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It's a rare occurrence indeed that a budget games gets to appear in ACE. But for Jupiter's Masterdrive, we just had to make an exception. Ages ago when Ubisoft released the title, it was warmly received by reviewers but sort of got washed away in the spate of top-down driving scrollers on the market.

Now, at a mere £7.99, the game stands a chance to be a budget scorcher, since there are very few decent top downers around at the moment.

The players have to steer an assortment of vehicles (hovercraft, formula one cars, hot rods and the like) around a bunch of different tracks, each taking place on a different planet or something.

Distinguishing Masterdrive from most games of the ilk is the fact that the players can actually blow each other up by using handy roof-rack mounted cannons.

Most of the courses are well designed and provide thrilling racing, but two problems quickly emerge. The first is that in two player mode, the scale of the track contained in the tiny screens is simply too large and the player can't see where he's going. The second problem is that some tracks are utterly impossible, like the ice track which must be negotiated on hovercraft. Bear in mind that many courses have pinball-style bumpers which rebound the craft across the track, and you can see that this can become a bit of a bind.

Still you can opt to avoid this course, so it's not that bad. And the roistering compos you can have with your mates are most enjoyable.