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There you are, doing some daring low flying down the canyon, guns blazing, defence batteries blasting away at you, enemy planes attacking from all angles, but on you go, pausing only occasionally to dock with your sister ship (a bit unsavoury that, I thought) to refuel, re-arm and repair damage. Sounds familiar? If you were a resident of Teesdale when the NATO exercises are on it would. All except that bit about defence batteries.

Still, I have been promised a penknife for my next birthday. Watch out, Brylcreme boys!

If you like blatting anything that moves, this is your game. The screen scrolls sideways at a speed controlled by you (if, unlike me, you have mastery of the digits) and you have to steer a course between the canyon walls, while assorted pillboxes, ships, planes and missile launchers are being less than hospitable.

You have three kinds of blatter: air-to-air cannon, air-to-ground cannon, and air-to-ground missile. You have a limited supply of each, of course, and your fuel has a nasty tendency to run out. The object of your mission is to destroy the enemy missile silos and associated command centres (and to cause the inhabitants to write ferocious letters to the local Bugle).

This is a really well-packaged game. It has tickertape-type instructions scrolling across the screen, and appropriately martial music - two tunes - playing while the main game is loading. The graphics are excellent: satisfying crump-type explosions, black at the centre, fringed with red and yellow. My son, Ghengis, plays it for hours at a time, as would I if only I could get my fingers under control.

There's a hall of fame and a demo facility to let you see what you're in for. Very good.