Beeline can wear you out

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On first inspection, Beeline from Robico Software, seems to have everything going for it.

The aim of the game is to guide a blue bee called Hank through a series of mazes to his hive. He expends energy rather quickly, and explodes when he gets too tired, but you can refresh him by picking up pollen, apples, flowers or honey on the way.

As usual, various nasties try to stop him - spiders, insecticide cans, toadstools, and bee-eating lizards.

Quite an interesting game, one would think, and indeed the graphics are excellent, making very good use of the BBC's colour.

Also, there arc no less than 18 screens to fly through, including a practice screen to give you a feel of the controls.

So, with all this, why should I dislike Beeline as much as I do? Mainly because the game made me so angry that I wanted to go out into the garden and bury it under six feet of soil.

You see, the game has what you might call built-in gravity. Hank falls rapidly back to earth, and to keep him airborne, you have to press the Shift key.

Unfortunately, he also explodes when he gets angry, and he gets angry when he bumps into walls, ceilings, or even rests on the ground.

This means that you are continuously hammering the Shift key to stop him blowing up with anger, yet trying not to hammer it too much, in case he blows up with exhaustion.

With practice, it's probably possible to strike a happy medium, and have Hank tearing around like a five-year-old. However, I found the game so difficult that my average go lasted about two minutes.

After an hour's playtesting, I was showing no improvement, and was so cross that my cat now has permanent scars.

Of course, you may think differently and love the game. But for me, Beeline has to go, before my cat packs up and leaves for good.

James Bibby