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Far into the future, nuclear war has devastated the world. The cities are silent, shattered, and you are all that's left of civilisation. Well, all apart from the sinister black racers, the gas stations, and your own souped-up racing car with its fuel gauge, engine temperature gauge, speedometer and radar and map-reading equipment. Ho hum, back to nature...

The game has a main screen, which shows your car and the local sights - the odd tree, cactus or rock, helpfully captioned Denver, San Diego etc. You can steer in any direction you like across this screen, which scrolls through a much larger map - represented on the left of the screen - showing you as a little flashing light moving across the USA. Gas stations, which you should visit frequently in order to keep the tiger in your tank, also appear.

Your quest is to find the eight cups of Ultimate - just what you need to rebuild civilisation - while avoiding the black racers. These home in on your engine-noise and crash into you.

Besides the aforementioned screens, you also have a local radar screen on which to keep an eye. This shows you if there are any hostiles or golden cups in the area. The black racers seem to be faster than you are, and while you break if you hit an object - tree, rock, cactus - they bounce.

You can lose them for brief periods by swerving, or by steering in among clumps of trees, but they soon pick up your trail again. It's theoretically possible to keep an eye on all three screens at once, if you have three eyes, but us mere mortals are reduced to driving by the seat of our pants, dodging trees and black racers.

The borders are a further hazard. When you get near Canada, Mexico or the sea, you seem to bounce off, so tourism is clearly out. I did try to see the Everglades, but the rubber band seems to be fixed right at the North of Florida.

Transam is an original idea, and makes a challenging game. It's difficult to get far into it without a joystick, although there is provision made for one, and even then you've got to be fairly nippy. Getting fuel or picking up one of the cups is difficult, as prudence dictates that you should pick them up without stopping. There's also plenty of scope for developing little manoeuvring wrinkles for your continued survival. It certainly isn't a game you'll tire of quickly.