I remember seeing Uridium on the C64 and wishing it was available for the Elk. Psycastria is the nearest thing to that amazing game and is a pretty good version in its own right. In this game you fly a craft over a 3D background. The view is always from above, and your mission is to destroy circular fuel pods. Easy eh?

Not quite. You have to watch you don't fly into buildings or get shot down by alien craft. There are four levels to complete and you have to be good enough to get through them all. The game itself runs in Mode 2 and the colours are well chosen, even if the graphics are a little chunky and sometimes misleading (It takes a while to figure out exactly what you have to destroy!).

Sound is above average although the start screen tune is thorougly irritating and you may find the sound off option a blessing. There are also some scrolling credits on the start screen that run far too fast to be read.

It is well worth investing in a copy of this game although I myself have a few reservations. Firstly, and contrary to the inlay card, the game does not support joysticks. Secondly, when you have lost a life you have to start all over again.

It is available on tape and there's a disk version of it for all formats.

RATING: 7 out of 10

There are numerous karate/kung fu simulations for the Elk and this has got to be one of the better ones. In this game, you are Oolong, kung fu master. Battle takes place in front of a beautiful, animated waterfall. You have to defeat six opponents (including flying pots and pans!).

After this, you are transported to another scene (a pagoda) by which you must face another six foes. The game runs in Mode 2 but the graphics are excellent - among the best I've seen on the Elk! Sound effects are basic, but they do not interfere with the playability of the game.

It would have been nice if the game could have supported joysticks but I suppose we can't have our cake and eat it. Keyboard control is tricky, but I found that opponets could be defeated by repeating only one or two basic moves.

It is available on tape and there's a disk version of it for all formats. If you haven't got a copy of this game though, buy one today!

RATING: 9 out of 10

When the Elk was released onto the market, it was intended to cater for those looking for a cut price BBC (Yes, I was one of these people!). Unfortunately, it was also a cut down BBC, lacking many of the features of its big brother. Speed and sound were compromised and, for the gamer, this meant that BBC titles compatible with the Elk were slow with sound normally consisting of a few beeps.

Many conversions for the Elk from the original BBC versions still contain the original coding for the BBC sound system (with four channels) but, as the Elk has only one, these extra channels are simply ignored. However, if you have Slogger's Turbo Board and Project Expansions' Sound Cartridge, the picture changes dramatically!

Old pieces of software are given a new lease of life, while BBC-compatible games run at their normal speed with the sound system springing into life. Take for instance, Paperboy by Elite. This Atari-conversion runs very slowly and the sound consists of simple two-tone bleeps.

With the Slogger Turbo Board, the game speeds up and becomes much more playable, while the sound cartridge provides tunes galore!

Please note that not all software will benefit from these two expansion devices. Some games will accept either one or the other, and some might not even load. What I can say is out of the 100+ games I have, roughly 70% benefit from these two addons. Below is a short list of some games that can be much improved in certain respects: