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Whoever wrote this game (one of the Binary Design bods) knows at least one thing about motorbike trials - the fact that if you do a touch of stunting, the bike is going to suffer at least as much as you are.

When the bike suffers, something else suffers - your bank balance, because trials bikes don't grow on trees, Isaac Newton wouldn't have known what hit him if he had sat beneath a Kawasaki tree instead of an apple tree.

The idea behind trials is to show your complete mastery of bike handling. The course is timed, but that is really of secondary importance, because only skill will determine whether you complete the course.

After a minimal flurry of preamble you start of at the top of a hill. The idea is to get to the bottom without falling off. Glider Rider and Amaurote players will immediately feel at home, because some of the graphics have been lifted from both games.

The controls, although logical, are a bit weird, and take a lot of getting used to. The isometric graphics system makes lining up with the various obstacles rather difficult.

The simplest of all the obstacles is the ramp jump, which only requires approach at the right speed and angle to clear it. Steps and planks need hair-trigger accuracy with both line and speed to have any chance of a healthy points bonus, which will eventually turn into dosh to facilitate repair of your steed.

If things get really bad you can even buy a whole new bike. But you can't buy it on credit - nobody trusts bikers.

Rough ground is the real killer. Go too fast and it's definitely Goodnight Vienna... The trouble is, you have to go dead slow over this stuff - so slow that you have only a very slim chance of completing the course.

A neat little picture of a bike slowly falls to bits as you wreck your own. A pretty trick, but why does it have to fill one third of the screen?

Motorbike Madness is nicely presented, with pin-sharp four-colour graphics. The sound is adequate, the scrolling is without a flicker.

All would be right with the world was it not for the fact that the game is impossibly hard. You touch anything at slightly the wrong angle and it's bend the bike time.

At least you can take heart from the fact that the Spectrum version on the flipside is just as difficult.