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Originally there was just one way of playing a game: switching your brain off and letting your hands take control. Over the years games have become increasingly sophisticated, so that now some of 'em require three weeks just to read the instruction novella, let alone figure out the nested icon system. Occasionally it's nice to play a game which offers a mindless rest from hi-tech wizardry - and The Light Corridor is just such a game.

The idea is very simple. You control a paddle set in a corridor, and you must bounce a ball down the corridor avoiding all the obstacles which crop up along the way. The game can be controlled by either mouse or joystick, although the former is far and away the better choice. The ball starts off attached to your paddle and you fire it down the corridor by pressing either of the mouse buttons - left if you want to move down the corridor slowly or right if you prefer a more challenging speed.

There are 32 different obstacles to get past, from simple extensions out of the wall to sliding panels which follow your every move around the screen - but it's more the arrangement of these obstacles directly after each other, rather than their number, that really makes life difficult. What's more, it's all too easy to go screaming down the corridor after the ball only to zip round a barrier and get a ball in the face.

To give you some chance against the various obstacles, there are multi-coloured power-ups available to supercharge your paddle, with different effects depending upon their colour and shape. A red cube, for example, makes the ball stick to your paddle when it hits it and a green pyramid gives you an extra life. Watch out for blue cubes, though: they reduce the size of your bat.

Simple but effective graphics are the order of the day. The corridor scrolls smoothly past you, and its colour varies depending on how far down you are. The ball is equally well drawn and animated, making it fairly easy to judge where it's going to go. The moving obstacles are well aniamted, particularly the spark that arcs between the walls.

Sound is excellent. The tune playing on the main options screen is just about the best I've heard, with some very clear samples. The spot sound effects are all sampled too and add greatly to the feel of the game - when you lose a ball, for example, a sympathetic female voice shouts, "Oh!"

The Light Corridor is surprisingly addictive, and it keeps you interested in what's around the corner by enabling you to enter a password to restart the game at a later stage. What's more, it includes a corridor designer, so if you're a hardened masochist in need of serious frustration you can even knock up your own wicked levels. The Light Corridor offers nothing in the way of intellectual challenge, but its simple yet very addictive world does give you an enjoyable mindless blast.