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Now, haven't we seen this before in the shape of a novel little budget game called Kickstart? No, we haven't, we've just seen something similar, but a lot more basic. Super Scramble Simulator (try saying that after a bottle of Jack Daniels) allows you to ride a scrambler (a specially-adapted bike that allows you to ride on off-road terrain) over a variety of courses. Obstacles you encounter include Volkswagen Beatles, logs, hills and walls that have to be driven around.

This all seems like jolly good fun until you realise just how precise you have to be. You have to be in the right gear for the right obstacles, be at the right speed, have the right wheel in the right position and to top it all you're up against a really tight time limit. I enjoyed Super Scramble Simulator on certain other formats, but the C64 version lacks a certain pzazz. It plays well, but not quite well enough. Some of the controls are sticky. Basically it's just not as good as it might have been. That said, the Amiga version looks hot. Look out for a review soon!

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One swift glance at Rainbow Arts' latest release will tell you that this is a somewhat belated 16-bit clone of the old C64 game from US Gold, Solomon's Key.

The game is played across a series of screens, each individual levels in which a little wizard has to move around collecting jewels and directing a magic orb into a stone to complete the screen.

Despite being small, the graphics are quite neat and colourful and the game is certainly playable in a throwaway kind of sense.

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As you might remember, the Amiga version of this wasn't all that much of an improvement over the original Test Drive. Sadly to say, even with all the lovely enhancements, this isn't all that much better than the original C64 version either. In fact, it's worse.

You see, by enhancing the scenery and adding all these lovely things to the game, such as trees and signs with sweet little messages on them like 'Welcome to California' all marked out in nice vectors, the game has slowed down quite a bit.

The update on the road is terrible, as is the update on all the sprites. There are times when you die because you've been overtaken by car by which seems like yards - but for some reason the computer hasn't allowed it. Once again, the infamous cracked lines fill the screen. They might have improved the death effect.

A series of optional scenery and car disks will soon be available, but you probably won't need them.

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Where its 8-bit counterpart is super league MicroProse Soccer simply fails to make the first division - simply because it's not as good.

First impressions are promising, with a couple of nice blue digitised stills on the options screen, but once the game is loaded you rapidly realise that the conversion is less than inspired. The major problem is that it's too slow and lacks the playability of Kick Off. You're not going to get excited about this, just steamed up by its limitations.

Graphically there is little difference which is alright, but sound is disappointing. Second best may sound like a good performance, but not in a two horse race.