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It's been a year when racing games truly found favour again both in the arcades and, subsequently, at home. The Amiga has seen a steady stream of conversions and original games, with the latter, in the shape of RVF and Stunt Car taking the chequered flag for quality. Now we have a conversion to rank with them.

Hard Drivin' must be one of the most hotly fancied games to top the charts this Christmas. It's been number one in the arcades for months due to its realistic blend of simuation and arcade thrills.

When machines like Turbo OutRun and Super Monaco GP concentrated solely on the racing aspect of their appeal, Atari's coin-op attempted quite successfully to emulate the feel of controlling a motor vehicle at high speed. Its colourful 3D graphics enhanced the sensation more than usefully.

The idea is to control your vehicle around two routes, the speed track and the stunt track, against the clock. The ultimate goal is to qualify for a championship lap against the mysterious Phantom Photon, a ghostly blue turbocharger that's not prepared to concede the title of top Hard Driver without a fight.

Domark's conversion will come as a relief to fans of the coin-op - it's extremely impressive. Graphically it's nearly a replica, partly due to the fact that backgrounds from the original have been downloaded, but also due to the attention to detail which has gone into the rest which have all been redrawn from sketches, right down to the cow standing by the shed at the beginning of the stunt track. Programmer Jurgen Friedrich who was responsible for the 16-bit versions of Star Wars has got his maths right again with silk smooth scrolling and fast updates. The sound too is particularly strong with many of the original effects sampled and a particularly punchy original introduction tune.

As a game I have my reservations about Hard Drivin'. Despite its undeniable quality, its realism is such that it's always reminded me slightly of a drive down to the supermarket - well, on the speed track anyway, there aren't any loops on the Finchley Road. Nevertheless, on the home computer it translates even better. The raw thrills of Stunt Car aren't there, but these are replaced by an extremely absorbing challenge.

There can be little doubt given the quality of this conversion, and that it won't be up there challenging for the top spot from the moment of its release.