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You have a dream. A glorious, technicolour dream of epic proportions. It involves a well-known variety of citrus fruit, a length of stretchy PVC and two talking squid. Your psychiatrist is baffled. Oh, and you also have this other really strange dream about becoming a millionaire via the ruthless, ut-throat world of American Saturday Night Races - an organised tournament of illegal and colossally dangerous highway challenges.

You arrive in the United States, approach the underground network of race organisers and psyche yourself up for your first races in humble Division Four of the competition. Then it happens. Someone takes you aside and politely reminds you that you haven't got a car. Cringing with embarrassment, you wander the streets until - by an astonishing coincidence - you run into an old acquaintance who sells you a cheap Lamborghini Diablo. Luckily, you've still got enough cash left over to enter the races - this means you have the opportunity to build up your race experience and so compete in the Division Challenges - coveted events which promote winners into the higher divisions. As you notch up a few wins and build up the bank balance, you get to buy various accessories for your car. These range from super-turbo boosters - stolen from the Batmobile - to rather wonderful snow-tyres for extra grip in icy conditions.

But all this is far from a doddle. As usual, there are plenty of hazards for you to negotiate. For example, in some areas the local police lie in way behind billboards, ready to pounce on you for committing the slightest misdemeanour. You also have to pit your wits against fellow race competitors. These people include Sal Capone, who has a "friend" in the police force, or Joe Spencer, who knows a few shortcuts. All this ensures you don't become a millionare two hours after loading the game.

Yet again, the tried and trusted formula of the 3D perspective gets dusted off, beaten into submission and dragged into another ST driving affair. But, for all its familiarity, Crazy Cars 3 emerges as one of the more impressive attempts at the genre.

Gameplay is convincing and realistic, while the superior graphics give the program depth - when you're driving at night you have to squint at the headlights of the cars in front to judge their distance and speed. This game is fast, involving and immensely challenging offering the right balance of arcade skills and strategic thinking. In fact, as you get carried away in the accessories shop and the betting scenes, you realise how awful you are with money and you don't get anywhere unless you overcome this problem.