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Eeeeek!! Watch out... a Radar Rat is coming to eat you alive!! This is what you must avoid in a new crazy maze chase called Radar Rat Race.

The scene takes place in a gloomy stone block maze where you have been imprisoned by an evil rat invasion force. You play the adventurous mouse whose only chance of survival is to gain enough strength and vitality and escape the maze. This can only be accomplished by eating your way through the numerous lumps of cheese kindly planted by an admirer!

Roughtly a third (or less) of the hi-res screen is given over to the four way scrolling graphical maze. To the right of this is a rectangular radar map - similar to arcade Defender - which shows you where the cheese is as well as opposing rats and cats!

The cats don't move, but are sitting in various places around the maze. On the other hand, the rats seem to have a degree of "artificial intelligence" as they immediately detect your presence and chase you. You have one deterrent. By pressing the fire button, you will activate it. Now I don't want to go into that in too much detail. All I will say is that its foul stench completely obliterates the rats' sense of smell - if they are silly enough to step in it - and they lose your trail for a while.

These droppings are limited and controlled by a time-factor, displayed at the top of the screen. If, however, a rat catches you, or you run into a cat, you will lose one of your three lives.

Direction is inevitably controlled by joystick. A speed control is not incorporated. Because of this, when you come to a stone block in the maze, and you're not controlling the mouse, its direction (either left or right) will be decided by the computer.

This effect often interferes with your decision, producing a direction totally unrequested! Frustrating to say the least.

One annoying characteristic of the radar map, is that advancing mice are represented by tiny red dots which are hard to detect.

The constant background sound is pathetic! It plays Three Blind Mice, using only one of the three available voices - what an insult to a machine's good sound system!

Once a screen had been completed by eating all the cheese, subsequent screens followed in the same style, with faster action. Apart from the sound and few other irritating aspects, the game is quite exciting and amusing to play.

Radar Rat Race is available from Commodore Electronics for the Commodore 64, at a price of £9.99 (inc. VAT).