Confusion is the new bat 'n ball game from Cambridge International Software. On hearing this, you are bound to cry, "Oh no, not another Breakout clone!" (says the manual) which is why, they say, they have done away with all the old features and replaced them with something new and exciting. So, instead of extra lives, catches and breakouts, they have introduced the radical new concept of anti-bricks, whose sole apparent purpose is to confuse you.

They seem identical to the other bricks, but they count as hits, so that, for every anti-brick on the screen, you have to hit one less real brick. Confused? Exactly. This should only take place from the third level upwards, although my version seems to have a bug, so that the flag is not reset when you start a new game after you've reached it!

It is reasonably fun to play, but no more so than similar breakout games, and is only slightly enhanced by the occasional snatch of digitised speech. The graphics are good - but not *that* good - and somehow your first life lasts longer than the other nine put together, which gets a bit annoying even though the games still seem to drag out for hours. The problems are (a) that this is, in essence, just another breakout game and (b) that the changes they have made are not for the better. To quote a forgotten source, the program is both good and original, but unfortunately that which is good is not original and that which is original is not good!