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The inlay card proclaims in bid bold red letters "Now YOU can fly with the legendary Red Arrows - in the most challenging flight simulator ever!" It goes on to say it's the most exciting full colour flight simulator ever written and uses every ounce of the micro's power to give the utmost realism to recreating the most spectacular aeronautical displays... That's enough of that. All this is more over the top than the usual inlay preamble but, as all A&B reviewers do, I ignored these remarks and loaded the actual game itself.

First thing I noticed about this game was its enormous size. The main program was 6B blocks long! When all of it was finally loaded, up came a Mode 7 screen with options such as redefinable keys, sound on/off etc. It's important to get these right because you cannot get back to this stage once you start the game.

In the game, you juggle with over twelve control keys (and that's only the important ones) to perform one of the preset manoeuvres using the instruments and the cockpit view. Here, I must make a comment about the graphics - they are incredible. I have never seen (on the Beeb) such massive pics move without disturbing the background or flickering and I must admit, I was impressed by the way the Red Arrows did the manoeuvres in demo mode. However, I was not so impressed with the playability. It's so difficult I could not perform a manoeuvre properly. Don't get me wrong, I'm no geriatric and I managed to get Elite status but this games gives new meanings to the words "challenging" and "demanding".

Shingo Sugiura