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Well, it's been two years in the making, but the space flight simulation which the pundits reckoned would wipe the floor with Elite has finally arrived.

Now, here's the paradox. Paul Glancey, reviewer and part-time Elite fan is presented with the game which will, he is assured, change his life. Said reviewer plays game, but does not leave the computer with a euphoric grin on his face. So, what went wrong?

There's no denying that, on paper at least, Federation Of Free Traders provides everything - and I mean *everything* - that a space simulation pilot could possibly want, Federation Of Free Traders is played in simulated space which is the equivalent of 18 trillion light years across. This space contains some eight million planets to explore and trade between, each with its own set of physical and cultural attributes. "Wow!" you're thinking. Well, cool your jets, baby - there's more.

Your ship is kitted out with a computer through which you can save and load games to and from disk, view a ship library and access the SIMPLE line editor which lets you fill 16K of memory with your own computer programs written in a miniature programming language.

Further to these, the computer lets you access Galnet, a kind of interstellar communications system through which you can transmit and receive messages to and from Federation Of Free Traders HQ and other traders, order space parts for instant delivery to your ship and arrange the sale and purchase of merchandise.

Trading is as prominent a feature as it was in Elite, but the range of commodities is rather larger in Federation Of Free Traders, running to 28 items in six categories. The price of each is determined by the attributes of the planet, as you would expect, and changing supply and demand causes prices to fluctuate as you watch, so there is even a timing element to trading success.

If you would prefer to live by the laser, there are seven weapons of varying strength classifications available for connection to your ship's three weapons systems. Some of the more exotic armaments are Sand Dispensers, which lay clouds of sharp sand particles to cut pursuing enemies to shreds, drones, which fly at your wing-tips until you release them, and then they hunt down the nearest hostile ship and destroy it, and Gauss Guns, which use magnetic induction to shoot pieces of scrap metal at a target in front of you.

Once you're tooled up and ready for action, it's time to get some purpose in your life. Get on to Galnet, dial up Federation Of Free Traders and they will hunt through your records and give youo a mission suited to your combat rating (which, incidentally, runs from cadet, through the ranks, to admiral as you complete missions). Co-ordinates of your destination planet are then fed into your navigation computer.

Selecting the NavComp displays a 3D map of the spiral armed galaxy you're in, and once you've finished spinning it around with the joystick you can zoom in on your current location and lock in a course. That done, you can undock from the space station and prepare to enter hyperspace.

Once you're back in real space your 3D RADAR is lit up with traces from nearby craft. The scanner is similar to the one in Elite, with dots on coloured stalks indicating the relative position of other ships. The red traces are enemy craft, and these usually show up on a passive Warning Radar as they lock missile targeting beams on you.

Combat is one respect in which Federation Of Free Traders does not resemble Elite, basically because it is heavily flawed. First you have to locate your enemy, so naturally you check your RADAR, zooming in to about X5 magnification to get an uncluttered view of your surroundings. At this magnification, enemy ships fly a very fast, and apparently random course around a point halfway between your ship and the edge of the scan, which is just out of visual range. This makes them impossible to sight until they break and start a high speed strafing run on your ship. Trying to place a shot at this stage is more a matter of luck than skill, because by the time you've swung around to face the laser blasts which are vapourising your shields, the enemy ship is out of sight. Give me the tense dogfighting tactics of Elite any day.

The alternative to fighting is to talk your attacker out of killing you (you can't run away, incidentally, because your ship doesn't fly fast enough, and the Time Skip interplanetary jump drive doesn't operate when there are enemy craft in the vicinity). To do this, you have to deactivate your weapons systems and go into communications mode, which displays an orientation bar at the centre of the main screen. If you can manoeuvre an enemy ship into this sight, you are given its twelve digit Galnet ID code, so you can contact him. Well, you can contact him if you: select the main computer; type NET to select the communications software; key in your own twelve digit ID, or alternatively type HELP then enter your name; press T to transmit; type in his twelve digit ID (you remembered to pause the game and write that down, didn't you?). Then, *if* you get through before he's blasted you to fragments, you can indulge in conversation with a semi-intelligent computer simulation of an alien gossip. Almost good, that is.

If only the problems were restricted to those described above, but alas, they are not.

An inventory screen is always handy to have. In Elite you press a function key and there it is. As befits a more "realistic" program, Federation Of Free Traders' inventory facility is more difficult to access. First select the computer, then type NET (why you need to access Galnet to evaluate the contents of your own ship is a mystery to me!), type in your twelve digit ID or type HELP then your name, hit the I key and you're there. Only another ten key-presses and you're back to the flight window. Trading is an even lengthier process, but I have neither the space or the yardage of typewriter ribbon to detail the key-strokes necessary to buying a ton of ferrous metals (clue: after getting into Galnet, it takes 15 to buy then get back to the main screen). Look, I'm sorry to go on about this, but the computer is one of the game's key elements and it's such a chore to use that it quickly becomes irritating to have to write down codes, type them out, then wade through menus to get where you want to be.

Realism also claims a victim during flight. If you were in a spaceship, flying through interplanetary space, you wouldn't see the stars move, and in fact you'd have to be going flipping fast just to see the planets more. In his quest for realism, the programmer has observed both rules, and the upshot is... that there is no feeling of movement at all! To get yourself between planets quickly, you're supposed to use the Time Skip Drive, but that deactivates as soon as a red blip appears on the radar, and the abundance of enemy craft means you can only Time Skip for half a second before you have to stop. To continue, you must destroy all enemy ships in range, and I've already told you how difficult that is. Consequently, any progress you make is very slow.

Speaking of slow, I might mention the planet-landing section. If a mission necessitates you taking a trip down to a planet surface, you are treated to a 3D scrolling Virus-type landscape littered with gun emplacements which take very accurate pot-shots at your ship. Your goal in this section is to follow an arrow to a runway where you can land and trade. Unfortunately, to reach the runway you have to fly at high altitude, doing very little apart from watching a distance meter counting down the miles to go to the runway. This goes on for about five minutes before the runway hoves into view, then you have a frantic ten seconds trying to line up your ship (you can't control your speed in this stage) before you fly past the runway and have to start again.

It really grieves me to have to criticise Federation Of Free Traders further, but I'm afraid I must make reference to the game manual, which runs to only 28 pages. This might sound like a lot to read through, but it leaves a lot of detail out. If you feel the need to program the computer (I can't see anyone needing to, but let's just imagine) you have a whole six and a half pages of reference information to help you, which is nowhere near enough. The manual also compares different types of engine and weapon using arbitrary figures with no units, so their meaning is lost.

The signs are that, after many months of thinking up brilliant game concepts and producing technically excellent graphic sequences, the final touches were rushed, ruining the gameplay totally. I'm afraid the programmers haven't realised that, the more complex you make a game, the more effort you have to put into making it easy to operate. Unfortunately, Federation Of Free Traders' ship systems are so user-unfriendly that it is a real chore to play.

Even after a week of concentrated play, I have yet to break through the frustration barrier with this game. It has to be one of the greatest disappointments of recent months, and at thirty quid I would recommend any interested gamers to take a very long look at it before buying.