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Wanna do a Tom Cruise? Yes? Well, jump in your F-14 Tomcat fighter jet, and shoot off to the Top Gun Naval Fighter Weapons School, 'cos F-14 Tomcat is the latest in the long line of jet combat flight simulators to hit the streets.

Designed with the arcade buff in mind, as well as hardcore sim freaks (stay cool, man) the game gives you the chance to defend America against hostile forces across the globe in any of eighty separate scenarios. Just you and the Navy's F-14 out there, saving the skies. Hard or what?

Controlling the world's most powerful carrier-based jet combat fighter is no easy task. Thankfully, F-14 Tomcat doesn't hurl you right in at the deep end. Your first two tours of duty are carried out in the Navy's jet fighter simulator, giving you the chance to show the Admiral exactly what you're made of (jelly) before earning your wings and playing the game for real.

Nobody lets you near a plane though, till you've embarrassed yourself trying to pass a rigorous identification test designed to determine your knowledge of the hardware under your control. Fail and you're out on your ear. Succeed and you're on your way to the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz - one of the privileged few to become an F-14 fighter pilot.

There's a whole array of different controls: as well as the more usual speed up/slow down, rudders etc, there's a choice of four different types of armoury, including the Phoenix AA missile, exclusive to the US Navy, and the more common Sidewinder. More unusual are the keys to authorise firing and send a warning message to hostile aircraft.

After each sortie, you are transferred to the USS Nimitz, where the Admiral will advise you on your performance and future prospects, as well as whether you're going to receive a medal or get promoted. Make a right mess of everything by crashing or ejecting though, and you'll find yourself bobbing in the sea, up against a court martial or even rotting in a Middle Eastern prison. And you won't need your aftershave in there, me old son.

Decorations and promotion (you start out as an enthusiastic but 'wet behind the ears' Ensign), as well as less favourable reports, can be saved to a log for ongoing play and so affect your position in the ranks.

Eat your heart out, Tom.

I've never been the world's greatest simulator freak - normally I end up marvelling at the technology but getting a bit bored by all the different regulations and controls.

Not in F-14 though. It didn't take me that long to get the hang of the controls and after half an hour or so I actually started to enjoy the game. And that's what this is, really - a game, not a simulator.

The graphics are competent and the sound's pretty adequate, but when you get down to the actual flying, there just isn't that much simulator there.

Great if you're a bit of an ignoramus as far as flight sims go but not if you're the kind of experienced well-hard siulations ace likely to want a product like this. Oh well...

Unlike Stealth Fighter et al, F-14 Tomcat is much more arcade orientated then the norm. Whether this is to attract a wider audience than hardcore flight simulators usually receive I don't know.

What I do know is that it hasn't been hugely successful in achieving a balance between the two genres. Presentationwise, the game is excellent, with an easy to understand manual, and loads of different screens to represent different actions.

Sound isn't exactly fantastic, and enemy plane animation could have been better, but that's still not my main gripe.

Nope - the game just doesn't give any real challenge as a simulator. Controls which you'd think were standard aren't there, so realism is diminished. And when you get down to it, that's what counts in a game like this.

Presentation 87%
Concise, uncluttered manual. A wealth of options, backed up by animated screens. Pilot save option.

Graphics 79%
While fill-in screens and cockpit displays are excellent, poor enemy animation and lack of ground objects disappoint. Movement is speedy and fluent, though.

Sound 46%
A couple of tunes and some so-so jet and explosion noises.

Hookability 79%
Its simplicity of play will appeal to most players.

Lastability 58%
Lack of content ensures eventual loss of interest from simulation fans.

Overall 67%
An attempt to combine arcade popularity with simulation skills which doesn't quite hit the mark.