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Skill or luck? Which is more important when it comes to pinball? It's a debate which has been raging for decades. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a university in California that offers courses that look into this very subject.

But, the simple truth is, if you're rubbish at pinball. it is a game of chance, but if you've got the knack, then it becomes a game of skill - knowing how to catch the ball on the flippers, knowing where to flip it, using the tilt option to your advantage. Oddly, Pinball Magic is great ammunition for enforcing both points of view, but great pinball it ain't.

The mechanics of the game are sound enough - the ball moves around the tables realistically and satisfyingly fast; the sound FX are excellent, the flippers allow you a decent degree of control over where you flip the ball and there's a tilt option for those subtle nudges. So from a coding point of view it's a success.

Even the basic format of the game has been reasonably intelligently thought-out so that the gameplay doesn't get stuck in a rut; every time you gain a certain number of points you progress to a new table with new challenges.

The problem is the design of the tables. A good two-thirds of them are either plain dull or frustrating. And too many of them have multiple "black spots" - areas where the ball will bounce straight out of play between your flippers if it hits them at the right (or wrong, depending on your point of view) angle. So for the no-skill lobby Pinball Magic seems to be one of the games where you have little control over what is going on.

But what about your more experienced pinballer? Sure, you can learn where these black spots are and use the flippers skillfully to avoid them. But generally there are so few safe areas you end up continually flipping the ball to the same parts of the tables. Yawn, and indeed, yawn.

There are some good tables - especially the Arkanoid-style ones, but there aren't enough. And since you can't leap straight to them (because there is no password system) every time you reload the game you have to wade through all the dull tables again. Which is a shame, because Pinball Magic is fun in places, but you have to prepared for an endurance test.