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This is a real dare devil mission. As Commander Glenn White, you are dropped onto an island - your objective is to destroy the munitions plant owned by the Abraxas Corporation (Arms for Anyone, Anywhere, Any Reason).

For the mission you have been provided with a trail bike which converts into a hang glider. The trail bike will take you over rough territory and the conversion to hang glider is very slick - simply find a slope, career down it, reverse direction and the hang glider opens out like a butterfly - and you are in the air. Staying in the air however is a different matter as practically all the installations on the island are heavily defended by ground to air lasers which, if they lock onto you, mercilessly sap your energy rating.

Puttering about on the motorbike is enjoyable and the grand tour of the island is recommended before attempting your objective. You can drive around the perimeter of the island without too much interference from laser outposts and appreciate a) the size of the island and b) the excellent and well thought out detail in the contoured 3D graphic landscape. Then find an incline and take off. Mastering the controls of the hang glider takes some time as it seems to react as an actual hang glider would - bank too steeply and it stalls. If you are over the ocean and ditch you are immediately consumed by predatory sharks.

Flying around and across the island is fun, but it's when the serious business of bombing hell out of things gets underway that a few flaws in the game are revealed. You can only bomb installations from the glider and are given a ration of nine (extra supplies can be picked up from ammo dumps using the bike) but the question is what do you bomb, and how do you know when you've hit it?

The instructions are hazy at best, hinting that 'power units' are vulnerable. But what are power units? There are all kinds of structures on the island so where do you start? An index to buildings would have been a very useful aid indeed.

The second problem is whether it's actually possible to destroy anything at all. Drop a bomb and there is no sign of an animated explosion.

One solution of course may be that I'm too jittery to control the hang glider or too myopic to aim properly, but the fact is that I spent a great deal of time and concentration just attempting to register a hit on something - anything.

I tried dropping bombs from every conceivable height and angle on any potential target. The result? Nothing. (Bombs also have a disconcerting way of disappearing in mid air if you happen to switch screens as you fly over a target!)

This, to say the least, is very annoying and it's all the more infuriating because everything else about the game is very appealling. Making things difficult for the player is all very well but getting a toehold on the game should be easier than this!

This fact is that the only thing that prevents Glider Rider from becoming a Monster Hit. It's a game I shall return to again in an effort to crack it, but I can't help thinking that this one should have been called Mission Impossible (literally) if someone hadn't thought of the title first.