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Motor sport ain't what it used to be. Time was when greats like James Hunt, Nikki Lauda and Emerson Fittipaldi thrilled the world with their exploits on and off the track. By comparison, today's champs are faceless non-entities, pawns in a multi-million pound business. Nigel Mansell's no exception. He looks like he's strayed onto the track by accident, an accountant who has taken the wrong exit off the M25.

Nigel Mansell's World Championship is a version of the man's climb up the motor racing ladder, taking place over sixteen circuits in exotic locations like Brazil, Hungary and Monaco. Your job is to steer Mansell - or one of the other eleven drivers - to victory and the coveted world championship. You get used to the gameplay with the help of two practice options. The first is a driving school, where you bomb around a selected track against a time limit; the second - Improve with Mansell - gives you the chance to take driving tips from the man himself.

As you career around the circuit like Mr Bean on a bad day, Nige appears in the top left corner, pearls of wisdom dripping from his badly-animated chin. It's pretty laughable, especially when he says things like "avoid objects" after you've ploughed through a barrier. What's he like, eh?

When you've had enough comedy driving, it's time to get down to the nitty gritty of international Formula One racing. You can choose either a single circuit or a complete season with three difficulty levels - normal, professional or championship.

At the start of each race you're shown a map of the racing circuit and given a weather forecast, so you can match your car's setup to the prevailing conditions. There are three types of tyres, aerofoils and gear ratios to choose from, all of which affect your race performance. Once you've tuned your car, there's time for a couple of qualifying laps - which determine your grid position - before you enter the race proper.

In Championship mode you get up to seven laps on each circuit and plenty of opportunity to play bumper cars with your opponents. Success or failure depends on your starting grid position, tyre wear and how good you are at taking corners at 300km/h. If you become world champion, you get a congratulatory screen, before going back to the beginning - there's no sexy animated sequence, despite what the manual says.

Once you get used to seeing Nigel's mug everywhere, this turns out to be a fairly average racing sim. It's not a million miles away from a whole host of other games like Lotus Turbo Challenge, which Gremlin also produces. Guiding the car is a question of getting used to the control mechanism - which is a tad sensitive - and timing overtaking manoeuvres and pit stops. On the easier levels, world championship status is fairly easy to achieve and even the hardest level won't provide too much of a problem if you're a hardened Formula One addict.

Your car can be controlled by joystick, mouse, keyboard or Logic 3's Freewheel - see the review on page 83. There's nothing inspiring about the graphics - they're just what you expect from a racing sim and the sound is reminiscent of a bee stuck in an echo chamber. You can't turn the irritating music off either, although it only makes an appearance between races.

Only the kudos of being associated with the British racing champ distinguishes Nigel Mansell from any other racing sim. The features are fairly limited - especially when it comes to customising your car. Vroom or Formula One Grand Prix this is not. Having said that, it's reasonably playable and will endear itself to Nigel's fan.

Mansell fans and racing buffs are going to love this.

Gameplay can be a bit jerky and there's no two-player option.