An Elektra Glide is actually a type of Harley Davidsson motorbike, but far from being a motorbike simulation this is a pretty speedy racing game. It's played in true 3D style with the road viewed through the windscreen of the Elektra Glide craft. The craft's control console takes up the bottom of the screen and displays the speed, score and time remaining.

The object of the game is a very basic one - all the player has to do is whizz around the course before the time limit runs out. If you manage to get round the course before the limit is exceeded then you're given extra time on the next course to be tackled. Each course follows on from the other, so once the player starts racing there's no break.

The game has three different course; Britain, America and Australia which can be selected on the title screen. The other options is the choice of three types of steering control envelopes. Each gives a different sensitivity and thus suits different types of joysticks.

When the game starts you immediately think 'gosh, where's the landscape' - because there ins't any, onlly the road can be seen. Pushing the joystick forwards accelerates the racer through the void... and lo and behold! In fact the machine has been parked in a tunnel!! That's why there's no landscape!!!

Anyway, once free of the darkened shroud of the tunnel you zoom into broad daylight. The landscape is pretty featureless apart mountain ranges on the horizon and the odd trees and signposts on the roadside.

Elektra Glide is quite an unusual race game in the respect that you're the only car on the road - there are no other vehicles at all. What there is, though, are horrible, frightened, sinister 3D objects which try to thwart your racing progress. These take the form of spheres and cubes and are found dotted frequently around the course.

The menacing spheres bounce along towards you in attempt to home into your craft and the cubes, on the other hand, are static. Both have to be dodged because if they hit the craft you stop and conssequently time is lost.

Occasionally a rocket whizzes overhead, and a little bit further down the road drops a load of 'electrostatic columns' onto the road. These again have to be dodged (usually tricky, especially on a bend) and hitting them causes the craft to slow down.

Other features along the course are tunnels and forks. Tunnels whizz up in 3D and you're plunged into darkness as you go through (you can still see the road). Hitting the side makes the craft stop, and again time is lost. There are also forks in the road, usually right near the end of a course, which present the player with a choice: going left or right leads to separate course.

Each country has a different course, and they also increase in difficulty, the American one being the hardest with hazards galore.

As an example of this sort of game Elektra Glide isn't really a decent representative. Glitchy is a fitting word to describe the graphics, they seem to have a mild case of Parkinson's disease. Hardly surprising considering the amount of raster splits down thescreen. The colour scheme is none too inspired either, someone's been consulting their 'What Colours Clash Best' wallchart.

The main gripe I have with Elektra Glide though is that it's so extremely boring, there's nothing that you have to actually achieve, you just need to survice. It's all too passive.

Once you've gone round the course a few times it soon gets boring dodging the same old objects, and the novelty of the excellent tunnels soon wears off too. If you want a good racing game then shop around, there are far more exhilarating and stimulating race games than this.

Had there been a larger variety of hazards and maybe another couple of vehicles on the track, then Elektra Glide might have shown some promise. As it is, it's just plain dull.