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The store at www.atariage.com has two new additions to its growing collection of new Atari 2600 games. Both are brave ports from more powerful technologies: Lady Bug by John W Champeau (originally an arcade game) and A-VCS-tec Challenge by Simon Quernhorst, based on the Commodore 64 classic Aztec Challenge.

In Lady Bug, you take control of a very hungry little Lady Bird (that's English for "Lady Bug" you see!). Chomping your way through many different flowers might seem like a serene way to live a life, but there is danger around every corner as your foes lie in wait.

This game is not too dissimilar to Namco's classic Pac-man, but will surely play a whole lot better than the official port of Pac-man which appeared on the legendary wood-grain sporting console all those many years ago. The game comes with a full colour printed manual and even a choice of cartridge colours for $25 plus shipping costs.

A-VCS-tec Challenge sees you and two brothers trapped between a great battle and your only chance of survival. Taking on one challenge after another, it's down to you to guide your party to the coastline and, ultimately, to safety. This game is priced at $25 plus shipping costs. Fans of the original C64 game should be thoroughly entertained here. For more information about these two releases, visit Atari Age's website mentioned above and click 'Store' on the top right-hand side of its homepage.

Users of the popular 64HDD system, which allows you to turn a useless PC into a virtual Commodore IEC serial disk drive (but with much greater storage space than an old 5.25" floppy disk) will be pleased to hear that there is now a cartridge expansion available for the C64 and 128 which quite significantly speeds up access between your C64 and PC. The new standard upgrades do not require any internal modifications to your favourite 8-bit and are known as the Turbo/XE and Pwr/Cart. These devices also come with a snazzy professional-looking case should you require one, just like the glory days of Datel Electronic's famous Action Replay cartridges, and you can pick and mix the available upgrades according to your personal needs. To find out more about this particular development, and for information about the 64HDD system itself, go to www.64hdd.com/64hdd/64carts.html

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Two new text adventures have recently been released for the C64 via the wonderful world wide web, these being The Return Of Sammy Marlo and Knight's Journey. The first is described as a "wacky" text adventure which was created with Loadstar's Quest Writer, and the second being created without aid of any such utilities. Both will provide fans of the interactive fiction genre with a few hours of entertainment at least, with the disk image downloadable from www.geocities.com/sammymarlo/b4page.html

Meanwhile, Cronosoft is preparing the release of the classic text adventure Treasure Isle written by Jon Wells, which includes animated colour graphics and great SID music. Can you help Weebles discover the hidden secret fortunes of the pirate ship Bounty? Price for the cassette is currently £1.99 plus postage for the cassette, with the disk version coming soon. More information may be obtained at www.cronosoft.co.uk