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The gaming market is currently swamped with games that are to technical brilliance what our deputy editor is to charisma [Thanks - Dep Ed]. But, strangely enough, almost all of these simplistic offerings are the most playable things we've had for ages.

Helter Skelter is no exception; you play the part of a small bouncing ball in dire jeopardy from a large number of cute-looking monsters who have amassed against him [Don't call them "cute" - they're monsters - Ed].

Pressing the fire button makes your ball bounce. To increase the height of the bounce you must keep pressing the fire button when the ball is on the downstroke, three presses should be enough to attain maximum bounce. With good timing you can also make the ball stop dead. Al that remains is to control the ball's horizontal movement with left and right thrusts of your happywand [I think he means joystick - Ed].

The screens consist of a series of platforms. Some screens are wrap-around arrangements, others are sometimes surrounded by borders confining your bouncabilty. In each screen there are a number of "call them anything you like but for Gawd's sake not cute" monsters, one of which sports a rather attractive arrow above its head (aim for this one first). When you bounce on its head, it disappears and the arrow shifts to the next fiend, the ultimate aim being to rid the screen of all the monsters before the timer runs out. If you hit the wrong monster, it splits into two smaller monsters: not recommended.

Some screens are mazes in which there's a stingy time limit and a monster right at the end. Only practised bounce masters progress beyond these. Random bonuses include skip level, freeze monsters and time and attack monsters in any order.

Code words provided every ten levels allow you to skip screens you've completed before. A screen designer permits you to modify existing screens and save them to disk and there's a two-player mode.

Summing up, all I can say is that Helter Skelter has colourful and cute graphics, adequate sound and oodles of playability. End of story.

1. The bounce of the ball is particularly effective as are the sprites of the monsters - almost cute!
2. Extensive screen supply and definable difficulty settings.
3. Sanity-saving code system.
4. Screen editor gives it all extra mileage.
5. Two player mode makes it all the more fun to play.
6. Clever screen construction for just the right measures of sweet victory and bitter defeat.

1. Nothing really new here, may disappoint owners of similar game types.
2. More could've been made of the graphics.
3. Sound is limited to simple spot effects.