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Yeah, you remember this one! Vroom, vroom! Bump boink! This was one of the rather better offerings from 1988's rash of tire-squealin', rubber-burnin", car-smashing drivin' games, and it's nice to see it making it onto budget.

Converted faithfully from the Tatsumi coin-op, Buggy Boy is a driver's-eye view racing game featuring remarkably good scrolling and up-down movement of the background. To add even more to the action, your dune buggy has an un-nerving tendency to leave the ground, and though you only have two gears and an accelerator to worry about, keeping control is a real challenge.

You don't have a straightforward course to contend with either. The five courses are littered with boulders, trees, brick walls and fences, all jigging about with nicely judged perspective animation. You have to dodge or jump over the obstacles, keeping your speed as high as possible to complete the courses in time without spinning off the track.

You can collect bonus points by passing between gates or picking up flags, and these points are converted in to much-needed bonus time on the next leg. There's also a mysterious football, bouncing through the desert as if it's escaped from another game, and this gives you bonus time too.

With a route map showing you the amount of the course you've completed, tempting you to take dangerous risks as you battle to defeat the time, Buggy Boy is one of the most exciting racing games of the lot; big chunky colourful graphics and appropriately poot-poot sound add to the overall impression of polish.

It's greet, mun!

Label: Zeppelin Author: Dented Designs Price: £2.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Jim Douglas