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Charity returns to the philanthropic world of software once more with Codemasters' long-awaited C64 version of Race Against Time. I say long awaited because the Speccy version appeared some three months ago. The delay is all the more surprising when you realise there's little difference between the two, graphically or otherwise.

Race Against Time isn't the first charity tape by any means. We've had Off The Hook for drug abuse, Soft Aid and WOW a War on Want tape. Race Against Time is the first game to have been specifically written for charitable reasons with proceeds going to Sport Aid.

I must admit I'm a bit dubious about charity events of this nature. I didn't Run the World, I didn't even run West Hampstead; I didn't go to Live Aid, or even watch much of it on TV. I didn't wear a red nose for comic relief, though I must confess to having generously purchased a goat called Sandy who probably ended up on the menu of the Eritrean Liberation Front shortly afterwards. Still my conscience was eased along with everybody else's for a while.

My point here is simply that despite all the disposable income that exists in the West the solution to the problems of the Third World should not be left to well-meaning groups. As to whether you should buy Race Against Time for its entertainment value alone, I have to report that you're not getting anything special for your money here. It's written by the Oliver twins and it takes the form of a rather fatuous pick up and drop arcade adventure with your runner appearing in various locations around the world using a stool he found in New York to climb mountains in Nepal and so on.

If you want to make a statement on the West's greed and exploitation of the Third World then a charity software tape may not be the best answer. If you want to provide some much needed and very urgent relief then you could do worse than buying the Race Against Time, charity is, after all, supposed to begin at home. But it really only amounts to fire-fighting.