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There I was, cruising along at 6,000 feet when who should come along but old Fritz. Lurking behind some storm cloud, he was. Gave him a couple of rockets up the old tail pipe. That saw him off!

Yes, it's good old World War Two again chaps! This time you're the pilot of one of the neatest RAF planes ever built. A twin-engined balsa wood Mosquito - the "wooden wonder". Fast and deadly, this aircraft featured in many successful missions during the conflict with Nazi Germany.

Ace Of Aces is a mixture of flight sim and arcade shoot-'em-up. There's no messing about trying to take off and smashing into the runway here though. It's up and at 'em right from the start. But it's not just a heads up, shoot-down-the-attacking-enemy type of game. Ace Of Aces tests your computer flying skills to the full.

You begin the game in the briefing room. An RAF type - complete with handlebar moustache and smouldering pipe - is asking you what sort of mission you want to undertake.

You can either select a "proper" mission, or attempt a practice session. When you start out, the practice mode is essential. This way, you get to learn what to watch out for. You can practice dog-fights, bombing U-Boat bases, trains, or take on deadly V2 rockets.

Dog-fighting you've all seen before. It's a simple shoot down the enemy game. But you do have to make it back to base. And guess what the enemy fighter always seems to knock out first when he riddles your aircraft with bullets? That's right! The compass! So the idea is to shoot first and ask questions later.

Bombing is a bit different. First get your Mosquito flying at the right speed, and then switch to the bomb screen which gives you a view through the bomb bay doors. Here you have to line up the bomb-aimers cross-hair sights and hit moving targets - like trains and U-Boats. No easy task.

Once you've practised it's time to go for "Ace of Aces" status. This means selecting a mixture of missions from the briefing screen.

Once you've chosen what you want to shoot/blow-up, the nice RAF chap gives you details of the mission - what armament you need, what the weather is going to be like over your targets, how many enemy fighters you're likely to encounter and so on.

A map illustrates your targets on a stylished map of Europe.

Then... scramble! A nice opening sequence which shows small black and white "photos" illustrating RAF wartime take-off as if you were looking through someone's old scrapbook.

Then you must load up your fighter with bombs, bullets, rockets and enough fuel to complete your chosen mission. You see your bomb bay filling up with deadly armaments, accompanied by nice metalic type sound effects.

Then it's straight into the action. You have to fly the aircraft and monitor the condition of your engines by switching to the engineer's screen. Here you control the speed of both your engines and "trim" of your plane. Over-rev the engines and they could catch fire as quickly as if they had been hit by enemy bullets. Fortunately, you've got a fire extinguisher to put out the blaze - but just your try flying on one engine!

Use your navigator's map to fly to your targets, bomb them fight off enemy planes, and then make it back to base in one piece, if you can...

There's always something happening in Ace Of Aces. The action comes thick and fast. The graphics are slick and the sound terrific. The engines give off an authentic drone as you fly through the clouds. And yes, you do get into bad weather - lightning, air pockets and all that stuff.

The disk packaging is excellent - with comprehensive and easy-to-follow instructions. Each screen is illustrated in detail to give you an at-a-glance guide.

You'll need to have a hand free for keyboard/joystick combinations at times, which can be infuriating - especially when you want to put out a fire in the engine when you're on a bombing run or being attacked by fighters. But this comes with practice.

Ace Of Aces is another extremely well-presented package from Accolade - with enough frills and action to keep even the most critical computer pilot busy for some time to come.