Pub Arcade

In your local smoke-filled pub lounge, you'll probably find a rather sad machine hiding in the corner. Its colour screen now only displays pictures in green and black, and its casing is scorched from a hundred forgotten cigarettes. The poor thing is begging to be unplugged.

Yet for a certain generation of older gamers, that forlorn piece of entertainment equipment is nothing less than a time machine back to their misspent youth. An age when they blew all their pocket money on old-school arcade games rather similar to those offered by Pub Arcade.

Games like Virus, for instance, an overhead shoot-em-up but without the shooting. Instead, you zip around trying to pick up a particular icon when it appears, whilst avoiding the enemies bumbling their way across the screen. This gameplay is clearly utterly, incredibly basic, and when combined with visuals apparently stolen from the murky recesses of the Dark Ages, you don't hold out much hope for anything even remotely entertaining.

Yet Virus is brilliant, a real gem, based on a simple idea that's been beautifully executed. It may not be an incredibly new concept, but it feels like a superstar brought back from the dead to show people like Jade and Chantelle how it's really done.

The next game in the Pub Arcade family is called Rebound. Anyone who's ever played games such as Breakout, Blockout, Block Breaker or Block Breaker Deluxe will be on familiar ground here.

You control a small paddle at the bottom of the screen, and hit a ball so that it destroys a wall of blocks at the top. Once you've wiped all the blocks out, you move onto the next level. There are occasionally power-ups and special weapons thrown in for good measure, like triple-balls and lasers, which add a bit of extra interest.

Rebound is certainly nothing new – again, the presentation is very plain, with only the arrangement of the blocks making any difference from level to level – but it's easily fun enough to earn its place in Pub Arcade.

The final game boasts the catchy title of Zyxyz. That sounds like something rather unpleasant, but actually Zyxyz is the most fully-rounded of the Pub Arcade games.

What we have here is a very capable shoot-em-up, and this time there's an awful lot of shooting indeed; if you take out enough enemies you'll earn no end of power-ups, most of which are great fun. The action is slick and speedy, thanks to the top-down vertically scrolling format, and there's plenty of variety in the design of the backgrounds and in the level of animation, too, making Zyxyz the most polished title of the Pub Arcade trio. The music in particular is a rare highlight, blasting out a full-on electro-funk soundtrack that really puts you in the mood to zap aliens.

Each game in Pub Arcade has its own merits. There may not be a wealth of innovation on display, but when you take into account that you're getting three very good games for the price of one, you certainly can't complain.

Sherbert-filled flying saucer, anyone?