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Sounds a bit funny... oh, it's French. Yes, our Continental cousins strike again with this rendering of a traditional idea. The traditional idea is to move around the screen with your mouse, shooting at things that appear before they disappear.

The new rendering is that you play Doc Holliday, Pat Garrett, Calamity Jane and others, while doing it. "Steve McQueen?" I hear you cry forlornly. Er, he's not really in it. There's a drawing of him on the loading screen, though.

Anyway, the idea is to choose your hero, select which miscreant you wish to pursue - the tougher the baddie, the more dosh you get - and click, or rather shoot at the map to indicate where you're headed.

When you arrive, the town is deserted. But only for a few seconds. Suddenly everybody is popping out of barrels, through windows, behind barns and over roofs to shoot at you. Use your mouse and limited ammo to blow them all away.

It sounds entertaining, and believe me when I say it isn't. You'll soon tire of the game because it's exactly the same every time. There are a handful of locations for the battles, and the baddies don't vary, so basically it's Yawn City, Arizona. In its defence though, Westphaser does have a humorous, typically French style. The way that innocent civilians pop onto the screen during the most intense gunfight since Little Bighorn is brilliant, for example. And the manual's English leaves you wondering whether they aren't taking the mickey out of poor old Steve.

We're talking major silly here. These point-and-click type games were popular only when people first bought mouse-operated computers and it was a novelty to move the little chap around.

The sound effects aren't really too bad though. You can get hold of a blunderbuss which sounds like a bus backfiring in a tunnel, and there are a few fleeting moments of enjoyment as you literally blast baddies out of their boots and shoes with it. It's only this weird Gallic sense of humour which could possibly save Westphaser from being relegated to the scrap-heap - like all those dreadful tinny cars the French make.

1. It's like the first piece of PD you ever got hold of, except that the sound and graphics are a little better.
2. It's also very strange. Steve McQueen must be desperate to put his name to this.