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Sorry if this month's budget stuff seems a bit rushed but Pipe Mania is so addictive that I ended up playing it all the time and then only had two minutes and thirty-three seconds to play and write everything else. That's about... two divided by three and times sixty then add... erm... not very much time per page at all!

Pipe Mania is so all-consuming that you forget to do other things, such as putting on your clothes before going to school. You know that dream, when you turn up in class with your jim-jams on [To be honest, no - Ed]. Well, it almost really did happen to me last Friday. The only reason it didn't was because I forgot to go to school as well. And all because I lurve sticking bendy pipes together to direct the flow of yellow ooze.

Yep, that's all there is to it. You have a selection of pipes of different shapes that you have to connect together to stop the liquid flowing out all over the place. You have a bit of a headstart, but you have to place the pieces in the random order that they are given to you. Sometimes, more often than not in fact, the next piece is not one that you need but you have to stick it somewhere.

But don't just stick it down willy nilly 'cos a bit of forward planning can do wonders. You also get to see what the next three pieces are, which helps.

Just when you think you've got the game licked, it gets harder. On later levels there are places where you can't place pipes (which you have to build around instead), pieces of pipe that only let ooze flow one way and tighter time limits.

In two-player mode the game takes on a whole new dimension, one not yet even thought of, let alone explored, in Star Trek. You're supposed to work together, but can end up enemies for life when you keep sticking down the wrong pieces or ruining your mate's carefully laid plans.

Some people might say that playing Pipe Mania is a totally pointiess exercise. Well, so is painting behind the radiators when you're decorating (or so dad tells me). But it just has to be done, doesn't it? There isn't a word (well, not one that I know) that can describe the fabness of this classic puzzler so I won't even start to try. Just buy it, play it and see for yourself.

Puzzle games are usually for geeks (or Ian Cyclopedia) but Pipe Mania's a great game whichever way you look at it... even if it's through four planes of frosted glass while wearing out-of-prescription glasses, with all that goo you get when you've just woken up still in your eyes. An essential game.