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If you thought that playing wargames involved giving obscure commands to unrecognisable armies, think again. Iwo Jima, the latest title in PSS's Wargames Series requires just three keys to control everything. Two of these scroll you backwards and forwards through a series of menus and the third enters your chosen command. You can't get much more user friendly than that!

You command the forces of the US Marines as they try to capture the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese, simulating one of the bloodiest battles in the second World War - the Americans suffered 24,000 casualties and the Japanese 22,000, all in the space of 36 days. A map of the entire island is displayed on the screen together with a box in the top left hand corner giving details of any Japanese unit under attack. The map displays various terrain features and shows the position of any enemy forces that you have located. All you have to do is eliminate all the Japanese units within a certain number of turns (this varies according to the difficulty level selected).

Your first objective is to establish a beach-head on the island. There are five potential sites next to each other but you should take great care not to wander into any of the minefields that are nearly. You get the chance to command each of your units in turn with the four main choices being land, move, attack and pass. Re-inforcements will arrive in turn three providing that the sea is calm and this will give you a total of twenty units with which to accomplish your task. Each unit has an aggression and defence factor which determines how efficient a fighting force they are. Movement factor shows how far they can move each turn (although all movement stops if they move next to an enemy unit) and range is an indication of how many squares there can be from an enemy unit before they can attack it.

The Japanese will not surrender and are likely to launch kamikaze attacks when their units are very weak. Likewise, their planes and submarines will attack your support ships, thus reducing the amount of naval gunfire that you can call on each turn.

Iwo Jima is an ideal game for novice wargamers to cut their teeth on. The rules are clear and the game is simplicity itself to control. Experienced gamers will probably prefer something with a bit more realism and complexity though.