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Releasing a new Amiga golf game so soon after Electronic Arts' classic PGA Tour Golf might be seen by some people as rather unfortunate timing, but if the game's good enough, there's always room in the market for one more. The problem with Challenge Golf is that, in a nutshell, it simply isn't good enough. The graphics may be a bit on the crude side, with lots of right angles and sudden edges, and the sound is minimalist, even by golf sim standards, but neither are terrible.

It's the playability that's really lacking here, the 'feel' is simply wrong. The ball never really seems to get airborne half the time, it almost never goes anywhere remotely close to where you aim the cursor, and when you reach the green you're confronted by a putting sequence that's nothing short of diabolical. For a start, there's no indication of what distance the strength bar represents (a fault found all the way through the game), the supposed slope on the green bears only a slight resemblance to the one shown on-screen, and (most bizarrely of all) the hole itself appears to be made of rubber, judging by the way the ball has a habit of bouncing straight off it and coming back at you.

The instructions are of no help whatsoever when it comes to deciphering all of these quirks, and the end result is that you'll get very fed up of this game very quickly. And it doesn't help, of course, that there are plenty of really rather stunningly good golf games out there already.

Packed with options, but none of them can help Challenge Golf overcome a basic lack of playability. Nowhere near the level of PGA Tour (not even as good as World Class Leaderboard, in fact).