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The magical world of Frynn is under threat from the Dark Queen's dragonarmies. Its only possible saviours are the noble Solamnic knights, whose ranks you have just joined.

Flying on dragonback in 20-plus missions, you come across not only evil dragons but also ships, castles, wyverns and mighty flying fortresses. Before each mission, you're given the opportunity to preview the landscape you'll be flying over and shown a map which makes the deployment of good and evil dragons.

The screen is dominated by a 3D view from your saddle, your dragonlance pointing ahead of you (it can be replaced with a simpler crosshair sight). Your dragon's power, speed, altitude and heading are indicated on various displays for general dragonflight, while a magical crystal ball acts as radar for enemy detection. Both you and your dragon have limited energy, but as it dwindles you can tap into your suppler of Keoghton's Healing Ointment.

A joystick controls the dragon's flight and keys aim the lance. Good dragons have lightning bolt and limited fire/smoke breath weapons. The dragon automatically tries to bite or claw any opponent that passes just below it, and you automatically use a sword on any beast passing just above.

The idea of patrolling monster-filled skies as a Solamnic knight is great. The 3D landscapes *look* fine, and the sensation of flight is quite good, but the Amiga screen update is quite slow and jerky, even with low-detail and wireframe graphics selected. The C64 game doesn't suffer from such problems as there aren't any backdrops to worry about.

The C64 sprites are blocky but well-animated, Amiga sprites are unimpressive but the main bugbear with me is the colour scheme. Nice, lush greens and a bright blue sky are completely inappropriate to the grim, fierce battles related in the books - dark greys, deep reds and a stormy sky would've given the correct atmosphere; the primary blues of the C64 game don't work.

Gameplay is easily grasped but fun, although with separate lance controls you either have to leave it where it is 95% of the time or get a friend to aim it - maybe mouse control for the lance would have worked better. One dragon's very much like another, but slaying them makes a very welcome change to searching out SAM sites and shooting down MiGs.

DragonSkulle's presentation is superb with free postcard dragon illustrations, gorgeous static screens and reams of scene-setting text. It's a shame this attention-to-detail doesn't extend to the core of the game, the simulator.

Flight itself is limited to the graphics front and the Amiga game judders along when flying over polygon-intensive graphics like the castle (which isn't all that impressive anyway). By contrast, the C64 version is devoid of anything other than occasional ground graphics and the main dragon/ship sprites. Attacking ships is very difficult on the C64 game without visual cues of height (an altitude warning behind the only clue as to my immediate demise). But it is fun 'dog'fighting at close range, spinning the lance round and pranging the enemy up the behind (accompanied by a 'Youl!' [I should think so! - Ed].

The sensation of flight is unsurprisingly better on the Amiga with flapping wing FX and so on to heighten the sensation - the C64 dragon roar is good but it's very spartan on the FX front otherwise.

Despite a lack of mission depth per mission, and little in the way of adventure element, it's playable and different and worth a recommendation.

Presentation 90% Excellent: comprehensive manual with plenty of background material, full-colour AD&D data cards, redefinable controls, graphics options and save/load facility.

Graphics 68% Well-formed and coloured 3D landscape but with jerky, unconvincing movement.

Sound 60% Okay in-game tunes and jingles plus some amusing dragon growls and screams.

Hookability 78% The atmosphere generated by packaging, intro screens and text, plus the sheer novelty of riding a dragon are more than enough to grasp your attention.

Lastability 76% Different dragons to both ride and slay plus a few extra targets for mission variety.

Overall 77% 3D Joust with depth (obviously!) and strategy.