Cast your minds back a couple of months to when Richard Branson dominated the headlines with his interminable attempts to get a balloon across the atlantic. Well, now you have your chance to participate in this exciting and necessary event, by taking the grinning beard's place and attempting to emulate his achievements.

The game takes the form of a two player balloon race between your Virgin balloon and an annonymous challenger. Each player is given control of a flock of three sonic-beam spitting eagles, used to guide and defend their balloon as it makes the perilous journey across the sea. The birds are also used to sabotage the opponent's balloon and reduce his chances of success.

The screen is split horizontally, with the Virgin Balloon at the top. To the left of each display area is a status panel containing three bars, representing Fuel, Altitude and the eagle's Energy Status. Also present is a map showing the balloon's position. On the right hand side are four icons which are activated to move the balloon left and right, increase altitude or switch screens (so that your eagle can visit the opponent's screen).

The eagle loses energy as it flies, casuing its bar to shrink. Sitting on top of the balloon replenishes the lost calories and the bar adhusts accordingly. The problem with this is that the bird's weight causes the balloon to lose altitude! The bird dies when its energy drops to zero, and it is then replaced by one of its colleagues.

Throughout the crossing an unfriendly biplane flies in and, if left alone, drops either a pot of paint or puncture device. If ignored, these deadly objects cause the balloon to lose height. Large missiles also casue grief and deflate the balloon completely if they hit their target. Children occasionally sail past, carried through the air by bunches of balloons. These yield extra points if collected, or remove some of the existing socre of destroyed.

The game ends when both balloons have burst, all the eagles are dead or one of the players crosses the Atlantic. However, scraping your balloon off the Ulster landscape is not recommended, and dropping the game in the Irish sea only serves to irritate the coastguard - happy record breaking!

There simply isn't enough in the gameplay to amuse a player for more then an hour - all you have to do is protect your balloon from two types of hazard and occasionally change the controls. It's true to say that the player is kept busy - but the action is just too boring and overpriced to be worthwhile.

Save for the fact that it features a red balloon with 'Virgin' slashed across it, there is no real connection with the challenge proper. The addition of 'sonic beam spitting eagles' to spice up the action is the final straw. There is some Trans-Atlantic, a little Balloon, but absolutely no Challenge whatsoever. I bet Mr Branson hasn't seen it.

Playing against the computer is even worse - the wally of an opponent is completely unchallenging and is disposed of within a minute. The graphics are poor and only the title music stands out as being good. At eight quid it just doesn't offer good value for money.