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Four things are tested by Olympic games - the speed, and the endurance, of your hands at hammering the keyboard; reaction time to changing events on the screen (like rapidly increasing angles, etc); and accuracy (either by hitting a target, or by doing something at a precise point such as a take-off line). The very best events are those which can challenge all four abilities and get you to co-ordinate them - javelin-throwing is a good example. But for the newer games, new events are being introduced - and only a few successfully involve all the challenges of the best Olympic games.

The quality of the six individual events in Hyper Sports vary enormously.

By listening to the sound effects, the opening events - skeet shooting and swimming - can literally be played with your eyes closed. On the other hand, the archery offers an intriguing challenge (the wind speed and direction vary, so the event can be different each time you play). The triple jump provides a true test of co-ordinating speed, angle and timing. And the weightlifting is a good challenge to your finger muscles - if you can get that far in the game!

The problem is that the central event, gymnastics, operates on totally incomprehensible principles.

There just doesn't seem to be a 'method' you can master, so your results are completely unpredictable. It's enormously frustrating to fail at the gymnastics each time, and be sent back to the easy opening events, never reaching the later, better games.

And there is no 'practice' way of trying out the various events; you have to play in sequence every time.

In the end, I felt those frustrations and the easy, boring opening games outweighed the really entertaining events. There are three good events, two boring and one that's just plain duff - for me, that doesn't count as enough to be value for money.