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Shufflepuck Cafe is really nothing more than the twenty year old game Pong, twisted into three dimensions and dabbed with some Amiga-style graphics and colour - excellent qualifications, in fact, for one of the best budget games around at the moment. That's the computer game explanation anyway - the rest of us may find it easier to imagine air hockey, the real life physical version of this game, where you have to bat a floating ice hockey style puck across a pool-sized table, in an attempt to whack it into your opponent's goal.

Games don't come much simpler whan this, and thankfully its easy-to-understand immediate appeal has hardly been tampered with at all here.

So how does it work on a computer? Well, the viewpoint is exactly the one you'd use to play real air hockey - you are positioned behind the bat (visible as a moveable rectangle near the bottom of the screen) facing any one of nine alien competitors of varying skills and styles. Simply knock the puck towards (and hopefully past) him/her/it - bouncing it off the walls is a good way to try and fool them - then do your best to return their shot.

The winner is the first to fifteen, while all manner of variables to toy with - such as different bat size, or obstacles on the 'air hockey' pitch - help liven things up a bit.

Much of the rest of the appeal of the game comes from the competitors who hang out at the Shufflepuck Cafe. The 'Champagne Charlie' crocodile is quick with the bat, but starts making mistakes as the bubbly swigs starts to go to his head, while a space mutant with distinctly Churchillian features proves to be a bit of a pushover. Possibly one of the most difficult opponents is the tall woman who can mentally move the puck with out shifting her hands at all!

And that's it really - this is one of those French games, like North And South, which is agreeably quirky rather than outright weird, and while a bit too thin-looking at full price proves to be ideal budget fare. It's a shame that there's no two-player option available, but this remains one of the essential purchases of the month.

Simplicity itself, and therefore quite excellent. Whatever you do, don't miss out on the beautifully simple fun.