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Tired of arcade shoot-'em-ups? Looking for something new and exciting? Well bad luck, F1 Tornado is strictly for blow-'em-away freaks only!

Zeppelin have done it again - yet another polished piece of programming on a game that features no new ideas whatsoever. Fortunately, the concept behind F1 Tornado is so old that most similar games disappeared ages ago, and playing this one is like greeting a long lost friend. (Ahhh...)

Those who visit their local coin-op arcades will probably be familiar with the old classic Scramble - it'll be in the darkest corner where they put all the battered 10p-per-game machines of yesteryear. Well, F1 Tornado plays just like that! You have eight-way movement on a horizontally scrolling screen, and must shoot the hell out of everything you see - my sort of game, that!

This isn't as simple as it sounds. Enemy battleships block a fair portion of the playing screen, leaving you very little flying space. Ship- and ground-based field guns try to blast you out of the sky, as do squadrons of marauding enemy aircraft.

These fly in fairly predictable patterns, but are far from easy to shoot down. Due to the horizontal scroll, the enemy are soon on top of you, leaving you dodging furiously in a desperate attempt to stay alive. Some take several hits to destroy, too.

You can temporarily increase your firepower by picking up power-up icons left by blitzed helicopters, giving reverse fire, triple fire, extra speed, heat-seeking missiles or cluster bombs. There is only one type of icon - a display in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen toggles between them, and you select the weapon of your choice by pressing fire.

Needless to say, at the end of each level, there's an unfeasibly large piece of military hardware to trash. F1 Tornado is one helluva game. The side-on-view, dodge-and-fire approach may be overused, but when was the last time you saw it done with such simplicity? Long time ago, wasn't it? Games such as UN Squadron are all very well, but I for one welcome a return to the no-frills straightforwardness we have here.

The sprites are tiny, allowing for fast scrolling and very responsive controls, and the graphics are colourful and uncomplicated, if a little blocky. The bullets are large and clearly defined - nothing worse than the dreaded 'disappearing bullet syndrome'.

Sadly, there's no crash routine. You don't come to grief in a ball of flames or explode in a mid-air orgy of twisted metal, you just disappear and return to the top left-hand corner of the screen.

This can be hellishly confusing, especially if you're shot while glancing at the icon display without realising. Which brings me on to my next point...

The method chosen for power-up selection is very annoying. No-one likes to play a shoot-'em-up with one eye on the status display, especially a game as fast and involved as F1 Tornado. I realise Zeppelin's intention was to give the freedom to choose the weapon enhancement you wanted, but it doesn't really work.

Zeppelin have a reputation for playable, well-programmed games that are hellishly unoriginal. F1 Tornado is no exception - despite its dated appearance it's a blimmin' good game. Nostalgic coin-op fans will love it.