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Pete Cooke's Tau Ceti, released last year, was a classic. And this sequel is simply brilliant. No Spectrum owner should be without it. Simple as that.

Academy puts you back at the controls of your Gal-Corp Skimmer. But this time there are 20 - yes 20! - missions to complete. You can design your own Skimmer panel using the built in "construction-set" option. And there's even a freebie Star Map program thrown in.

All the addictive excitement of Tau Ceti plus a whole lot more. You'd be mad to miss it! Let's take a look at the game that will knock your socks off…

After an incident on Cygnus in 2197 when a rookie pilot selected the wrong gear when docking with the main central reactor and reduced half the planet to molten lava, Gal-Corp decided that a special training centre was needed to provide an elite corps of pilots for the advanced military Skimmers used in colonisation and reconnaissance work.

The Gal-Corp Academy for Advanced Skimmer Pilots (GASP) was founded to meet this requirement. Only a few meet the exacting requirement of flying and combat skills. In order to graduate from the Academy, cadets must complete 20 missions, grouped in five levels of four, successfully.

On loading you'll see the main menu which offers you seven different options, all of which lead you on to different sub-menus.

The first thing to do is to enter your name. Move the pointer to "Enter a New Cadet" and press fire. The screen will clear to the New Cadet sub-menu. Type in your name and your date of birth. Having entered your name the next task is to choose one of the four level missions. Move the pointer to "Select a Mission and press fire. The screen will clear to the mission sub-menu. A list of four missions will be shown. To select a mission simply move the pointer to it and press fire. Below the mission list is a set of options:

Info on this mission will explain the task required and ships and buildings that you are likely to meet on a mission. You can also call up information on the planetary system where the mission is set to find out about conditions on the surface. The program will also recommend a suitable Skimmer.

Having chosen a mission you will need to choose a Skimmer. Move the pointer to "Select a Skimmer" and press fire. The screen will clear to the "Skimmer" sub-menu where a list of six Skimmers are shown.

Three are already constructed and named. Three more are blank and waiting for you to build and equip them.

Below the list of Skimmers are more options. "Info on this Skimmer" gives a list of the equipment carried on the Skimmer. "View Panel" allows you to see the panel layout. "Design Skimmer" allows you to put together a customised craft for a particular mission.

The recommended Skimmer for the first mission - "If it Moves..." is GCS Lenin. Select this Skimmer and return to the main menu. You are now ready to try a mission! Move the pointer to "Accept Mission".

The screen will clear to show the Skimmer's instrument panel. On the top line is a "Status bar" which will show the ship's state (docked), the mission score and the mission time. Below this is the viewscreen, various gauges and dials and a small blue rectangle - the computer window.

You are now in one of the game's two modes. This is ground mode where you can communicate with the Skimmer's computer by using the commands you'll remember from Tau Ceti - plus a couple of new ones.

Type HELP, if you are unsure, and all the correct words scroll up in your Skimmer's message window. Type "LAUNCH" when you're ready and you're off! And just hope you've selected the right Skimmer for the right mission...

The missions range from complicated Tau Ceti style puzzles, to out and out shoot 'em-ups which test your firefighting and flying skills.

Just to give you a taste, here are a few mission titles: At the OK Corral, Laserium, Mission Improbable, If it Moves, Needle in a Haystack, Where to Guv?

All Skimmers are equipped with different gear - detailed in the info section. The equipment includes missiles and lasers of course - but this time you also get delay bombs which are very useful in tight corners.

Each of the built-in Skimmers has different capabilities - but you can construct your own. Access your rating on each of the missions by selecting the Progress Report option. This will display the four missions available on the level along with a score for each mission and an average score overall.

As I've already mentioned it is possible to design and equip your own ship for any mission.

There is a list of possible equipment. In the centre are two or three boxes showing whether the Skimmer has the equipment / how many items the Skimmer has / what strength the unit has.

The two main limitations in equipping a ship are the weight of equipment and the total cost, both shown at the bottom of the screen. The basic Skimmer hull will not carry a weight of over 100 Galactic Megatons and GalCorp's budget will not stretch to designs costing over 100m credits. If either of the two figures are over the limit they will show red and you will need to remove some items of equipment selected.

When you are happy with the equipment selected move the pointer to the "Design Complete" option. This will take you into the Design Panel section, where you can design the Skimmer's Panel layout.

If you have chosen a large complement of equipment for a Skimmer design you may find it a little tricky to fit all the items in the available screen space, a useful hint here is to tuck the viewscreen away in a corner of the display to allow you to place dials or gauges off to one side.

You can save your game position at any time, and you relying on info about the different missions supplied by the Gal-Corp briefing team. From the main menu you can save your designs.

To move on to the next level and the next block of four missions you must have an average score of 90 per cent.

All this and I haven't even mentioned the D.E.A.F. sub-game or the CODES puzzle you'll need to solve on some missions. But every game has got to have its secrets.

Academy is immensely playable and totally addictive. You'll be thanking Mr Cooke for putting the SAVE option in. It'll mean you can actually get some sleep...