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Far from being on some abstract spiritual plane, the 'Ultimate Light' is situated at the end of a huge 3D corridor. To reach it, you use a transparently bat to knock a metallic ball down the corridor, advancing your bat at will.

It sounds easy enough, but the corridor's fifty stages are filled with barriers - miss the ball and you lose it (you start with five). Some of the barriers move, including some which follow your bat's movements. Coloured 3D shapes can be collected to make your bat magnetic, bigger or (if you get the wrong one) smaller.

At the start of each stage, there's an access code to note down. After every four stages, there's a special challenge, such as hitting a moving target several times.

An in-built editor allows you to create your own corridors and save them to disk.

Infogrames have come up with a new angle to bat and ball games. The extra dimension makes things a little trickier, especially when the ball's bouncing around at high speed.

As it's hard to judge exactly where the ball's going, success depends more on a good strategy: carefully bouncing the ball around obstacles and not pushing too far forward at once.

Frustration is greatly eased by the level code system and I found the game pleasantly playable.

This looks pretty simple stuff, harking back to the days of Breakout with shades of Room 10 as well, but it's turned out to be one of the most addictive games I've played this month.

The tunnels start off pretty empty but throw in a few barriers here and there and everything goes crazy; add moving columns and you're tearing your hair out.

Although the more complex corridors really drove me up the wall I just couldn't resist going back time and time again. And for once there's a construction kit that doesn't ruin the game's lasting appeal.

Presentation 84%
Level access codes and excellent, easy-to-use corridor designer.

Graphics 60%
Virtually monochromatic, but fast and later on there's an impressive amount of slamming walls, electrical barriers, etc...

Sound 74%
Mellow title with good in-game FX including a Prince sample!

Hookability 80%
Highly addictive for arcade fanatics, a superb test of reflexes...

Lastability 82%
...and 50 levels, plus a designer, means there's plenty of challenge with some tricky end-level monsters.

Overall 81%
Good light entertainment.