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God, you can really tell when it's summer. People like Martech start releasing games like The Fury. They obviously called it that because they knew that you'd be furious when you discovered what you'd paid £9.99 for.

The Fury is one of those five-year-old race games where you drive a little car along a little track running from left to right on the screen. Occasionally other cars get in the way and you have to drive around them. One other distraction is provided to make life a bit more interesting - you can shoot the other cars. The whole thing is jazzed up in a load of hype about 'Rim Races' - pseudo sci-fi bilge which is about as interesting to read as Mike Gatting's autobiography.

What happens is this: you start off with the basic model with travels at moderate speed, has moderate brakes and moderate everything else. The first race is a straightforward time trial in which you have to beat the clock without crashing into the other cars too much, losing your shield and dying. The second race is like the first one only longer. It took me a long while to get past this stage because I kept exploding, apparently because my shield had given out, or so it said. It took some time for me to realise that it wasn't the shield, I had run out of fuel and, as every good mechanic knows, when you run out of fuel, your car explodes.

The reason for the fuel/shields misunderstanding is that the instrumentation is so badly designed you can't read it. You can't read it with a magnifying glass with the colour low and the contrast at minimum so what chance do you stand when you're doing 300mph with cars all around you?

The thing to do, if you're interested, is top up with fuel and get the car repaired after every race. You do this on the equipment screen which you need to visit for ammunition for the third race which is a 'killer'. Providing you can afford it - you get prize money for completing a race - you can top up with bullets, missiles, flame throwers and even an escape pod for fire emergencies.

As you progress through the races you will earn money and, as a result of your success, the bounty on your head will increase and life will become more difficult. To offset the increased hazard you can buy extra souped-up hot rods with go-faster stripes and all that kind of gear. The graphics are so vague they all look pretty much alike.

In short, this is a load of you know what. Unless you've got a monitor you probably won't be able to see quite how bad it is, which I would consider an advantage.