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Live And Let Die is yet another James Bond release that should qualify for double-oh zero.

The exact background of this game is confused but, as TLW made clear last month, it did originally belong to Elite (their logo remains splashed all over its loading screen) and it bears more than a passing resemblance to Buggy Boy.

Once again you are cast in the role of JB in a game which, unsurprisingly, bears little resemblance to the film. This is a shame since there is enough variety in the average Bond film for a dozen games. Anyway, this one's water flavoured.

A paltry serving of four missions is offered up, three training and one 'for real'. The easiest (pseudo) mission is target practice on the British waterways, so you head off in your boat loaded with unlimited fuel and missiles and plug as much targets as possible within a set distance. No real threats here apart from rocks. When you complete this you can go training on a river in the Sahara desert (?). This time with added aqua mines, torpedo launching helicopters and other boats. Polar training is the third training mission but there's little difference to the Sahara one.

Your boat is armed with a machine gun and missiles, as well as a limited amount of fuel which is constantly drained. When you die, those few seconds of immobility waste a fair amount of fuel. Not surprisingly, extra fuel can be collected on the way: red pods give a small amount of fuel, silver nearly half a tank, green tops up your missiles as well as the fuel tank, and the yellow pods fall off the back of the boat and should ideally be avoided.

Had this game been set on land it would be an exact cross between Road Blasters and Buggy Boy. Take for instance the slopes which you can expertly guide your boat up to avoid difficult obstacles, the logs which bounce your boat into the air, or the gun turrets placed on the river bends. Sound familiar?

Once I had mastered the rudimentary control and tactics I decided to quit beating around the bush and go straight for the jugular in the final mission in New Orleans. The scenery this time was green in preference to sandy yellow but otherwise basically the same. After a while, each game was taking me ten minutes and there was still no sign of the elusive Mr Big and his cocaine racket, so I did the decent thing and pulled the plug on the game.

The onshore scenery generally is a picturesque mess with the puce green palm trees living the canals of England and an apparently buildless New Orleans. The sprite enlarging is actually between than I expected with a few more updates than some games I could mention. In passing, I also have to point out the omission of the Bond theme or the Wings' Live And Let Die toon as well.

Poor old Cubby Broccoli must be turning in his grave by now [But he isn't dead! - Ed], so please lads do the guy justice and release a decent Bond game.