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Bounce away the blues with Billy and Bobby.

Billy the ball has got a cousin Bobby and, between the pair of them, they're a right couple of head bangers, especially when it comes to banging heads with monsters.

Helter Skelter is an incredibly easy game to play, but a devil to master. The object of this friendly little blast, is to bounce around the screen squashing monsters. Sounds incredibly easy.

The problem is, you're not only doing it against the clock, but you've also got to squash the monsters in a particular order, otherwise you'll end up with even more monsters on-screen than you started with.

Hmm. Problems, problems. Your first objective must be to master control of the billy (or Bobby) bounce. By pressing the fire button at just the right time, manipulating your ball will become a lot easier, allowing you to time bounces and direction to perfection, thus squashing more monsters for your money.

There are an incredible 80 screens to play through in Helter Skelter, some of them specifically designed for two player mode. As you can imagine, if every monster you hit out of sequence divides into two, things can get pretty hair-raising on the higher levels.

Throughout each level, there are plenty of bonuses to be had, including extra time, balls and points. Collecting the letters to spell EXTRA will help, but be careful not to collect identical letters, or they'll cancel each other out.

Despite the simplicity of the game, Helter Skelter is incredibly addictive and, despite the many setbacks you'll undoubtedly encounter, you'll want to keep right on going to the bitter end.

To help you out, there's a password at the end of every tenth level, allowing you to restart where you left off to save time.

However, the best part of Helier Skelter is the screen designer option. Using this very nifty device, you can create your very own devilish challenges for your friends. Position platforms where you want; decide which monsters you want where and how fast they'll move, and then set yourself a time limit that'll have your opponents reeling.

Make your designs as easy or as hard as you like and Helter Skelter takes on a whole new life. By inifialising your discs, you can store virtually any number of levels on your own game so that, even if you do by any chance get bored with the original, there's a whole new challenge waiting for you to take on.

Brilliantly devised, with some clever graphics and sound effects. Helter Skelter is one package worth every penny of its price. Buy it and discover it for yourselves.