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This game of the month this and every month as far as I'm concerned - or at least until the next hot Amiga game comes - is this new version of Arkanoid. It makes such good use of the increased ability of the Amiga as to make it the nearest thing yet to playing a coin-op in your own bedroom. Unless you win a C&VG competition that is!

Apparently, you are supposed to be the captain of the escape craft Vaus, trapped somewhere in space behind a variety of elaborate brick walls, and desperately fighting your way out.

Your rectangular ship moves back and forth across the bottom of the screen, battling a single energy bolt up against the brickwork as if you were playing some giant game of destructive squash. Miss the bolt and you lose a life.

In fact, this whole space ship idea is a bit of a red herring as far as playing the game is concerned. The ship looks and feels so much like a bat, the energy bolt like a ball and the bright geometric shapes of the walls and backgrounds so little like any idea of space I've ever heard of that you tend to treat it as a super-duper, up-to-the-minute version of one of those tennis games we all played back in prehistoric times.

No, don't groan, those games may have been basic, but they were undeniably addictive, and what Arkanoid does is retain that very simple addiction, while at the same time adding all the advances we've gone through over the years.

Points are awarded for knocking out each brick, or for taking out one of the variety of bizarre aliens that whizz about causing no threat to anyone, outside of drastically affecting the ball's course. At the same time, coloured energy barrels drop towards you. Collect these, and your ship is dramatically affected. Blue ones marked F, for instance, stretch your craft to twice its size, making batting the energy blips much easier.

Green barrels (G) make the ship sticky, catching the ball each time and allowing you to reposition your ship before releasing it again to good effect. Light blue splits the ball into three, giving you far more destructive power, for as long as you can juggle them.

There are others that speed up or slow down the speed of the ball, but best of all is the red L barrel, which turns your ship into a laser cannon. You get unlimited shots on this, so catch one and the level could be as good as won, as long as you don't get carried away blasting, and lose touch with ball.

Arkanoid is an odd game in that at times it seems incredibly easy - your Granny could play it - when suddenly an unexpected hit speeds everything up, or an unexpected obstacle sends the blip careering in an odd direction. You certainly need to be on your toes. If you're lucky enough to have an Amiga, this should be near the top of your list.