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Ocean must employ someone specifically to track down and acquire the rights to incredibly obscure coin-ops beginning with the letter 'P'. After Taito's Puzznic (who?) and Plotting (eh?!) comes Mitchell Corporation's Pang (never 'eard of it!). And whoever does it deserves a raise, since Ocean has come up trumps with all three titles. Pang is another on-cart-only job and a right little stonker it is too.

The plan of Pang is to make your way - either solo or with a pal -from Japan to the Easter Islands in the Pacific travelling via the rest of the word. Your ticket to ride is earned upon completion of screens representing different locations around the globe. Each screen - complete with a very nicely-drawn backdrop - is beset by bouncing bubbles. Blimey! Your task is to destroy these stampeding spheroids by spearing them with your harpoon device.

This gizmo fires a vertical beam which hangs around for a second or two and bursts any bubble it touches. But instead of going 'pop' and disappearing, they merely split into two smaller bubbles which also need harpooning. And so on, until, after about four hits, they finally wave bye-bye for good.

Your little character is guided to left and right across the bottom of the screen but has to climb over obstacles which start appearing on later levels. Sounds a doddle so far... But! The bubbles are deadly - even the teensiest touch and your little chap is sent flying and loses a life (what a wimpo!). Not only this, but each screen is home to a series of creatures, like birds and small... er... things, which stroll across the screen in mid-game. The cheek! Shoot at these by all means 'cos if any of them touch your hero, its time to start humming "Another One Bites The Dust".

Burst all the bubbles on the current screen within the given time limit (without losing all your lives) and you're sent to the next location, simple as that. As screens are cleared, a map appears showing your globe-trotting progress; survive to Easter Island and you've finished the game!

Pang comes as something of a pleasant surprise. The coin-op may not have made a big hit, but this deserves to be! Sound and pictures are well up to scratch with some sick-makingly jolly arcade tunes and those smart backgrounds. The bouncing motion of the bubbles is pretty convincing, and the only glitch comes with the bigger orbs which occasionally lose a sprite when things get busy.

It's very fast, very playable and very "one-more-go-ish". What more d'ya want? How about simultaneous two-player action? Yep - got that too!

As if your Mk IV Acme Bubble-Bursting Harpoon wasn't enough, useful items drop from the skies for no adequately explained reason, and can be collected to help your mission:

1. Clock Freezes all bubbles on-screen, so you can blast 'em to bits.
2. Hourglass
   Gives you more time to clear the screen.
3. Anchor Harpoon
   Attaches itself to the ceiling forming an impenetrable wall of harpooness. For a bit.
4. Double Harpoon
   Fires a double stream of deadly harpoon heads, like a machine gun sort of thing.
5. Shield
   Defence against a single bubble bump, but not against creatures.
6. Vulcan Gun
   Kills Mr. Spocks. Naaah, not really. It shoots loads of bullets, but can't damage the platforms.
7. Dynamite
   Smart bomb - reduces all the bubbles to their smallest size. Not so smart if there are loads on screen!

1. Frantic and hectic gameplay is simply very addictive!
2. Smashing backdrop scenes of different worldly locations.
3. Simultaneous two-player action boosts playability.
4. Bouncing bubble movement has been beautifully captured.
5. Good choice of weapons and goodies stave off monotony.
6. Play is fast and the characters nice and controllable.
7. Bouncing renditions of coin-op tunes get the toes tapping.
8. Loads of levels so you're forever popping bubbles!

1. Repetitive nature of the gameplay is the only reason to down joysticks.
2. Possibly a bit too easy to complete!