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When computer games can take you into battle against alien hordes, put you in combat in the Orient, have you at the controls of a million pounds worth of aeroplane, or turn you into a one man fighting machine, what chance does a mere driving simulator have in offering the same excitement?

OK, so this new game from Durell puts you in the driving seat of one of the fastest cars on the road, and they've taken it to the James Bond workshop to have a machine gun fitted, but it still needs that something extra. In the case of Turbo Esprit that something extra is provided by a drugs ring.

There is an armoured supply car in town, which is fencing drugs to four delivery cars. You have to try and catch the criminals red handed as they pick up the goods and get them to surrender. When you have trapped all four delivery cars (they look more like vans to me) you can close in on the armoured car.

If you attack 2the big fish too early all the minnows escape. You can shoot the delivery cars but the supply car has to be rammed (64k?) to get the baddies to submit. It is best to practise ramming since that scores more points and shooting at the wrong car is far too easy.

To add a bit of spice there are some white hit cars which will try to run you off the road. These can be shot for extra points. There are two types of score, the real how-many-baddies-have-you-defeated variety and a second penalty score which shows how many innocent pedestrians and motorists you have run into.

The simulation is not so much about the mechanics of driving, there is no messing about with gears, the indicators work automatically when you turn the wheel and the instruments are mainly for show. Turbo Esprit is more about the strategy of driving.

There is a Knight Rider-style map which shows you where the baddies are, along with some radio messages which tell you of the latest sightings. If you run out of petrol you can bump up onto the curb next to a filling station for a top-up. The game is an accurate simulation, the other cars go about their business independently. If you park across a major junction you can create a jam which will snarl up the city. Unfortunately I was not able to get the criminals caught in the jam.

Controlling your Esprit is simple, forward to accelerate, back to stop, and back again to reverse (very handy when you miss turnings at 150mph). Left and right change lanes. When you fire as you press left or right your Lotus turns through 90 degrees. This makes shooting at hit cars a little risky if you need to change lanes.

The graphics are a bit jerky, but you are usually too busy playing to notice. The pole position style view from behind the car you are supposed to be in makes the game feel as though you are following in a Transit, but on the whole it is exciting and absorbing. The Durell game has the advantage of being £23,000 cheaper than the real thing.

This is the game for all boy (and girl) racers.

OK, so my joystick may not be of the finest Connolly leather as used on Lotus steering wheels, but I felt a real James Bond -out to stop the drug dealers. There has been a lot of attention paid to incidentals, you can get stuck in dead ends and have to bump over the curb to turn round. The faster you drive the wider you go at corners.

I would like a way to recall the last radio message. There are no traffic cops about so you can't be booked for speeding, jumping lights or shooting the wrong car.

At first glance I thought, "Oh no not the dreaded Grand Prix Racer again" (for the uninitiated this was one of Amsoft's first games and was the absolute pits - if you'll excuse the pun).

However after playing if for a while it becomes obvious that there is much more to it. Although the graphics are a bit chunky looking and don't exactly make the most of this multi-coloured mode the game itself is certainly quite playable. The actual idea - drug smuggling - seems a little contrived, hut it is great fun to be able to shoot other cars out of the way at traffic lights.

In fact there are two types of score, one for completing the task and the other that gives an idea of tiow bad a driver you are. This can be boosted by killing innocent cars and, best of all, mounting the kerb to kill a few pedestrians. Great fun, it really appealed to my warped sense of humour.

Not bad, this. I like the details in it like the maintenance men climbing ladders. Driving the Lotus is a bit tricky to get the hang of, well it is if you try and do everything at top speed.

The ninety degree turns are particularly difficult at first, but after a while you can quite happily do a three point turn in a narrow back street. I can't think why a Lotus comes with a built in machine gun, but it's jolly handy for getting out of those awkward traffic snarl ups. A great feature is the way you get points for knocking down pedestrians and causing mayhem.