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The Emerald Planet is where you do your exploring. It's got 40 billion mappable locations, each one different. Well, not very different, actually. The scenery is built from a stock of trees, bushes, rivers, rocky outcrops and native dwellings, and after a while everywhere begins to give you an uncanny feeling of familiarity.

All those huts and temples are uninhabited, too. Where the hell is everyone? A wet weekend in Willesden has got more action than the Emerald Planet.

It's just your just then, that of all the planets in the known universe you've chosen this one to get marooned on. As your spacecraft comes crashing through the atmosphere, essential knobbly bits fall off it and are scattered far and wide. To refit your craft and escape you'll have to find all nine missing fragments.

If Electric Dreams' boast of 40 billion mappable locations is to be believed, then finding the various bits and pieces is going to take a little while. I mean, if you visit 60 locations a minute and didn't break for coffee, it shouldn't be much more than a million years before you've found at least eight of the fragments. So you might as well get cracking.

To reduce the odds against you, there's some useful equipment for tracking down spacecraft debris. This comprises: a jetpack, nine radio beacons, nine anti-grav drones, radio direction finder, a compass and a laser pulse gun.

Gazing disconsolately at the endless jungle which surrounds you you send out a radio signal, hoping that the resulting echo, bouncing off some rocket wreckage, will give you an idea of where it lies. And so it does: on a bearing of 177 degrees, out of range. And off you go, keeping an eye on the compass reading to to right of the screen to ensure that you're not walking in the wrong direction.

After an hour or two, it becomes clear that not only is the jungle rather monotonous in appearance, but there's rather a lot of it. But what's that shimmering through the undergrowth ahead?

Yes, it's one of those time and space portals you've heard so much about. You step inside and give it the name of the location you wish to visit. Choose anywhere you like - after all, you've got 40 billion mappable locations to select from - and on arrival you'll not be surprised to find that Ruislip bears a remarkable resemblance to the jungle clearing you've just left.

This is getting you nowhere fast, so now you start to employ your radio beacons. You can place these where you want and later use your radio direction finder to give you a bearing and a range on them. Geography students will immediately recognise the opportunity for some thrilling triangulation exercises. Everyone else probably won't.

Using the jetpack speeds things up a little bit. Pressing U takes you up over the landscape and you can scoot over lakes, huts and trees in the vague direction of the last bearing you can remember. Then you can drop down again by pressing 'D' and taking care to avoid trees and water, send out another radio signal and discover that the bit of wreckage is still 'Out of range'. Occasionally you might be lucky enough to stumble across the only living creatures on the planet - flying bugs which are slow-moving and stupid, and easily shot. But take your time, tease them a bit, because this is the only slice of action in the entire game.

Eventually, possibly, you might track down your first fragment of spacecraft. Don't expect any graphic extravaganza - in fact, don't expect anything at all except a single digit score being registered. Is that what all this sweat is about?

For the record, then: graphics are pretty, mostly stationary and without variety; sound consists of odd hums and drones; and gameplay is wonderfully tedious.

I know it's comparatively early in the year, but nevertheless I nominate Explorer as The Most Boring Game of 1987. Let's hear it for the Electric Dreams and the Ram Jam Corporation (commence slow hand clap).