has managed to come up with eight events not previously covered in Summer Games I and II and Winter Games. It has achieved this by choosing sports that are by and large popular in their country of origin.

For anyone unfamiliar with the format, up to four players can choose to practise or compete in up to eight events. Medals are awarded for the best performances and a final ranking table given.

The first sport, weightlifting, has been dominated by the Russians in recent years. Two types of lift are featured in the game - the snatch and clean, and jerk. A combination of good timing and psychology are needed here although they don't help that much in the actual competition. The medals are awarded to the wrong people! The *lower* total weight wins the gold!!! Nice one, eh?

Barrel jumping involves successfully leaping over a chosen number of barrels (no real surprise here!). The tricky bit is that the event takes place on ice. Cliff diving requires you to hurl your body from a great height into a small pool, hopefully timing things so that the tide is in when you land.

Slalom skiing is the hardest event of the eight. The course is both long and fast, and the only way that I have managed to complete it so far is by deliberately missing the gates and incurring the relative penalty. Crashing disqualifies you and means no medal even if no-one else finishes the course.

Log rolling is the ideal game for all Monty Python fans wishing to become lumberjacks. Dump your opponent in the water before he does the same to you. Bull riding requires you to stay seated for as long a period as possible before gaining the obligatory two ventilation holes in the seat of your pants as the bull tosses you.

The Highland Games is the setting for caber tossing although why the Scots have to plant their telegraph poles this way is beyond me. It is designed to sort out the men from the wee cow'rin tim'rous beasties.

Japan is the final stop on your world sports tour. Two human blubber mountains known as Sumo wrestlers thunder their bodies round a ring as they attempt to push each other out of it.

World Games is reasonably well presented but there were a few glitches that I found somewhat irksome. Perhaps it's just that this type of game has had its day. There can't be many events left that Epyx hasn't covered - mud wrestling and elephant polo are the only ones that spring to mind.