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Every so often a game comes along that is original, well executed and fun to play. Video Classics isn't that game. After about fifteen seconds loading time - and that's from tape - the game bursts on to the screen. You are presented with a menu with the options to play tennis, football, solo, normal squash, Four Bat Blip or Astrobliperoids - all against the computer or another person.

Yes, Video Classics is based on the very early computer TV games - the ones that were usually made by Binatone in horrible orange plastic boxes with knobs.

After much messing about with the aerial cable, a picture of two oblongs (the bats) and a small square (the ball) appeared on the screen. Then father stole the controls and played with it himself all night.

Tennis, football and squash are self explanatory. Four bat blip is just tennis with two bats along the top as well as down the sides. Innovative, eh? Astrobliperoids is the nearest thing in the game to originality. Imagine tennis with four blobs wandering up and down the screen getting in the way. That is Astrobliperoids.

In several of the games the ball will travel quite happily through a bat. While playing squash it is impossible to tell your bat and the computer's bat apart, which, to say the least, makes play difficult. In solo squash you actually get ten points every time you miss the ball. I racked up rather a good score on this one!

If Video Classics was debugged and some extra sound added it might make an enjoyable history lesson for those who missed out on the birth of the TV game. For those who buy games to play and enjoy - forget it, I've seen better games on pocket calculators.