Books & Videos: McCririck goes PC - but it's only a front.

Byline: Alan Hankin

Hats off to John McCririck. Who'd have guessed that behind that ghastly exterior lay a gifted computer games programmer?

Hang on, though . . . on closer inspection, it seems that John McCririck's only involvement in John McCririck's Starters Orders

is to appear on the cover doing that John McCririck thing - an impression of a rather homely Saxon maiden, three parts horrified, one part excited, because she's just spotted the Viking Horde parking their longboat outside Sainsbury's.

It's a seesaw of emotions familiar to any young trainer, and one authentically reproduced in this entertaining PC simulation, which casts you as a novice Flat handler with three horses, a six-box yard and a head full of avarice.

The actual day-to-day management of a racing stables is largely glossed over - so no extra points for motivating staff with a diet of utility grade mince, ship's biscuits and regular thrashings.

Where JMSO scores over other racing games past and present is in the level of accuracy in the underlying game world - the racing calendar, the courses, the individual make-up of the cards themselves, all lending a pleasingly familiar shape to what is essentially a fairly simple game.

The agricultural graphics and interface will have older gamers dabbing away a nostalgic tear, but are nevertheless perfectly serviceable, and give rise to a relatively modest minimum system spec (W98 or later, 400mhz processor, 64mb RAM, 200mb hard drive space).

The key to success is found on the strategic level - plotting your four-year-old staying handicapper on a season-long course from AW also-ran to scoring off bottom weight at 33-1 in the Cesarewitch, or moulding juvenile potential into Guineas glory.

When it works it's genuinely thrilling, when it doesn't you can understand why Stoutey and pals spend their winters having a quiet lie down in a Caribbean beach bar.

Alex Hankin

nAvailable online (www.startersorders.com)

CAPTION(S):

John McCririck's Starters Orders (Focus Multimedia, pounds 9.99)