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Racing at insane speeds through inhospitable country has always had the drawback of being extremely dangerous. Now you can risk life and limb from the comfort of your own home with Gremlin's new race-'em-up.

Toyota Celica GT Rally puts you into the driving seat of a high powered and very expensive rally car. It's a race against the clock: although you compete against other drivers, it's only to beat their time. There's just you, your co-driver and your car on the road.

At first you may not feel up to the full competition, so there's an option to practise in any of three countries, each offering very different driving conditions. As you're racing through the English course, it may well start to rain - but the programmers have very kindly fitted your car with windscreen wipers to clear the appalling downpour.

If you think the weather is bad enough in this country, just wait till you race abroad. In Norway it always snows, and your wipers need to be on overdrive. Take the corners at anything approaching dangerous speeds, and you slide right off the track. You encounter no such roadholding problems in Mexico, but the sandstorms that frequently blow up there render your wipers useless. Driving virtually blind at 140mph is an experience you won't forget.

Up to four players can take part in the rally proper. You're up against very still competition in the guise of 30 computer drivers and at first you're relegated to the bottom of the table, but with practice you soon rise to respectable rankings.

There's a variety of control options. You can drive with joystick or mouse and adjust sensitivity to suit your own tastes. The clinically insane can even set the steering to reverse, so that whenever you turn left, the car goes right...

The view is through the windscreen of the car. You also see the steering wheel, which turns as you do, to show how tight the steering is. Being in a rally car, you're the only one on the track, but there's plenty of roadside scenery to keep up the sense of movement, and the outside world lurches convincingly as you sweep round corners. The update isn't at breakneck speed, but it is fast enough to keep your buttocks firmly clenched.

Graphics change with the climes: the English countryside has lots of greenery, the harsh desert of Mexico is strewn with windswept rocks, and in chilly Sweden the ever-greens are covered with a thick blanket of snow.

The car's engine sounds like an ageing Datsun Violet on a bad day, but it changes pitch convincingly with gear shifts and acceleration. The best use of sound is the digitised voice of your co-driver: "Hard left, then right," he calls out far too calmly as you slide round the bends at high speed.

Toyota Celica GT Rally is a deeply atmospheric game. While it's not superfast, the feel is excellent, and you can't help holding on for dear life as you thunder round the track. Touches like the windscreen wipers and the co-driver reinforce the impression of being there. If you can't afford the 80 grand or so it costs for a rally car, this is the next best thing, possibly.