World Championship Snooker, published by Codemasters, available on PC and Playstation

CUE the famous BBC theme tune! So begins Codemasters' marvellous new World Championship Snooker.

Pit your wits against 20 of the world's top professionals as you battle to take the ultimate title in snooker, at the ultimate venue, The Crucible.

Begin your quest at one of four local venues, playing against the younger and lesser-known players in a pre-tournament qualifying league, before competing on the big stage against the likes of Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O'Sullivan and current world champion Mark Williams, setting up your own character and having your own name up on the screen television style!

With its unique aiming system that allows you to make great pots and retain good positioning, you can actually make those elusive century plus breaks, but be warned, one slight error and your opponent could go on to clear up and take the frame!

With this in mind, World Championship Snooker also recreates the pressure aspect of the game, with crowd reactions adding a realistic feeling to the venue. Dennis Taylor's dulcet tones provide the commentary, although not everything he says corresponds to what is actually going on at the table!

This is probably the best snooker game ever to be released, so don't miss out. Add World Championship Snooker to your collection, and be impressed!

Graphics 5/5

Sound 4/5

Gameplay 5/5

Gamespan 4/5

Overall 5/5

STEVE KELLY

The Nomad Soul, published by Eidos for Dreamcast,

recommended age 15+

SOONER or later, the world will wake up to the fact that The Nomad Soul is one of the best adventure games around today.

The Dreamcast version is now with us and it is as sharp and polished as the PC version, but with a nicer control layout and without the hassle that comes with PC games sometimes.

The game pitches you into another world where you control a policeman who has lost his memory. Something nasty has been unleashed in the city of Omikron and it's up to you to discover what it is and defeat it.

The game is played principally as a third-person adventure game, with first-person sections as well.

Music is provided by David Bowie, whose face also crops up in the game as one of the characters.

An adult game, with subtle plot, extreme violence and even sex scenes, The Nomad Soul is an experience like few others on the games market, and not one to be neglected.

Graphics 3/5

Sound 4/5

Gameplay 4/5

Gamespan 4/5

Overall 4/5

STEPHEN HUNT

Star Trek: Klingon Academy, published by Interplay for PC

SPECS: P233, 64MB RAM, 8MB 3d accelerator, 500MB hard disk space, 12xCD-ROM

IT should have been so glorious. Take command of the finest ships in the Klingon empire in a space shoot-em-up after all, it worked a treat in the Star Wars universe with the X-Wing games.

So why does it all seem like a typing exam? The keyboard controls for your ship are ludicrous. You want to do an emergency turn in your ship? Simple, just type in 2-5-1. How about ordering an away team to beam over to a target? Oh, hit 4-5-2-1. Try finding that lot in the heat of combat.

The other problem with the game is a perennial one in the Star Trek universe in that the ship combats are often quite boring. In most of the series, or the movies, combat becomes a matter of two ships parking across from each other and seeing who has the biggest guns. In the game, it becomes more like a game of chicken, with the enemy ship trying to charge and ram you almost from the first moment you come across one another.

Star Trek addicts will find plenty to keep them happy, with six CDs of game to get through, but action fans will be a tad unimpressed.

Graphics 5/5

Sound 3/5

Gameplay 2/5

Gamespan 5/5

Overall 3/5

STEPHEN HUNT