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Bobby Bearing lives in a world constructed of steel - of corridors, walkways and towers of building blocks; a world where youngsters shouldn't go out alone, for fear of being mugged.

Bobby and his brothers have coped adequately with living in this state of siege, until the day their wayward cousin arrives, presumably fresh from the country and chewing a straw. In next to no time he's led the gullible balls out into the city, where they're immediately set upon by the spherical thugs, and left lost and stunned in distant corners of the Metaplane maze. It's up to good ol' Bob to round them up, and bring them home.

All of which is mildly entertaining but does little to disguise the fact that this game, like all Marble Madness clones, involves little more than moving a ball around a hazardous course of slopes and pathways, avoiding some things and looking for others. The superficial resemblance with Marble Madness ends there, as the kind of problems encountered are altogether different from the arcade classic. Similarities with Spindizzy however are rather more evident.

The animation really is something special. Bobby has just about all the personality a ball can have. He bounces along happily, grinning from ear to ear, looking left and right and up and down, but if he falls off a high ledge, or is stunned by an evil bearing, he wobbles about looking pained and dizzy, a large question mark over his head. Worse still is when he misjudges his speed and ends up underneath a descending brick, whereupon he is mercilessly flattened, the smile wiped off his face.

This is quite endearing, but might distract you from appreciating just how clever the animation is. It's all filmed in glorious 'Curvispace 3D' - the name given by The Edge to a graphics technique which allows the programmers to exactly mimic the motion and momentum of a speeding ball.

Partly because of that, I found the going slow at first. The joystick movements are unusual - down is right, right is backwards, left is left, forwards is forwards - and you might find the keyboard easier.

There are five balls to find, and you've got a good deal of time in which to find them. The digital counter clicks away quite slowly when you're rushing about, but speeds up whenever you're stationary so it's a good idea to hit the pause button while you decide how to negotiate a particularly nasty obstacle. You lose more time whenever you're stunned by a bearing or after a long fall, and 200 units fly past whenever you're squished. You can, however, lose as many lives as the time allows.

Drawing up a map is essential; without one, you'll never find your way home again.

Not all the screens are that difficult... Some are worse! In your travels you're going to pass over corrugated hills, up spiralling slopes, through tunnels and across large expanses of landscape so warped that the inclines and depressions make it nigh on impossible to reach the exit point. And many of these screens have black bearings lying in wait, determined to push you away from your route or under some falling brick.

There are also air ducts, which carry you on an up-draft of air from one ledge to another, but if you come to rest over one it will keep you bobbing helplessly, unable to move in any direction. It's at times like this that you hit the Cheat key - Q - which allows you commit suicide, placing you once more at the beginning of the screen, and giving you an opportunity to avoid making the same mistake.

Many of the screens include bull's eye trigger squares, and passing over these affects what happens on later screens. One of the lost balls is lurking only seven screens away from home, but you won't find him if you don't activate the correct triggers in the correct sequence on your way there.

According to the instructions, Bobby is supposed to push his brothers all the way home, one at a time. I reckon this is physically impossible, as some of the hazards are well tricky when you're on your own, let alone with company. Presumably that's an opinion shared by The Edge programmers, who've thoughtfully provided a short cut. If you reach for the Cheat key on finding an errant bearing, he'll disappear from the screen, to reappear below the clock counter, safe and sound.

All in all, then, a technically accomplished and very addictive game.