BRIDGE is tough to put onto a computer - tougher than chess.

It may be an easier game for humans to play, but the big difference is that in a game of Bridge you can't see all the cards. In chess it's a matter of working through combinations, and the problem is how to analyse millions of combinations very quickly. In bridge it's all about probable distributions of cards, and making a compromise on every play. The strategy must be flexible - you can't work it all out in advance.

Within those limitations, CP Software does well. Bridge Player is based on a series of such programs written for other machines, and is the best version of the game we have seen. The computer bids the three non-player hands and plays defending or declaring hands. There are options to replay and rebid hands, the response is extremely fast for a game written mainly in SuperBasic, and the standard of play is moderately dim, but by no means moronic.

The bidding is based on a stunted ACOL system, with strong two club, Stayman and Gerber supported. The program cops out on the latter, and requires you to confirm your use of the convention, rather than interpreting it from the bidding. We found the computer a reliable partner on flat hands, but decidedly wild in ambiguous situations. However, good bidding involves understanding a partner's limitations, and such aberrations need not detract if you don't expect too much to start with.

Play is better, and the computer follows set lines - finesse, cross-ruffs, drawing of trumps and so on - with dogged competence. Its defence is often sharp. and occasionally deceptive. The cards are played very quickly, and the speed tempts you to play equally fast. Beware of hitting the space bar in such situations, which prompts the QL to play for you.

Graphics are clear and professional, with no annoying jingles or slow scrolling of cards all over the screen to distract you. Our one niggle with the presentation is the scoring, which does not tell you when you have won the rubber, but just resets itself.

Bridge Player is a sophisticated version of the game, and not recommended for those who have never played at all. Those who already know something of the game, at whatever level they play, will enjoy the opportunity to play on their own, when there's no opportunity to put together a four.

NOW HERE'S a lovely sight - Othello on the QL. There is at least one version already from Softschool, which we panned in September because it was absolutely dire. In fact, there's something pretty dire about putting Othello on any machine these days, let alone the super-magnifico QL, but some nitwit at Sinclair Research clearly had a stroke in the bath one morning and said "what the hell, let's do it anyway."

Now, if you want Othello, this is probably the version to get. It's got nine levels of play, with a response time of two hours at the highest level. If anybody's into playing Othello by post, they'll love it. There must be at least a dozen sales there, surely.

The game is attractively produced for what it is, and the QL plays competently at the lowest level, and meanly from about level three up.

Watch, boggled, as the pieces shunt across the screen when you make a move.

There are also options for a two-person mode, replaying the previous game, and a demo where the QL happily plays itself while you go and do something worthwhile like watching your pirate video of Rambo for the thirteenth time.

In fact, it's that last option which represents the real value of the program. It's the ideal present for a bored QL this Christmas.

A TERRIFIC new arcade-style craze is about to hit QL owners in Meteor Storm. Trust Sinclair Research to come up with the game we've all been waiting for - when nobody else dared. When we loaded it up, we were so excited we could hardly bring ourselves to write about it. That's the sort of game it is.

What do you do? Well, there are all these meteors out in space. They look like green polygons, outlines of mysterious shapes - talk about graphics! You have a little spaceship, a red triangle. But that's nothing - when you hit an asteroid it splits into two or three or even four bits. When you clear a screen, you get even more.

The sound effects are equally superb. When you hit the fire button you actually get a noise like a space laser going off, real state-of-the-art stuff. It's just like playing a real computer game. And it's not just all shooting at meteors and things there are rival spacecraft too!

Of course, Sinclair Research isn't releasing this game out of the kindness of its heart, even at such an incredibly low price. I mean let's face it friends, business is business. Clive needs to sell QLs like billy-o and that means getting some really ace software out.

Meteor Storm is just such a game. Honest, when people see this in the shops they'll be down there forking out their life savings for a QL just to be able to play it. Stuff your Ataris and Commode 128s and Amigas and Amstrads and the rest of them. This is where it's at.