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After achieving success with their beautiful, but ultimate vacuous, 3D fractal graphic games (Rescue On Fractalus, Koronis Rift and The Eidolon), Lucasfilm seemed to drop the technique that had become their landmark and began venturing down two new avenues. Their subsequent releases have been wacky RPGs (Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken) and naval warfare simulations.

Battlehawks 1942 is one of the latter, though unlike its more contemporary predecessors, PHM Pegasus and Strike Fleet, this puts you in the pilot's seat of an aircraft fighting it out over the Pacific during World War Two. Having said that, I should add that this isn't strictly to be classed as a flight simulator as the program dispenses with take off and landing procedures and keeps the controls as simple as possible (without compromising too much on realism). Instead, Battlehawks concentrates on the techniques of bombing aircraft carriers, torpedoing cruisers and gunning down attacking fighters.

If you feel your skills in these areas are a little rusty, you can start the ball rolling by selecting the training option from the opening screen. This doesn't just give you one mission to fly, but thirteen: intercept and fighter escort missions providing gunnery practice, dive bombing missions and torpedo runs. Each flight in given a difficulty designation, the easier ones featuring non-manoeuvring targets and the toughest simulating true combat conditions. The way each is played can be altered further by selecting enemy skill levels, limitations of fuel, ammunition and armour, and even which plane you'll be flying and for which side (Japanese or American).

Once you're mastered the basis of airborne warfare, you can volunteer for active duty. The programmers have tried to recreate the conditions of four of the major battles fought in the Pacific theatre in 1942 - the battles of the Coral Sea, Midway, the East Solomons and Santa Cruz. Each scenario is played out in four separate missions, all of which vary in difficulty from easy to "impossible"...?

When you've decided where, how and with whom you want to fly you can at last get your aircrew in gear. You start your mission on approach to the target, with the screen showing the standard array of gauges below a pilot's eye view of the ocean and its occupants. Different keyboard controls select forward, left, right, downward and rear views, the latter acting as the tail gunner's view if the plane you selected has one. The view of your environment is, to be honest, a pretty bland one, showing just the sea and the sky without clouds or waves. Cosmetic points like this don't matter much though, as the active air ace has little time to admire the scenery. The "sprites" representing the other aircraft and the ships are very well-drawn though, making the various types of each easily distinguishable, and from all angles too.

As soon as you begin to close on the enemy vessel, the sky is filled with ack-ack fire and hostile aircraft doing their darndest to make you an ex-pilot. Expect enemy planes to perform realistic offensive and defensive manoeuvres, such as Immelman turns and Split-S, and Japanese Zero pilots are programmed to take advantage of their aircraft's extra speed and agility to perform dogfighting feats which the American planes are incapable of.

The intelligence of the enemy, and the slightly sluggish controls on the PC version I played make it pretty tough to shoot anything down unless you spend a while practising deflection shooting and "leading" the target. When you do, though, it's very satisfying to watch your enemy plummetting downwards, a plume of smoke billowing from his engine, and sometimes a parachute lifting the pilot to safety before the plane splashes into the water. It's almost as satisfying to eject from your own stricken plane, because you get such a terrific view of your surroundings as you drift downwards, with enemy aircraft whizzing past your head, and the battle continuing around you.

The realism and attention to authenticity make this a very atmospheric and enjoyable game to spend an afternoon playing, even if you're not a fan of flying games or a period warfare buff. The excellent manual covers the fundamentals of flight and air combat, details the specifications and evaluates each type of aircraft and each warship which features in the game, and provides maps and commentaries on the four battles included. This typically high standard of Lucasfilm presentation also makes its presence felt in the extensive and easy to use game selection and briefing menus which form such an essential part of the simulation.

I didn't find it quite as compelling as Strike Fleet, but it kept me engrossed for many an hour. If you've got a PC and want a diversion from Lotus laffs and word-processing wheezes, this is definitely one to look out for.