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There is barely a difference between this game and Falcon Patrol 1, a new landscape and helicopters in pursuit instead of aeroplanes, but essentially the same.

Your plane patrols the skies over a war-ravaged town in the Middle East (it's all too realistic, it looks like Beirut on a bad day). The radar screen at the bottom shows the approach of the enemy helicopters.

The choppers range from unarmed troop carriers to the very dangerous red gunships. Shooting down the 'copters and avoiding their fire or fatal collisions takes a fair bit of concentration.

it is a feature of the game that your jet will only change direction once it has decelerated sufficiently to allow a turn. So it's easy to get into a sweat swooping from side to side and up and down the screen, chasing the last few kills that will get you on to the next screen.

One major change in Falcon Patrol 2 is that the joystick control allows you to fire diagonally downwards as well as straight ahead, a facility that really comes in handy when you've got swarms of helicopters to destroy.

Meanwhile, as the seconds tick by, you'll find you're rapidly running out of vital fuel. You've then got the tricky problem of slowing down over one of your land bases, swinging round to face forwards so that you hover, and then landing on the base to take on missiles and refuel. This is extremely dangerous if there are any enemy aircraft left because they have a nasty habit of smashing into you just when you're totally vulnerable.

The various changes and additions don't disguise the fact that Virgin have re-styled an old but good game. This does suggest a certain lack of ideas and effort on Virgin's part.

This, only slightly improved, version of an already successful Virgin game provides great shoot-'em-up action.

The inertia on the plane is excellent, and chasing 'copters is very demanding on your joystick technique. Not the most original game in the world but plenty fast and furious enough to keep me blasting choppers from the skies.

Definitely not a sequel, more another version! More graphics detail needed on the helicopters but the landscape is drawn with great care and the burnt-out buildings and pyramids scroll with amazing smoothness beneath your VTOL jet.

However, if people have the original Falcon Patrol 1, why should they get this version? If you didn't get Falcon Patrol 1, buy this - it'll blow your socks off!

I found Falcon Patrol 2 a fast, and addictive, game. The VTOL jet moves very realistically, not turning in a split second like the aircraft in some games do. It is small things like this - often overlooked in computer games - that make this game so satisfying.