Game of the week

James, eight, tells me that I am going to have to put in some practice. He's been practising a good deal and he is beating me too easily. The game is Tumble Bugs and it is both amusing and unbelievably vicious. ("Tumble Bugs, Lose Your Friends," says the press release.)

What makes this game different from other shooting-down-spaceship video games is the clever 3D graphics which allow a simulation of rocky terrain (you can choose from a variety of planets to fight on, and a range of spaceships with different powers. What makes it even more different is that it's not made by a games company, but a rather serious company called Voxar that specialises in graphics for medical and scientific applications.

They invented Tumble Bugs as a demonstration of the capabilities of their new graphical software, but the game was so well received that they decided to market it. At present it is available only over the Internet, on CD- Rom (playable on Windows 95 Pentium) for pounds 15. You can buy it or download a fully playable demo at: www.tumblebugs.com

You can play solo (against the computer) or one against one (on the same keyboard) Must go now. I've got some practising to do.