Cheap Rocket Power: Extreme Arcade Games (Software) (Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me) Price

Rocket Pogo places Sam on an obstacle course, for example, where he bounces around collecting parts for a robot he is building, while avoiding anything that might make him wipe out. Sandcastle Slam is a sort of combat Pong, where players bounce balls against each other's battlements in an attempt to destroy their opponents' sand castles. Hockey Shot is an exercise in basic movement theory, with Otto trying to rebound a hockey puck into an increasingly obstructed net.

In each of these three games, players collect gold bonus coins that unlock a fourth activity. In Roller Rocketball, Twister collects balls that have been littered on the boardwalk, firing them into the trash bins where they belong and racking up points.

Rocket Power offers single-player and head-to-head modes, and each of its activities has 10 levels of difficulty. Succeed at all 10 levels, and you qualify for a silver medal. To get the gold, users must play all 10 levels of each game perfectly--which means collecting every single one of the gold bonus coins displayed on the game screens. The four games contained in this package are slow-paced by arcade standards and more than a little repetitive. They are also far from original in concept or execution. Even so, only one game is seriously flawed--Rocket Pogo is slow-running, with an interface that is very nearly player-hostile.

The other three activities more than make up for this weakness, though, with cheery graphics, solid action, appealing sound effects, and, of course, a chance to hang with the Rocket Power kids on their own sporting turf. --Alyx Dellamonica