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The action is so frenetic in Tapper that it comes as a surprise when you notice that all you're dispensing as the barman-hero is soda. If it's non-alcoholic, why are all those people rushing back so quickly for more? And then you realise that this micro version of the recent arcade game has been cleaned up for home consumption. In those dens of iniquity, the liquid foaming out of the taps was beer!

Whatever your poison though, the game's very attractive graphically and can prove frenetically compulsive to play. You take the role of an American bartender doing his best to keep his customers satisfied.

On each screen, there are four parallel bars running from left to right. At the ends are the beer - sorry, soda - taps, where you, with your greasy hair and dapper white jacket, are positioned. You move up and down filling glasses and collecting empties with ever-increasing rapidity.

The first of the four screens is the Wild West saloon. Mean and thirsty hombres come a-stompin' in, their enormous moustaches quivering in anticipation. You fill up and sling the glasses - of soda - down the bar, pronto. If they don't get a drink before they reach the end of the bar, you are grabbed round the neck and get the same treatment as the glasses.

If you can clear the bar on this screen, you move on to what the instructions call 'The Jock Bar'. British players may find this a little confusing; the title does not mean a wee snug of Scotsmen, but a place frequented by sporty young Americans - jocks.

The bars this time are outside and the customers, soda-loving boys and girls, are more numerous, arriving in twos and threes. At this stage, things can get busier than closing time at The Rovers Return and you'll be dying for the bell to get these under-aged soda-boozers out.

The two other screens feature a Punk Bar and Space Bar, this last doubtless frequented by aliens whose own planet's supply of soda has run out. In between screens there's a bonus game where you have to decide which of the soda cans is empty after a nasty man has switched them around.

Tapper is great fun to play and has genuine arcade standard graphics, plus some atmospheric music. Unfortunately, it only has four different screens. Despite the exciting action, this can only mean that it can't rate very highly on lasting interest. Tapper might be one to stick to in the arcades, where you at least get to serve Budweiser instead of that sickly soda!