After putting you at the controls of every other bit of military hardware in the American armed forces, Microprose have finally applied their computer simulation technology to a tank, namely the US Army's M1 Abrams. Not surprisingly for a Microprose game, this Abrams is stationed somewhere along the Eastern front, waiting for the Red Army to rampage over the hill (exactly where, and against which part of the Red Army is decided by your choice of mission difficulty).

Unlike some of Microprose's other games, playing Tank isn't just a matter of whizzing about popping off cannon rounds at anything that trundles past. M1 Tank Platoon is a much more thoughtful game than, say, F-15 Strike Eagle II, and consequently the gameplay is about 40% action to 60% strategy. For a start you command a platoon of four tanks, which have to interact with friendly gunnery, other tank platoons and reconnaissance helicopters. Each of the four tanks has a crew of four - a commander, a driver, a gunner and a loader, each of whom are rated to indicate their competence when under computer control. The guys start off with ratings like "inept" and "poor", but you can take over the position of say, an inept gunner at any time, viewing the action through his eyes.

When you do go down onto the battlefield like this, you get a 3D filled vector graphics view of the landscape, which is rather cruder in definition than, say, Bomber, but on a VGA PC it's pretty as well as being functional. As I said though Tank is more tactics than action, so for the most part you direct your forces on an overhead map view.

You issue orders to the platoon from your lead tank using a cursor to highlight objects. As commander, you can get your boys to take up different formations, advance, back up, turn to face a certain landmark or vehicle, advance to a spot, engage (turn the turret) to different directions and fire at will (look out for enemy artillery and shoot it).

As far as weaponry goes, the tanks have laser range-finding and night vision systems and armour-piercing, HEAT and coax shells to load into the main gun. If you take the commander's position, you can also stick your head out of the hatch and use a turret-mounted machine gun.

While you're playing Tank Platoon you get that same old Microprose feeling of really "being there" and it's obvious that the game is technically very competent. You have to admire the game because it's an excellent simulation but be warned that it's a lot more complicated to play than any of their other simulations. Whereas most arcade game players could get on well with the likes of F-15 II just by roaring through the blue and letting rip with a couple of Sidewinders, Tank Platoon's emphasis on tactics, its mass of control keys (over 100!) and its constant flipping between tank crews and map screens requires intense concentration, even during the easier assignments.

I can't really fault M1 Tank Platoon as it's definitely Microprose's most comprehensive simulation yet, but strategy/simulation buffs are going to enjoy it a lot more than your average gamer.

Technically Microprose's best yet, but the slower and more complicated tactical gameplay makes Tank Platoon less attractive to the casual gamer than the blam-zoom action of the flight sims.