A collection of four games from the Amiga Power All-Time Top 100, Chart Attack mixes driving action with fast-paced arcade adventuring and, er, not-so-fast-paced arcade blasting. The compilation's star is almost certainly Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, the superb racing game recently succeeded by a well-received sequel. For me personally, though, Lotus 1 is the superior game, being faster, more playable and far better in two-player mode. It suffers from only using half the screen in the single-player game, but otherwise this still shows most other titles in the genre a clean pair of heels.

Millennium's fishy arcade adventure James Pond is a very popular game among the Amiga Power staff, and while I have to say I don't find it very engaging myself (it's just a touch too repetitive and 'so what?'-ish), there's no denying its extremely cute graphics, enormous playability, and general all-round sweetness. It's beautifully done, and a worthy ancestor to its superb recent sequel, Robocod, although you probably won't find yourself playing it much after the first couple of days.

Venus (The Flytrap) is a slow-paced and thoughtful console-esque arcade game, with lovely graphics and lots of that 'just a little bit further' compulsion. It's got a great shoot-'em-up sub-game between levels too, which ups the adrenalin level a bit to compensate for the lack of white-knuckle thrills in the main game. The nicest feature is probably the animation, which is creepily insect-like and gives Venus the atmosphere which makes it worth playing.

Lastly we come to Ghouls 'N Ghosts, a conversion of the Capcom coin-op originally released by US Gold. Gameplay-wise it's still close to the arcade game, but the primitive graphics and sound are starting to look a little dated these days. The other interesting feature is the name of the princess your bold knight has to rescue from the eponymous undead. What kind of a name is 'Hus' for a princess? A crap one, that's what.

Nothing here lets the side down at all - this is a good solid compilation of reasonably varied games that'll keep you entertained for a few weeks at least. Buy it as a Christmas treat for yourself.