Those who have considered Atari's Super Breakout the last word in bat and ball games would do well to check out this visually striking variation from Starpath. The massive memory of the Starpath Supercharger has enabled a number of artistic changes to be made. The humble bat has been transformed into a hi-res juggler and his balls (sic) are now red hot.

Like other Breakouts, there's room for one to four players (no big deal there) but here you're given five neat game variations, including the frantic Cascade which features no fewer than five cavities, each with their own eager-to-escape ball, and the frustratingly difficult Migrating Blocks which boats a ridiculously efficient self-repairing wall. When you miss a ball, which is quite frequent considering you can have up to seven on-screen at the same time, a long purple crook snakes on from stage left and drags your man off by the throat.

It's all very nicely done. However, my curvy Breakout connoisseur reckons that despite all these visual niceties the games remain pretty easy-peasy as there's no variation of ball speed. An astute observation I think. Even so, the smart audio visuals and competitive price make Fireball a noteable entry in the fave old game stakes.