Straddling the powerful offroad country motorbike you wonder whether this time you can complete the course without falling off. Looking ahead you can see a series of jumps and hazards that would make even the most hardened of stuntman quail and quiver at the knees. The sound of the starting gun startles you but within half a second you are pulling back on the throttle and roaring towards the first jump.

Kik Start II is an extended version of the original 64 program which boasts twenty seven tracks (three in memory and the others loaded in from disk eight at a time) along with extra course features, new hazards and a record table for each track (which unfortunelately can't be saved. You can tackle the tracks three at a time or go for all eight in a 'grand slam'. If you haven't seen the original program (if not go and buy it now) then you won't really know what we're talking about, so here's a quick rundown on what goes on.

The program is a one of two player, split screen, off-road motorcycle simulator which allows two players to battle it out simulaneously or one player to challenge the talents of a computer controlled rider. The idea is a simple one - just belt down a hazardous cross country course in the fastest possible time, and in this game hundereths of seconds count so be prepared to race.

The two screens are independent from one another, one screen features player one's bike and the other is relevant to what player two's bike is doing. The whole course is viewed from the side in two dimensions, each bike appearing on the left hand side of its respective screen. When the starting gun sounds pushing right on ye olde joysticke accelerates the bike causing the landscape to scroll from right to left. The bike zooms over the landscape obeying the rudimentary laws of physics when whizzing (ie if it's going fast and goes off a ramp it flies into the air, falls off walls etc).

Depending on which way you push the joystick or press the fire button makes the bike decelerate, wheelie and jump (or bunny hop, depends how technical you are) and all these movements have to be used if a course is to be completed without crashing the bike. If you do crash the bike the game isn't over - the scenery just scrolls slowly (thus costing time) until there is a safe enough position for the bike to be put back on the course.

The landscape has many features both man made and natural which have to be negotiated, either by jumping, performing wheelies or some other tactic (many are required, see panel). The courses can be learnt, but it certainly isn't easy remembering all twenty seven!