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Cascade would be the first to admit that the basic game concept behind Traz isn't startlingly original: you've got to use bats and balls to dislodge bricks until the screen is cleared. Yes, it's Breakout for the umpteenth time.

But it's the frills that are worth talking about, and, as a certified Breakout nutter, I can confirm that the frills on Traz are pretty neat.

Traz, incidentally, is short for Transformable Arcade Zone. Why Transformable? Simple: one of the major features of this package is that it contains what is, at least to me knowledge, the first ever Breakout Construction Kit. Why no-one ever got around to doing this before is a mystery to me. The editor is a wee bit user-unfriendly, but once you've worked out how to use it you can construct your very own screens. There are a plethora of possible arrangements from vertical, horizontal, indestructible, distorting and monster-generating blocks, "traps" (areas which you've got to keep the ball out of - Traz allows you to lay them on any of the four walls, not just at the foot of the screen), bats (you can have more than one, beside each other, perpendicular to one another or even stacked) and balls. Even if you're not generally into building-your-own games, you should have a shot at this. The on-screen instructions may be confusing, but the end results are impressive.

But even without the Construction Kit option, Traz would be a pretty fun game. The idea is that you have to battle your way through a multi-screen complex (you choose from a variety of opening screens, simply by pressing RUN/STOP). The arrangements of blocks are considerably more complex than, say, Arkanoid, largely due to the fact that you are often asked to control more than one bat on different screen walls. Even if you're playing with a mate in the two-player team mode provided, it can be fairly tricky to cope with traps scattered about the play area, and if you're on your own you can get seasick trying to use your joystick's up/down plane to move one bat and the left/right plane to control the other.

The bricks you're trying to take out come in two classic shapes - horizontal and vertical. You can't do anything about the indestructible ones which distort the ball's flight: they're simply put in to make things tougher. There are also different kinds of monster icons which appear and float around the screen, Arkanoid-style, and can affect the ball's flight-path if it touches them.

The destruction of a brick is frequently accompanied by a falling question-mark icon, which can be picked up with your bat (assuming you're not too occupied keeping the ball out of the trap). There's no way of telling what effect any one of these will have: some give you an instant multi-ball or a temporary brick-shooter housed in your bat; some will slow the ball down or speed it up to an uncontrollable pace; some distort the ball's slight; and one beauty even "smart bombs" the entire screen, thereby giving you an instant passage to the next level.

You get five lives, with a bonus life awarded for each level completed, but believe me, this isn't overgenerous: even on the initial screens, you're going to have to be lucky not to drop one or two, and once you get on to any of the second stages (these vary according to whichever start-off level you selected), you'll be faced with some very tough challenges indeed. Frequently, you'll have to control four separate bats at once, assuming you're playing by yourself.

No, I don't think you're going to tire of Traz in a hurry. Cascade have taken the proven tooth-grinding compulsiveness of the genre and enhanced it with a host of clever touches. The endlessly varied screens, the multi-plane bats, and the inclusion of a construction kit - the presence of any one of these features would make this game worth a look for the serious Arka-freak. By cramming all of them, and more, into one product, Cascade have done us proud.