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Travelling endlessly around an enormous doughnut doesn't exactly sound like the computer game concept of the 80s.

Dress this up with some dodgy graphics - a sprinking of white dots for stars, a curving blue highway, some rather dull-looking obstacles and an uninteresting futuristic dashboard display - and you could be forgiven for thinking that what we have here is a bit of a dodo.

But Deadringer is more than the sum of its parts. Not much more, it's true, but enough to grant a few hours of absorbing play.

But what about that doughnut? Well, racing around this hoop in space is, we're told, how the morons of the far future get their kicks, piloting skimmers at crazy speeds to win death or glory - though there's not much of the latter as far as I can see.

You're one such moron, and you're not alone on the doughnut. There's another rider in a black missile-slung roadster who's out to get you. And the four lanes of the circular track are littered with forcefields, mines, warp gates and walls. Smashing through those won't win you many brownie points, so you blast away at the first three and sidestep the walls by hopping into an adjacent lane.

This can be dangerous, as you can steer right into the path of an oncoming obstacle if you don't keep an eye on the dashboard radar display. This shows the traffic on the lanes to either side of you as well as the one you're on.

The point of all this, in case you haven't sussed it by now, is to stay alive as long as possible, notching up a high score for each circuit you before they hit. On the other lanes, the track curves to left or right, and there's some impressive graphic effects as the obstacles come sweeping round the bend.

That's about it really. A stunningly simple game with spartan graphics, but for some strange reason actually quite addictive. And while you're resting between bouts, there's a catchy title screen tune which owes more than a little to the 50s classic Summertime Blues, and which probably has Eddie Cochran spinning in his grave and contemplating legal action.

File under 'Interesting' and take it out occasionally to while away those rainy afternoons.