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This is the best simulation of pinball I have seen on any machine yet. It is produced by CP Software and all their graphics are in mode 1 with a change of colours half way down the screen. The ball moves smoothly and does not flicker, this is important since the ball can fly around at quite a clip. Each game starts off with a title screen and a burst of 'Colonel Bogey'.

The game has the usual 'bonus score when lit' bumpers, which you light up and turn off by hitting small posts. It is, of course, far easier to turn them off!

As on the real thing the bumpers don't give an extra push to your balls if they hit at a very shallow angle or slow speed.

There is a row of letters, which spell the word 'sagittarian', to be lit along the top of the screen for bonus points. These are fairly easy to pick off with careful use of the plunger and your five balls. [That's if you have had a lot of practice - Ed] The balls fall around as if under the influence of gravity and those tiny imperfections found only at crucial points on the decks of pinball machines.

Rebounds are sufficiently random to be realistic but random enough to stop your balls from getting stuck on the same path. The ball never actually stops moving! Try catching it between your flipper and the wall and watch it try to wriggle away.

You have two sets of flippers, one pair on each side of the table. They are controlled by the 'V and 'Z' keys, your plunger moves backwards and forwards with suitable sound effects when you hold down a shift key and clouts the ball when you release. No joystick option, but you don't really need it.

Sound effects are similar to the real thing: bells, chugging noises, click of scoring mechanism and so forth. When the game restarts your score seems to mimic the rotating scoreboards as found on the old machines. This has become increasingly popular recently in arcade games which is surprising as not long ago designers were frantically putting digital scoring mechanisms in their machines.

The program is annoyingly realistic in the way that the ball always seems to head for those little channels down the side which give you 1000 points and keep your balls. It is also not unlikely that your ball will bounce off a bumper at you, you hit it, it bounces straight back and so on until you miss it. Unfair I say.

What is the point of a game where you mostly just sit and watch I hear you ask ? Well, this game will appeal to those people who don't feel up to Roland Meets the Greenies from Planet Zog after a hard day's work and fancy something simple to let their minds unwind.

This game scores over the original in several respects; you don't need coins, you can choose the speed of the ball and there aren't three people leaning over the table.

The only problem is that you can't tilt the thing!