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Since the demise of Trivial Pursuit, everyone's favourite after hours board game is Pictionary.

What you do is come back home from the pub with your mates, steaming drunk, get out the game and get more drunk whilst you fall about laughing at everyone's pathetic attempts at sketching Money's "View From Tower Bridge" or a banana. Well, by that time, you can't tell the difference!

The idea behind Pictionary for those of you who never do those kind of things, is to move your counters round a board to the finish before anyone else. What a great game concept! But hang on, there's more... You move by having the rest of your team guess what a doodle - specified by the square and a card - you've drawn is. There's a time limit so higher arts degree students can't produce charcoal, gouache or litho prints. It's all quite a laugh because generally, in the time you're given, most people's drawings are crap.

The problem with most board games is that when they're translated to the screen they lose much of their spontaneity. Pictionary sadly is no exception. You are given a nice box to keep the game in, laminated, colour question cards, and are then expected to draw everything on the screen. If you don't split into teams (the game accommodates as many as six individuals) you don't get to drawn anything at all - the computer does it. When the game is played this way it rapidly degenerates into a 'first to the space bar' guessing game. Naturally, the computer draws accurately so there's no fun to be had there.

When played in teams at least an element of human fallibility creeps in. You have to draw the picture on what is effectively a basic art package. Various options offer you the ability to draw straight lines, circles and use freehand to create your doodle. There's certainly amusement watching people's weak attempts to draw with a mouse, but it's painfully slow work.

Pictionary then makes little sense in translation to the computer, especially when you consider that the Amiga version costs marginally more than the board game itself. Sorry Domark, but no way can I recommend that.