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Every four years thirty-two countries put aside their social and political differences to political differences to participate in the International Sports Festival. Each country sends seven of its best and most versatile athletes to compete in this multi-sport extravaganza.

Before you get to compete, you have to pick a country to represent. This choice determines the level of play. Next you have to decide which athletes to include in your team; finally, you must choose who will compete in which sports.

The five sports can be played in any order and include water polo, soccer, volleyball, swimming and 4 x 400m track relay. Water polo takes place in the pool (surprise, surprise) and the object is to score more goals than your opponent. The game is divided into four quarters of two-and-a-half minutes each.

Soccer sees you in control of a squad of four players trying to score more goals than your opponent in the two halves, each of which is eight minutes long.

The object of volleyball is to keep the ball in the air on your side of the net and make it hit the ground on your opponent's side. The first team to win two sets by two goals or more wins the match.

Control in each of these three events is very easy, the athletes position themselves and all you have to do is tackle, pass and shoot. If anything it's a little too easy and leaves the player with very little to do.

In the swimming and the realy, the competitors will swim or run flat out if you let them, but they will fatigue quickly quickly. A quick tug on the joystick will slow your athlete down and a swift tap on the fire button will pass control to the next swimmer or runner.

Graphics and sound are of quite a reasonable standard throughout and, owing to the nature of the game, are quite varied. Some nice animation helps to enhance the overall feel of the game but unfortunately doesn't make up for the general boredom that soon sets in.

Although the easy control system allows you to get straight into the game, it leaves very little scope for the player to improve and you may find that, due to this, you won't want to play more than a couple of games, let alone the ten heats that some events require.

Mindscape have tried to come up with a twist to the old sport sim format with International Team Sports but it just hasn't worked.