Is the fiercely competitive world of female gymnastics ready for the perkiness of Team Barbie? Barbie Team Gymnastics is probably a dream come true for any girl who loves both gymnastics and Barbie. However, don't rely on this game to teach any lessons about sportsmanship: either Team Barbie cheats, or the judges in this program all work for Mattel. Play begins in the lounge, where Barbie and her team-mates, Christie and Teresa, await practice orders. Players must guide the girls through practice routines on the vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor. Moves are executed by hitting the arrow keys and space bar in a sequence that suddenly appears on the left side of the screen. If a player hits the wrong keys, or doesn't hit the right keys soon enough, their gymnast will bobble or (gasp!) fall off their apparatus, and the coach, Kira, will chirp "Don't give up!" as the program churns relentlessly onward. Maintaining composure after knocking Barbie off the beam is difficult, but just like an actual competition, the good players shake it off and keep going. Young gymnasts will probably enjoy sweating out their mistakes, the realism of the sounds (that hollow thud as hands and feet contact the balance beam) and the 3-D images of gymnasts performing their moves as the "camera" swoops in for different angles. Another nice touch is a replay component that allows players to watch their routines once completed. It's hard to watch the routine as it's being executed, because you must instead keep your eyes on the "Power Bar" that orders the keystrokes for each move. [+]

Construct and operate a functioning space station with an arsenal of out-of-this-world Tonka vehicles. Drive a Tonkonium Extraction Vehicle through a maze of lava pools and explosives, or speed a Terra Racer through the low-gravity zone of the station's sporting arena to entertain your station crew. In Tonka Space Station, you decide whether to build defence grids to demolish hazardous space waste, or focus on food production for your many hungry workers. With the ultimate motor pool at your fingertips, the fate of the station is entirely in your hands. Doing the job well can result in promotion-work your way from a lowly Photon 3rd Class all the way up to Galactic Commander. The game's primary goal is to build a functioning station, one that balances the needs of its residents with other important considerations like safety, productivity and research. To this end, players build modules-sporting arenas, habitats, communication hubs, defence grids and harvest areas-on the platforms available in the station. To build a module, you are given a specialised Tonka vehicle and an arcade-style mission; to construct a harvest module, for example, players drive a Bio-harvester through an obstacle course of hostile alien plant life, snatching edible berries from the jaws-er, pods-of the carnivorous vegetation. Tonka Space Station has some stunning anti-gravity effects, and the machinery and settings of the space-station activities are satisfyingly realistic. The need to stay on top of safety, industrial output and the happiness of the station's people provides an engaging framework for the main focus of the game: the arcade games and the Tonka vehicles these activities employ. [+]

Those wishing to relive the experience of the film should get their hands on the Lord Of The Rings Interactive Pack CD-ROM. Opening with a dramatic action-packed series of clips from the Oscar-winning movie where you see Gandalf and Frodo battling bravely with the forces of evil as they cross Middle-Earth to try to destroy the powerful ring, epic music from the film accompanies you throughout. Click on the blades of glinting swords to read profiles of the main characters, or print out posters of them. There are also interesting nuggets of information about hobbits and wizards which automatically scroll down your screen in front of you. It's easy to install the Lord of the Ring screensavers and there is also a "paint and create" studio section where you have a good choice of pictures to colour in and print off. You can also print your own Lord of the Rings calendars. The Lord Of The Rings Interactive Pack has a distinctly Star Wars feel, and is sure to wet your appetite for the next instalment of the Lord of the Rings movie. It comes with fan club details and information on how to buy models of the leading characters. -Justin Hunt.

There are high-pitched voices galore exclaiming "Yoho" "Ahoy" in various combinations on this delightful CD-ROM. Aboard the pirate ship Rubber Duck, the seven seafaring friends have seven games to play and young fans won't be disappointed as the activities are stimulating and the characters are all adorable. Choose from the seven different games on offer, each takes only a couple of seconds to load and are more about enjoyment than competitive scoring. The Help screens are very useful and include the option to make each of the games hard or easy so that the challenge can be kept fresh as children get better at the game. The simple games and puzzles include "Toot with Swab" where players can make harmonious noises and direct the characters to blow over the top of bottles to play scales or form a tune. Another favourite is "Mop with Poop" where the player can direct Poop to clean up the dirty water Cat has spilt before Bilge makes his deck inspection. "Chairs with Grog" is a virtual game of musical chairs and is great fun. Swab will play some music. When Grog clangs his pot, the music stops and you have to dash to a chair! To do so click repeatedly as fast as you can on the nearest chair. The quality of the graphics here is very high, the animation looks absolutely charming and the faces of the characters when they lose at musical chairs are especially heartbreaking! (Ages 2-6) -Rachel Ediss.