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Boom Blox centres around (mainly) demolishing structures made of blocks of different types, to release gems. Tools at your disposal include bowling balls, bombs and just deft touch. The game is not quite as immediately tactile and accessible as e.g. Mercury Meltdown Revolution, but still quite easy to pick up and go. Quite a lot of variety in the types of tasks - not all demolition jobs! Some of the levels seem a bit arbitrary, especially the ones involving the green chemical blocks, which explode when they touch each other. Consequently, some levels can be finished by sheer luck, and with others massive effort isn't rewarded. The party modes are good, with a somehow quite different feel to the games, and a fair variety of challenges.

Fab slab of a desk. No frills, just a decent chunk of fake beech (easy to keep clean) MDF or similar with stylish tubular cantilever legs. Easy enough to construct - two leg units, two lengthwise braces and the 150cm x 79cm work surface itself - but it obviously arrives in a large and quite heavy package!

Think of those mercury mazes you had when you were a kid, before everyone got paranoid about the health implications. Then add see-saws, spikes, conveyors and other helps and hazards, and you're half way to Mercury Meltdown Revolution. The graphics are simple but very effectively rendered, and the physics and Wii-mote tilting controls are spot-on. Just the right turn-around time between attempts to encourage a "one more try" mentality, and by not demanding 100% success to progress, avoids the frustration that many stage-based games suffer from.

This is a "grower", definitely. First impressions really were not good: Simplistic 3D graphics, harsh sound and music and trivial gameplay. However, on perseverance, although the graphics and sound/music didn't improve very greatly (though arguably a bit!), the gameplay itself did massively. You have to complete all levels to proceed, and the game is fast enough that you are encouraged to try and try again to achieve that. Oh, what do you have to do? Basically, steer a monkey in a ball around increasingly complex and hazardous mazes, within a time limit and whilst collecting as many of the eponymous bananas as possible. There are also 50 party games, but these are mainly a waste of space.

So far so good with this little gadget. Although Raleigh put their name on the box, they're basically distributing a third party product (in this case an Echowell Echo W1) which you might be able to shop around for. I recently bought some perfectly decent sunglasses that Raleigh had similarly endorsed with their name on the packaging, so as long as they are choosing well, that's fine.

The sensor is quite bulky and was a little fiddly to fit, and all in all there were quite a few bits to screw together, but it all worked - and first time! A nine-mile test ride recorded nine miles, which was encouraging, and that was using their guide for the circumference of a 26x2" wheel rather than measuring it myself. The functions are basic, but perfectly adequate for the leisure cyclist with one bike.