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It's strange how the only people you ever see playing squash are either fat businessmen who are trying to impress their clients, or bronzed muscle-men who look as if they've spent all night in the gym. You never see the inbetweenies, the still-got-a-pot-belly-but-not-quite-out-of-breath people. There have to be squash players who exist in a transitional stage between wobbly fat and rippling muscles. But where are they? It's one of life's great mysteries.

The characters in World Championship Squash are a real hotchpotch, it has to be admitted. I don't know about you but I never heard of Elvis doing anything more energetic than a bit of hip gyrating. But here the King is, in the flesh, playing squash against the likes of Barry and Lionel [Not Blair! Please don't let it be Lionel Blair! - Ed]. There's someone called Jason in there too, looking very blond and maybe a little Australian?

You can play squash against all these players and more if you choose to play a tournament. Or you could just take pot luck and play a single game against any one of court in two dimensions only, and the shadow it casts is no help. Even worse, if your opponent is standing in the way, then that obscures the ball completely.

There are five ways to hit the ball. Press Fire for a standard hit; Fire and Up makes your player do a high smash; Fire and Down makes him reach for the dirt. You can also put spin on the ball by tugging your joystick Left and Right while pressing Fire.

As in many Zeppelin games there are loads of options. With World Championship Squash there is a particularly useless one: Attend Competition. Choose this and if you play a tournament you get to sit through all the other games you don't even play in. It's so soporific it should be certified as a strong sedative and only be available through your GP.

But watching a game is only slightly less dull than playing one. Sure, it follows the rules of game, but the fun in real squash comes from watching your opponent limp away when a carefully placed ball makes him pile headlong into the wall. With World Championship Squash you haven't got precise enough ball control to do things like that, or anything else remotely creative. About the best you can hope to do is return the ball legally.

Two-player mode can be fun if you've got a sense of humour and a mate who's worse than you are. At least it introduces an element of unpredictability. But if you really have to have a squash sim this isn't the one to get. Unless, of course, you have trouble sleeping.

1. The game sticks pretty much to the rules of real squash.

1. The background gives you the turquoise equivalent of snow blindness after a while.
2. The viewpoint makes it difficult to work out where the ball is.
3. All in all, it's pretty darned dull stuff.