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The Perils of Bear George is one of three games Cheetahsoft is releasing with its new 'joystick', the RAT. In it you play the part of Bear George, and your object is to have a successful hibernation each Winter. You achieve this in stages, in a number of separate screens.

The first screen is set in a forest (well, there are three trees). You have to try and eat as many apples as you can which fall from the trees.

As soon as you realise how to go about this, the screen becomes tedious - you can't really fail.

The worst thing that can happen to you is for a squirrel to drop something nasty onto your head, which knocks you out for a few seconds.

The graphics at this stage are quite nice. But they're not as detailed as the picture on the cassette inlay card and advert, which looks like a screenshot. A nice touch to the game is that you can see yourself get fatter as you eat more apples.

The second screen, which you automatically reach after a fixed time, has simpler graphics. Here, the object is to cross a ski-piste, avoiding the skiers. This is no great challenge since the skiers are few and far between.

On the third screen you're inside your cave, and you have to walk to the end without hitting any of the spiders bounding up and down. As with the last two screens, this is more a formality than a challenge once you know when to move (which might take you five seconds to work out).

Well, that's basically it - as you end up with a picture of a sleeping bear who, on waking, returns to the woods again.

On the whole, the graphics are above average - the first time you see them! - and each screen has its own tune.

But as a game, this program is hopeless; its lasting appeal is about the same as a ZX81 sound synthesiser program.