This has undergone a name transformation from its Japanese incarnation as 'Last Gladiators' to the rather less grandiose and eminently more relevant 'Digital Pinball'. This is a rendition of the age-old game of flipper that sits in many a pub, pier and grimy arcade.

There's nothing grimy about this game however, which comes from little-known developer 'Kaze' in Japan. It's beautifully presented, with extremely crisp graphics and stylish overlays. The copious sound effects are similarly tip top and crystal clear.

What Digital Pinball attempts to do, and is one of its failings in the process, is be extremely faithful to the mechanics of the game. Instead of using overhead-viewed scrolling tables, the action is viewed from a static, slanted table which is contained within a single screen. Many of the features are semi-transparent, allowing you to see the ball when it's tucked up the back of the screen. The ball movement is very convincing, and it's a remarkably close interpretation of real pinball.

Unfortunately, pinball as it actually stands doesn't quite work on console. The space a scrolling table offers means more features, and Digital Pinball's four separate tables are cramped and generally uninspiring. Complexity has been added by creating all sorts of complex bonus paths, explained in a series of instructions. Although there are plenty of ways to score points not much else, except perhaps multiballs, is likely to happen. The themes are amusing, like a gladiatorial table with mini Colosseum, Warlock table with spell multipliers and a Samurai game with martial arts slants.

The game is made more stimulating by use of its 'dot matrix' interludes. These narrow sequences play across the screen, with stylish monochromatic images accompanied by amusingly doom-laden utterances. The game becomes thick with them, the more skilled you become.

Digital Pinball is not bad at all, and at first is quite compulsive. It's the long term value that we doubt, considering the saminess of the tables and that all the combined bonuses and features seem to lead only to higher scores, not new effects. Points may be enough for wizards, but we're console gamesplayers here.