Can you go wrong for just under 94p a game? Well, if Smash 16 is anything to go by, indeed you can. Unless you're seriously short of spare blank cassettes, that is. The Codies have put together a bunch of sixteen 'classic' games in a package costing just under fifteen quid which sounds like an excellent bargain. But my Mum had a saying that she would quote at me every new year as I prepared to hit the January sales: "A bargain is only a bargain if you would have bought it at the full price anyway". And that's true not only for green, sequinned boob tubes but for C64 games as well.

The pack consists primarily of tedious shoot-'em-ups, with a sprinkling of yawnsome arcade-type adventures. The best of the bunch are probably Kamikaze, for its sheer cuteness, and KGB Superspy, just because it's a relief not to be playing another boring, routine blast-everything- in-sight-to-bits game.

To put Guardian Angel as the first game on the first tape was a definite mistake. It's a bland beat-'em-up that would be more at home on a Speccy. It's an awful shade of bluey-green with sprites that are just black line drawings.

Some people will argue value for money idealism until they're blue in the face. But personally I'd recommend that you buy three decent £3.99 budget games instead and have enough left over to rent Batman Returns for an evening from your local video library.

1. Kamikaze
   Fly a tiny plane, kill everything in sight and pick up the goodies. Complex stuff, this.
2. KGB Superspy
   Well 'ard music and nifty graphics but you need a soft touch.
3. Guardian Angel
   A bog standard beat-'em-up in a yucky shade of turquoise, courtesy of Spectrum-O-Vision. File under 'dire'.
4. Ghost Hunters
   Appalling platformer. Slow movement combined with boring graphics and naff sound effects.

1. Super G-Man
   Power yourself along with your anti-grav power pack. Different and quite amusing.
2. Terra Cognita
   More vertical scrolling and shooting. Tedious and tough on the ears.
3. Ninja Massacre
   Wander around a maze collecting objects and killing things. Okayish.
4. Arcade Flight
   Fly a transparent white plane through enemy territory. Horizontally-scrolling and only one screen high - fly off the top and you re-appear at the bottom.
5. Poltergeist
   Dead fast horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-up. A Defender clone that plays quite well.
6. Lazer Force
   Vertically-scrolling shoot-'em-up. Not too tough but not too much fun either.
7. Super Robin Hood
   An arcade platformer/adventure that's an adventurous as a cup of tea.
8. Frankenstein Junior
   Dull maze adventure. Pick up objects, put them down again and get killed through no fault of your own.
9. Super Hero
   Boring red, white and black arcade adventure. Naff graphics and sound enhance the non-existent playability.
10. Sky High Stuntman
    Play a stuntman in various roles. Most of the levels take the form of simple combat shoot-'em-ups.

1. Loads of tapes for not a lot of dosh.

1. Twelve of the games are frankly dreadful.
2. The other four aren't that much cop.
3. Manual? What manual? You have to work out most of the games by trial and error, not that there's much incentive.