Blockbuster

A bat. And a ball. That bounces. It is a simple premise. And as some clever bloke found out at the dawn of computer gaming, it is really good fun. Simple, yes, but fun in the extreme.

But things do not stay still in the fast moving world of games, oh no. And so a simple bat and ball game gets loads of power-ups, wacky level designs and if you are really lucky even some decent collision detection. In fact, you could say, it is a whole new ball game.

It is all good stuff so far, but there is something not quite right when you get down to playing the game. Some of the levels are downright boring and others are just stupid, but it is not just level design. Playing just is not enough fun. Everything works fine, even if the mouse control is a little over sensitive, but you always get the sense that when you lose a ball, it was not the fact that you were not in the right place and at right time, but that the game had already decided you were going to lose a life.

Yes, I know that makes me sound like a paranoid madman, but that is the only way I can describe it. It is cheap, playable and intriguing to start with, but eventually becomes slow, repetitive and slightly annoying. But it scores points for the user-friendly level editor.