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To the Spectrum, and I'm sure I'm not the only one to raise an apostrophe-and-grammar-laden eyebrow at the title of Battery's Not Precluded. Surely, if anything it's Batteries Not Precluded, but even then precluded? For all I know, its title is a nod to some of the weirder cassette-based inlays of games in the early Eighties. The great Kenny Danglish Soccer on the Amstrad perhaps, or the wonderful Valley Of The Phoroah for the C64?

I digress. Odd title aside, Battery's comes from the Cronosoft stable for the standard £3.99 plus P&P. It gives you control, on screen one, of a green remote-control car and the aim of this first game is to drive around the screen until a number of additional remote-controlled cars have teleported in. You must get all these nemeses to crash into each other and wipe each other out to proceed. Use the power of the brain, and accelerating and braking, to achieve this.

Each screen presents a different remote-controlled "hero" and mission. On screen two, you take control of a hot air balloon; on three, a racing car, and on four a bubble-bursting spacecraft. Throughout the action, a pounding beat by Spectrum music god Yerzmyey plays on interrupt.

The games themselves are from Jonathan Cauldwell and a refreshing alternative to another Egghead title. All of them use the same game engine and play very well, in a sort of mindless way that doesn't demand any real attention. A typical game lasts about six minutes.

Battery's is pretty addictive to boot, and a snip at £3.99 plus P&P.