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This is one of a large selection of packages distributed by Atari but written by non-Atari personnel. Atari does apparently pay quite good royalties if the program sells and it's a good way of making available software which might otherwise never be published.

Eastern Front has achieved such success that creator Chris Crawford has been given a job with Atari's elite software team in California.

The game is a one-player simulation of the German invasion of Russia during World War II, in which you have the job of controlling the German forces. The playing field is a map of Western Russia, covering three or four screens' length in each direction.

Using a joystick, you move a purple square around the map, which scrolls over if you reach the edge of the screen.

Russian military units are seen as red squares, and German ones as white. To identify any unit and its strength, you must position your purple square over it and press the fire button on your joystick. Each turn, you may give up to eight orders to each German unit. These amount to instructions for movement in a particular direction. They are given by pressing the fire button whilst your square frame is in position over the appropriate unit, and - keeping the button pressed - moving the joystick in the direction you wish the unit to move (not diagonally).

When you have completed your orders, pressing the start button initiates the procedure which figures out their results. A unit will not carry out all your orders exactly for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it may come into conflict with an enemy unit by trying to move into the other's space. In this case, the result of the conflict will be determined by the fighting strength of each unit along with various random factors, and one unit will be forced to withdraw.

Associated with this is the inability, under certain conditions of your unit to move through a Russian unit's zone of control.

Secondly, a German unit cannot move into a space already occupied by a friendly force, and will merely wait until the other has moved. Finally, the number of spaces which a unit can move each turn is limited by its own nature (infantry or tank regiment), the terrain it is crossing and the season of the year.

The game runs from 22 June 1941 to 29 March 1942, with each turn representing one week; the current date is displayed at the top of the screen.

Your score appears in the bottom left hand corner and is reassessed each turn, the idea being to end the game with the highest score possible out of 255. Since this score fluctuates in both directions, there is no point in playing part of a game. As there is no game-save feature, you will have to leave your computer on or allocate several hours each time you boot up the disk.

The graphics are the most obviously impressive feature, with the colours changing according to the season. There can be no doubt that this is a fine piece of programming.