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You become a World War one air-ace on a desperate mission of destruction behind enemy lines in Blue Max - one of the latest US games to officially reach these shores.

It's a River Raid-style game with enhanced graphics and sound. You have to fly your biplane around bombing enemy targets and shooting down enemy planes. You also have to land and take-off at friendly airfrields to be repaired and take on more fuel. And that's about all there is to this game - which I found unoriginal and eventually pretty dull.

The aircraft handles really nicely - you get a real impression of controlling a plane in flight. The graphics are quite good, the sound is adequate and the program presentation is good. But all this didn't save the game for me.

A considerate touch is the "colour-bar" command messages. The display at the bottom of the screen changes colour to tell you if you are flying too low, at the right level to attack enemy planes, at the right level to strafe enemy positions on the ground, etc.

But overall if you feel the need for a "bombing mission" game I'd go for River Raid every time.