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After the record hype, the computer games hype, Virgin's first three games are, frankly, disappointing.

Bugbomb, by Simon Birrell, is a reflex game. Your man (Henry) is chased through a grid maze by gun-firing bugs. You can eliminate them by dropping bombs from behind, which follow you and bounce back and forth along the rows and columns until they hit a bug - or you bump into one by mistake. You can only have three bombs on the go at once (a fact not mentioned in the instructions). Once you clear screen 1, which is fast, you go onto a fuller screen 2, which is very fast. Strictly for reflex merchants.

Landfall is a rather sophisticated lunar lander (yawn!). Written by Gregory Trezise, it gives you a target screen plus stacks of dials and controls to watch. You have just enough fuel - use too much to slow the ship down and the motors burn up, switch off the motors and the whole ship will burn up. Verdict: save up for a flight simulator.

Space Adventure is the best of the bunch. Written by Andrew or Roger Thomas, it has been around for a while now, under an independent label, as they say in the record trade. It's a cross between a maze-type adventure and an arcade action game. You have to search a spaceship for keys to locked rooms that contain crystals.

On the way, you meet some aggressive robots shooting from the hip. Every time you're hit your life support goes down. But you can shoot back with a phaser or the more powerful, but energy-consuming, blaster. You can't leave a room and move on unless you kill the robots. You can charge up every now and again with strategically-placed power packs. At each end of the ship is a transporter room that takes you to the opposite end or onto a different level. A little map below the action window shows you where you are. This is an absorbing game, but not one to play when friends are round - it takes ages to complete.

Another gripe. Why didn't Virgin improve the cosmetics and standardise on key controls? Bugbomb uses Z and X for left and right plus : and / for up and down; Space Adventure uses the next keys along (; and .) for up and down. Better still, why not have redefinable keys, like on Program Power's Moonraider?

Since the noisy launch of Virgin Games, at a leafy nightclub by a Margaret Thatcher impersonator, Virgin have gone notably quiet. Can it be they're already bored with their own games?