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Well it's finally arrived, although I do not know what has happened to Pinball Illusions that was previewed by 21st Century way back at Christmas. While one table in particular looks similar to those previewed, the other three certainly look different to the Christmas offerings.

Pinball Mania is currently available priced at £32.99. 21st Century have also promised a Windows version of the game for late July.

Supplied on a single disc, Pinball Mania expands once installed to consume 3Mb of hard disc space. Running with a minimum specification of 386 33MHz, using DOS version 3.3 or higher, a minimum of 530K conventional RAM is required if you wish to play this game with sound. Installation couldn't be easier. Simply type Install at the DOS A: prompt and follow the instructions on screen. You will be asked what directory you wish the game to run from and what type of sound card you wish to use. If you don't have a sound card then you will have to make do with the PC internal speaker.

Having expelled the tedious installation work, it's time to dive in and play the game. Yippee! As I have come to expect from the Pinball games, the initial music was suitably impressive as the sequence of credit pictures flicked by on screen. I also noticed that this particular game is the first of the Pinball series that has been exclusively coded by the Spidersoft team. This team has worked on both of the previous games.

As with Pinball Fantasies, Pinball Mania features an options menu which allows you to adjust various aspects of the game, enabling you to get the best out of the game. Games can be played with three or five balls, the in game music can be turned on or off. The screen mode can be adjusted to play either in colour or mono, the angle of the table bed can be adjusted in three angles, low, medium or high. A low-angle results in a slower game as the ball rolls much slower, while a high angle causes the ball to come back down the table much quicker.

Screen resolution can be altered between either normal or high. You can also define the keyboard controls that you can use with the game, not that there is anything wrong with those currently configured with the game. The last two options allow you to either save, exit, cancel and quit the menu.

Now it's time for some action. As usual, there are four tables included; buttons F1 to F4 correspond with each of the tables. Tarantula is the first of the tables, followed by Jailbreak, number three is Kick Off and the fourth is Jackpot.

Tarantula is the first table on the menu so it was only natural for me to go for this one. The first thing that really struck me as the table scrolled back and forth was the amount of different aspects. There appeared to be literally dozens of fly overs and tracks scattered around the edges and top areas of the playing screen.

The tables certainly appear to be larger than previous versions and are certainly a lot more complex and interactive than the previous outings. Extra flippers were a feature toyed with in Pinball Fantasies, Mania really puts these elements to good use.

Tarantula is styled very much around the 1950's, horror comic book. The table harps back to that golden and much talked about 1950's era, this is underlined by the superb sound effects too.

As you would expect the game is based around a spider, hit the Web indicators to score double bonuses. When you lose the ball hit the Terror pads to open the entrance to the Fang tube. To enter this tube you need an accurate shot from your third flipper to get the ball in. Once in, depending on the power of the shot you can either go down the Scare track, through the entire Fang tube where you get the chance to use the fourth flipper to light the Fang pads. From here the ball can escape the fang tube by any one of the three available exits, the Poison track, Venom passage or back to the Web gates.

Light the Lair pads, enter the lair and see whether you are going to be eligible for a bonus. Hitting the spinner at the top of the screen results in some rather unusual backwards music, it actually fits into the game quite nicely. One feature I noticed and particularly liked are the bumper pads, when the ball hits these it actually hangs there for a fraction of a second before being thumped off at bionic speeds. The bumpers are also animated, the elastic springs that are used on real pinball tables are included to add to the realism. Get the right combination and you can unlock a gate at the bottom of the left side lane, if you lose the ball down there you can shoot back into play from here.

While the features and game playing ability are greatly enhanced on this table I must admit that I was initially disappointed with the way the game played in comparison to the previous Pinball systems. The flipper controls are not as intuitive as the previous games, there is a little delay before they work, and the ball whilst looking a lot more like a ball moves less convincingly, particularly when rolling towards the bottom flippers. It seems to accelerate extremely rapidly over the last few millimetres before the table, this resulted in timing shots earlier than I would normally have to.

Having said all of that, once I had got used to these differences there really wasn't a problem. Table two, Jailbreak is a world ruled by an unforgiving judge who revels in dealing out life sentences. Once again the music is very impressive, Spidersoft have provided a rock style approach with guitar riffs whenever a notable bonus has been awarded.

This table is simpler than Tarantula, light the law roll-overs to achieve double bonuses, Ramps increase your points each time the ball pops onto them. Light the Guard pads to stop prisoners escaping, light the Cop pads, this causes various features each time it is lit. To get the bonuses and stop whatever has happened you must the get the ball into the Riot trap, hit all of the Arrest pads and decide whether your prisoner is guilty or not guilty. This table displays some rather nice visuals which tie in with various bonuses scored during gameplay, these occur in the scoring area of the screen and can be at times a little distracting as you lose track of the ball whilst trying to read what has happened. Once again this is an element that was touched upon but not really exploited in Pinball Fantasies.

Kick Off - believe it or not! - is based around a football game. Light the Strip roll-overs to get multiple bonuses, light the ramps alternatively to light the stadium lamps receiving a hefty bonus for each one you light. Light the goal pads and you give yourself an opportunity to shoot for a goal. If you succeed in scoring then one of the letters illuminates in the Kick Off lamps. Light the Sub lamps and the right hand slip lane opens to capture your ball should it fall down there. Light the Sub lamps a second time and you get the chance to play a multi-ball game. It's quite difficult to play the multi-ball game because the table obviously can't scroll for both of the balls. A multiple ball game can also be played on the Tarantula table.

It's now time for probably the most complex and certainly the most interactive of all the tables. Jackpot, this game is based on a casino scenario. The music has a cool and casual tempo and fits in perfectly with the style of the table. There are four mini games contained within this table, by lighting the correct combination of pads or simply entering a tunnel which will trigger a game off.

As you wander around the casino you can play either a High or Low game. You must predict whether the -next card will be higher or lower than the card currently on display. Hit the Reel pads and you are then eligible to insert a coin (the ball) into one of the traps and play on the fruit machine. Hit a flipper to stop each of the three reels, light the JA pads and you can play CRAPS, the dice appears in the scoring area of the table. Finally you can play on the roulette wheel, by rolling the ball around one side of the wheel you can determine which colour you are going to bet on. The choices available are Red, Black and Green. Roll the ball around the other way and it enters a trap which causes the wheel to start. If you win on any of these games you can expect to be awarded with scores of various proportions ranging from 3 million for getting the Hi/Lo right to a huge 50 Million for getting green on the roulette wheel. This table is the easiest of the four to achieve very, very large scores on.

All in all Pinball Mania is an excellent game. If you have enjoyed the other episodes then you will enjoy this one as much. The gameplay is slightly different to the others but this helps add to the challenge of mastering the game. While the game is still very enjoyable and far more advanced I do feel that this format is beginning to get a little stale and the long lasting appeal that the other games had is no longer present. Just too bad!