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It would be quite gratifying to tell you that The New-Zealand Story isn't very good after Ocean announced on the game's C64 packaging that we'd given it a screenstar before we'd even seen it.

So it's almost with sadness that we have to admit that it is indeed worth a screenstar for its quality - something which should come as some great relief to C64 owners drooling with anticipation at the 16-bit reviews.

The game, despite its cuteness, is a classic blend of platform and shoot-'em-up with five stages and four parts to each stage, making it a tough challenge. Graphically, Ocean have done a more than creditable job, although the teddies are somewhat indistinct. Otherwise, the backgrounds are excellent with plenty of colour and detail.

The gameplay is solid, with accurate sprite detection. If you've been wondering what happened to good 8-bit software then wonder no more. This ranks alongside Forgotten Worlds as one of the conversions of the year so far.

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It's yet another one of those computer boardgame thingies from CDS, the company that invented, in the words of our Ed. "The best game ever", Brian Clough's Football Fortunes. This time they're trying something a little more aggressive than football (is there such a thing?) war.

Inside the large cardboard box, you receive a foldout map of the four game provinces, the game disk, game instructions and a plastic bag full of little plastic tanks and armoured cars. This is how the game works. Each of the players (2-4) have a small army of their very own, which they place in their very own province. In each province is a base. The idea is to get a tank onto one of your opponent's bases and destroy it, thereby eradicating them.

The actual game movement all takes place on the board. However, all the game calculations take place on the computer, allocating the amount of movement points, as well as deciding the results of any battle that take place with some glorious battle graphics.

Loads of fun, involving as Brian Clough's Cloughy Cloughy, and definitely worth getting, but only if you've got a friend who'll play it with you.

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to hurtle along on a piece of wood with a wheel on each corner with nothing to protect you but a pair of elbow pads? No, neither have I! But now, thanks to Linel, you can enjoy skateboarding without the risk of broken limbs or hospital food.

Skate Of The Art places you on a skateboard and the idea is to stay there. This would be easy if you were the normal run-of-the-mill skateboarder, content to zip up and down the high street bothering pedestrians, but you're not. To prove your worth youmust negotiate twenty increasingly difficult levels and become Skate Of The Art champion.

You start on a skateboard track in Earls Court station and must progress through Holland, Miami and the World Skatepark. Each level scrolls from right to left and includes things like ramps, jumps and various other obstructions that must be overcome.

As with all Linel's releases Skate Of The Art is a highly polished piece of software. The graphics for the courses are crisp, detailed and very varied. The main character is a little blocky but is well animated and certainly passes as a skateboarder.

There are very few sound effects and what there is, is substandard, thankfully there are a few good tunes that more than make up for this. To help you get used to the occasionally awkward control system there is a joystick training mode which partially makes up for the lack of any helpful documentation.

To start with, your biggest opponent is the joystick but once you've got the hang of it you'll find yourself performing flips and jumps with ease and thoroughly enjoying it as well!

In the early stages it's hard to put the joystick down as you try to finish another level or improve on your best score, however, as you progress to more difficult areas of the game it gets a little annoying that you have to work through the previous levels all over again.

I think that Skate Of The Art will appeal to most people but especially to fans of the Kick Start genre.