Oh my gawd! It's several decades since I saw anything as terrible as this, and I've seen them all I'm tell you sonny Jim. Never have I seen such unremittingly dull backgrounds, heard such laughably awful sound effects, or played such a monotonous non-game.

All you have to do is move a little bat, coloured a fetching grey, around a tiled background, also grey. Around the screen bounces a ball (grey, you'll be surprised to hear), and your job is to place the bat under the ball and stop it hitting the floor. Sort of 3-D Breakout without the bricks. You can drop a secondary bat to ease the burden, but once you've done so it's stuck there until the timer runs out.

At this point you progress on to the second screen, which is full of balls. Here you have to visit all the corners and centre, without being hit by a ball.

As things progress the obstacles become more complicated, but at no point does the game become less awful. The Johnny Fartpants-style farty sound effects had us rolling around on the floor - otherwise entertainment value is big fat zero.

Label: Mastertronic Author: Drosoft Price: £1.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

Unexpectedly awful bash-the-ball effort, distinguished by dreadful sound FX.