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If I were to tell you that this is the best game yet for the Amiga, it might catch your interest. If I were to tell you that it's a cross between pinball and Breakout, you might be incredulous.

But if I were to tell you that the game's German, you'd push me out of the window. However, all these statements are true; Jinks is enormous fun, looks lovely and gets full value from the Amiga's graphics and sound abilities.

Inexplicably, the plot is supposed to be all about space probes exploring alien planets, searching weird installations and avoiding fierce enemies. Forget all that - it's complete hogwash. What you have here, in fact, is a horizontally-scrolling combination of breakout and pinball, where you use a free-moving wedge-shaped bat to bash a bouncing ball all over four levels full of flying pink pigs, teddy bears, spinning drills, bouncing Atari logos, formations of exploding bricks, rotating planets, and light-up bonus targets.

The game starts on the left-hand side of the level, where the ball drops onto your bar from the top of the screen. You can flip your bar over by pressing the fire button, swapping between the flat and angled sides to control the bounce of the ball.

When you whack the ball off to the right, it disappears off the screen, bouncing off objects which respond by exploding, oinking (pigs), squeaking (teddies), boinging (springs) and in some cases scoring you bonus points. As you move the bat around the screen chasing the ball, you'll see some incredible smooth-scrolling multi-plane background effects.

Some of the moving objects you encounter will erode the size of your bat until you lose a life. Others will restore your health, give you bonus points, or, in the case of the ring of spheres at the far right of the screen, get you into the bonus level.

There isn't a single aspect of Jinks which isn't brilliant. The sampled jazz music, the incredible quality and variety of sound effects, the brilliant graphic design, the imaginative gameplay and the endless variety are all impressive.

Indeed, the only aspects of this game which don't do it justice as the title, which is pretty meaningless, and the packaging, which features poor and entirely inappropriate artwork. Don't let that stop you from burning rubber down to your nearest dealer and demanding a copy of Jinks immediately.