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Ask yourself what you'd like to see on the perfect golfing sim: smart scenery? Nick Faldo's got it. Good ball control? It's here. Not having to wait an eon between screens? No problem. Lots and lots of play options? But of course, sir. What more could a budding US Open winner ask for, except a pair of ridiculous trousers, a daft name and some of those elegant spiky shoes?

The most stunning aspect of Nick Faldo is the speed the game runs at. Its wham, bam, three under par ma'am! Hit a shot, check the map and then you're straight back on the grass - you can just play and go! Somehow the entire course is re-mapped and re-drawn in just a few seconds but with a loss of graphic quality! So while your C64's crunching the calculations, you're working out how to play the next hole.

First you have to decide which type of game you want to play. There's one-, two-, three- and four- [five, once I caught a fish alive... - Clur] [Oh get a grip woman! - Ed] player strokeplay or two- and four-player matchplay to choose from. Strokeplay's rather like playing on the holiday campsite's crazy golf course, where the winner is the player who takes the fewest shots to clear the wobbly bridge, windmill and weird loopy-the-loop type thing.

Matchplay is a struggle to 'get down' in the fewest 'strokes'. Or, put more sensibly, where the player with the most holes to their name wins the game. It's rather like tennis [No, it's not - Ed] - the margin of victory for each hole is irrelevant, it's the number of holes each player wins that counts.

You can only lug fourteen clubs around for each game. It's not that your caddy's a bit of a weed, it's the rules! You have to choose which irons, woods and wedges to take on the fairway before you leave for the first hole. Using a simple selection screen you just highlight clubs you want and stuff 'em in your bag. The skill level required to use each club is displayed next to the name, as is the distance which that particular stick can hit a ball at full whack.

Right, you've chosen your opponent(s). You've got some high quality hitting sticks, now all you really want to do is get out and hit something, hard. So then you namby around with the fire button and, whoops... the ball's hooked right, into a bunker that a Houdini would have trouble escaping. Each shot must be set up perfectly.

You have to take account of everything from the wind speed to altering the position of your feet. There are eight options in the push-up menu, five of which are under your control, while the other three help you control your shot.

Once you're happy with the set-up then you can aim and finally start the club swinging. It's a delicate operation, requiring a swift series of precise fire button laps or you'll hook (hit the ball horribly left) or slice (hit it horribly right) the shot. Of course, once you get used to the controls, you can use a slight hook or slice to avoid the occasional gigantic tree, gigantic lake or detective disguised as a bush (?).

Your player's smoothly animated with a perfect swing as he whacks the tiny white ball up into the sky. Now all you have to do is watch that hole-in-one fly - straight into a nearby pond. After fighting along the fairway, battling through bunkers and getting on the green it's time to putt your stuff. Sinking the ball is tougher than it looks, despite the excellent controls. Luckily, there are maps to show the high and low points on each green, so the birdies soon start picking off your bogies - or something.

Nick Faldo's Championship Golf gives you all the best aspects of a round at your favourite club, without the walking and grotty weather. Skilful play not luck will get the, as Winston Churchill put it the, "very small ball in the even smaller hole" (he wasn't very bright for a Prime Minister, was he? - TMB).

The more you play the better you get. And the better you get the more you want to play. Some people might accuse a golf game of being far too specialised, but that's not true. Anyone, no matter how badly they do at first, will understand and enjoy this game after a few short holes. If you're too lazy, or too skint, to play the sport of top retired comedians - you know, the ones who aren't actually funny! - then Nick Faldo's Championship Golf is a sure-fire winner. It leaves the Leaderboards and Jack Nicklauses of this world for dead (or floundering at the first at the very least) with its fast, accurate golfing action. So buy it now! Go on. No, don't wait for your next birthday! The game may be a tad on the pricey side but it's well worth every penny.

1. Excellent graphics!
2. The screens are redrawn very quickly.
3. Impressively wide range of play options for each shot.
4. Putting feels different from fairway shots.

1. A tad expensive for a specialist game.