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Can you make a million by talking on the stock market with a £1,000 stake? That's the challenge of Stockmarket from Amsoft, and it's as compulsive and as well-executed a game as you're likely to find this side of Wall Street.

At first sight the four commodities you're given to trade in don't seem to promise enough variety - but a deck of cards only has four suits and there the variety is infinite. Stockmarket turns out the same way.

Your monitor becomes a stockbroker's terminal with a well-drawn acoustic coupler, winking Data and Online LEDs, and a teleprinter which chatters its news flashes across the foot of the screen.

You watch the prices of lead, zinc, tin and gold rise and fall in response to market activity and you try to buy cheap and sell at a higher price.

The game is at its best with more than one player - as many as six can take part. More players mean more market activity, but the movements of the share prices are only the foreground; in the background, revealed by the news flashes, there are bonus issues, Inland Revenue swoops, interest rate changes, takeovers, bank failures and other developments that can be good, bad or disastrous for your portfolio.

The only shortcomings of the game are easily tolerated. There's no means of comparing portfolio values as you go along; the game ends abruptly when one player reaches £1 million's worth of shares and cash. Nor can you pay off a bank overdraft at will - once you've incurred it, buying on margin, you're stuck with it for ten rounds at the mercy of the prevailing interest rates.

Even so, Stockmarket is a game that will keep you entertained for hours at a time. When you've finished you'll find a strong temptation to start again - or to try the real thing.