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When I first saw an advertisement for strip poker in an American magazine I laughed and laughed. Now it is available on the Amstrad I think the program is more of a giggle. The rules are basically those of five card stud poker. You against the computer. However the comnuter is represented by a character called Mindy. Ossie, an Alice in Wonderland type playing-card, deals each hand. Once a player has exhausted his (or her - should a computer called Mindy be called her or its?) funds you play for items of clothing. This is where the game hots up. One member of the user club staff spent the best part of the evening, staying after work to 'test' the program.

Even without the strip feature I suspect the game would still be very compulsive. Yes, Animated Strip Poker is degrading to women and it is tempting to run it down for this but the reaction of all the men who played it was so strong that this would be unrepresentative. The animation is limited, only the scene when the girl removes her dress is well done but this is very well executed. The movements are all natural and the effect is quite convincing, even if the result is disappointing.

The inlay card has been written for the Spectrum and needs some re-working on top of this the game has quite a few bugs in it. If you should win the program crashes when it asks you if you want another go and sometimes the screen scrolls when it should not. Worst of all the program once crashed in the middle of a game Knightsoft claim that only 100 tapes have been duplicated with these bugs but I would like to see a corrected version before I was convinced. All in all, a fun game.