Staying the course in some racey games for the Oric and Atmos kept Nick Rann on his toes

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Fancy a day at the races? Picking horses for courses is the essence of this thoughtfully constructed racing game from Salamander. You are the owner and manager of a stable of 16 horses and your aim is to become the richest of your kind by winning races. At the start of the season you know nothing about your mounts and only by monitoring their progress in the early races can you evolve a strategy to clean up in the big-money, end-of-season Classics.

Each race is run before your eyes and the graphics and sound are exceptionally realistic, as is your sense of frustration when your trusty steed slows down to chew grass just before the winning line.

Still, what else should you expect with a name like Dobbin?

Fortunately, prudent betting can boost your bank balance, but to succeed you must be well up on the most suitable type of going, distance and jockey weight for literally hundreds of horses.

With so much to remember, my strategy went completely to the dogs but happily the bookies were quite prepared to extend my credit.

This highly-absorbing game steals a furlong or two on other micro-sports and keeps you in the saddle for hours - so may the horse be with you.

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From the horse to the sauce - there's enough of that in this ravioli-inspired rough house to keep Frankie Howerd in jokes for a year. You take the role of the harassed waiter at Mamma's Pasta Parlour in Italy long ago.

On the screen appear seven ravioli tins, each representing a future life. Using your powerful sauce squirter you whizz frantically round the screen defending them from ravenous Ravioli Robbers and Pasta Pinchers while attempting to deceive the homing instincts of the Pacmen.

Easy, I hear you say, but with the appearance of score-boosting Pasta Prizes and Powda Pills to refill your squirter, the screen soon resembles Spaghetti Junction at rush hour and your hopes of a quite candlelit dinner for two look like ending up at the local chippie.

Never mind, by selecting the standard of difficulty you warm up on the easy levels before being dished up with the sticky stuff.

I did just that but still ended up with egg on my face - at least the pasta was fresh.

Unusually well-defined graphics enhance a highly original and effective production. Both manic and good humoured, Pasta Blasta is a great source of amusement - especially if you feel like a bit of a squirt.

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It's Friday, it's five o' clock and where's Leslie Crowther? He's playing Quack-a-Jack, no doubt. Red Jack, our web-footed hero, is trapped on a grid of flagstones in the palace dungeon. To avoid coming up before the beak he must reach the terraducktile egg before it hatches and takes a snipe at him. He's no spring chicken and the flagstones may crumble under his weight leaving him in the soup - duck soup, that is.

Hot in pursuit might be anything from a beefburger to a Kangaroo and the screen becomes rather too cluttered at times for the Oric's graphics capabilities. Similar existing games work better on other machines, but Oric owners will no doubt find this crazy caper a welcome addition to their software collection.

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So this is what happens when a software firm's promotion department finally cracks. Take five fairly unexceptional games, put them all together, publish a photo of the author looking like a Broadmoor patient, enclose half a book on the subject of teenage neuroses and you've got Them.

With an abundance of instructions you may concentrate on an individual game or cycle through all five, playing at the level of your choice.

In game one, Trapped, you must collect a couple of blobs and head for the door avoiding the electric walls and various Thems. Game two, Blockbuster, is basically a micro version of those familiar coloured plastic tower cups. And the third game, Surrounded, features you encircled by invaders.

The next and most original game, Conveyor to Doom, depicts you tied to a horizontal conveyor belt and heading for the Big Mac mincer. Each passing alien advances the cogs a notch and you must either wipe them out or spend the rest of your days between a sesame bun and a slice of cheese.

Soulsaver, game five, requires basic elimination to piece together some broken funny bones - although by this stage the only bone I could see was one of contention.

With such a contrived introduction to a very infantile collection this project would stand a greater chance of success if as much creative thought had gone into the games as into the accompanying script.

I had forgotten just how much fun playing a good old fashioned Breakout can be. This version from Dream Software has many excellent features including ball spin, eight different wall patterns and a pleasing array of colour and sound.

With genuinely effective skill level controls you can progress to a frantic tempo and with up to five balls in play at once you'll find yourself getting through more bricks than Arthur Scargill's pickets.

While not exactly breaking out into new territory, Blockbuster is a smoother production of an established and unpretentious theme.