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That little carpenter Mario, the man who attempted to rescue his girlfriend from the clutches of the great ape in Donkey Kong, and then imprisoned the giant gorilla in Donkey Kong Junior, is back again. This time without a monkey in sight.

Atari have raided the arcades again to bring you the story of the Mario brothers. No, it's not a videogame version of The Godfather, although you might want to call in the Mafia to deal with some of the nasties you'll encounter in this version of Nintendo's arcade game.

You have to help Mario and his brother Luigi get rid of all the pests infesting their new house. There are several types of pest and a nasty character called Slipice the Iceman.

Shellcreepers are the easiest type of nasty to deal with - they looked remarkably like tortoises to me. Then you get crab-like creatures called Sidesteppers, and flying things called Fighterflies.

All these creatures come at you as Mario clambers around a series of floors, Donkey Kong style. He can deal with the pests by bouncing up and down and bashing his head on the floors above him. If a pest is walking along at the same time, the shockwaves from Mario's headbutt stuns them and Mario can nip up to the next level to knock them off - scoring points as he does so.

In times of extreme trouble, Mario can headbutt the "POW" switch, located between the two bottom floors - this stuns all the pests on the screen. But you can only use this switch three times - after that it disappears and you are on your own!

You can help Mario score more points by collecting the various coins and wafers which appear rolling down the floors of the Brothers' house. A bonus wafer appears after each time a pest is dealt with. Coins appear at random and you are given just fifteen seconds to collect as many as you can before the pests return to haunt you. In later rounds, Slipice the Iceman appears and covers the floors with a dangerous layer of ice. You can stop Slipice by hitting him from below and knocking him off a floor when he starts to melt.

Mario Brothers features eight levels of play - for one or two players. In two player games, Mario's brother Luigi appears and can be controlled by the second gamester.

It's not the most original game around but it is very playable and quite addictive. The graphics are in the cute class - a trend which appears to be growing in the world of dedicated video game systems.

Mario Bros comes from Atari and runs on their trusty VCS (2600) system. It will set you back £29.99.

A cute game for running, jumping and hopping fans with some nice twists - but not very original.