So, the BBC isn't to be left out in the flood of Christmas software. Software Projects' three releases make good use of sound and graphics.

Percy Penguin, contrary to expectations, isn't a Pengi variation; it's another platform game. You control Percy, have to jump from floe to floe, collecting fish to keep your strength up, avoid seals and skuas and generally have a Polar ball. It's fun, nicely implemented, difficult and deserves to do well. Ledgeman is slightly better than the others, as you might guess it's a platform game with all the usual paraphernalia. It's rather like Durell's Mineshaft, but somehow lacks appeal.

Ewgeebez is a maze-type game in which you have to collect diamonds, avoid or zap aliens and watch out for the maze's defence system. Software Projects is leading the way in minimalist inlays, the description of the game runs to a full three sentences.

Landing Party is a variation on Star Trek, but it's not bad at all. Your task is to locate and save Mr. Spark, and moving from sector to sector you can orbit planets, beam down landing parties, zap Zingons and on and on.

Upper Gumtree is the follow-up to Urban Upstart, and promises to be even better. The title is the name of the most boring place in the Universe, a sleepy village, to where Professor Blowitovitz moves and instigates the action. You must discover the prof's fiendish plot to destroy the world.

Interview is a curious little number. The aim is, as you might guess, to attend an interview, for Front Runner master programmer, no less. And judging by this game, there should be one for an ideas generator as well. The various tasks that present themselves as you try to get to the office in time are singularly dull. Walk down the street, avoid dogs, manholes and banana skins. Then it's on to the aerial map. Here you must avoid all the above, as well as cyclists and cars, and the dogs seem to have developed a mean streak - they'll latch on to your scent and come after you with a vengeance. But there's really not much to it at all.

Games Workshop follows up its brilliant Battlecars and D-day with an adventure Tower Of Despair. A map, guide and history are included in the package.

If you're looking to use your C64 for finance, you might find Busicalc 3 useful. It's Supersoft's latest spreadsheet, and offers a maximum model of 2500 cells, fast moves, up to 38 character formulae, simple bar graphing, and many other facilities.

We ran a sneak screen shot of Flyer Fox, recently, and the game is now available from retail outlets. It features voice synthesis via the C64's sound chip, but it's a bit indistinct, perhaps accurately representing radio contact. The game itself is pretty simple, your task is to guide a cargo plane from attack from the enemy fighters. When one's spotted, you hear "Breakaway, breakaway" over the air. Then it's down to you to locate and kill.

The graphics are adequate, the sound fair, but it's far from a chart topper. We're still waiting for Gandalf, after promising glimpses seen at the PCW show, but it's not been seen since. System 3 is importing three titles from the US. Juice involves moving Edison, your kinetic android, from square to square to make a connection of the electric variety. Nohms impede Edison's progress, melting him down and doing much the same for your score.

Like many successful American games, Juice is a simple concept, but maddeningly difficult and addictive.

Run For Gold, Yacht Race and Rally Driver are simulations from Fiveways, normally responsible for fairly high quality educational software. Run For Gold is a bit late on the scene as an Olympic game, and only deals with middle distance running. There's a choice of three distances, four competitions, your performance improves with your success at each level and the graphics are quite neat.

Yacht Race allows you to practice sailing at a number of levels, rudder only, trimming the sails, and balancing the helmsman. Then you can race against another yacht. It's nicely done, but the screen update is rather slow and the graphics aren't up to much. Still, it's original.

Rally Driver will probably do better. It features some road racing like Pole Position and others, but you also have to navigate the course, slow down for check point, try not to pick up time penalties and so on.

Boulder Dash was a big Commodore 64 hit in the US and looks set to do well over here. Front Runner's conversion is pretty good, with the exception of the sound and some of the scrolling. It's an addictive and original game which should do as well among Spectrum owners as those with C64s.

The Sandman Cometh has now been re-released. It's an illustrated adventure set in the land of dreams and nightmares. Watch the Dungeon page.

Graphics LOGO comes from an established publisher of books, but was written by Sigma Press, which produced Pilot for the C64 among others. The Logo was designed especially for the Spectrum, uses single key entry and comes with a keyboard overlay to make this simpler. It supports programs with line numbers, procedures, can link up to Basic, supports recursion and has some special graphics commands.