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April 10, 1912, a liner (worthy of esteem) sets sail from Southampton to New York. The largest moving object ever built by man (funnily enough), she weighed 46,000 tons and was longer, stem to stern, than the taller skyscraper was high. She was RMS Titanic.

The first four days of this, her maiden voyage, were uneventful. Cruising through the cold waters of the northern Atlantic, her captain, crew, and passengers hadn't a care in the world... until the unthinkable (unsinkable?) happened: the kitchens ran out of ice! No more bourbon on the rocks, no more crushed solid-state water to drape smoked salmon over, no more arctic appetizers. Passengers couldn't cope, they screamed for ice! Ice! Ice! ... and they got it.

Just before midnight on the fourth day of the voyage, a tremendous jolt was felt by all onboard. Mere minutes later, the captain discovered that RMS Titanic had hit an iceberg which had ripped a 300 foot gash in her previously watertight compartments. Just three hours later this monument to human skills and technology sank 13,000 feet to the bottom of the sea. Only 705 of the 2,207 people onboard survived.

Search For The Titanic gives you the chance to find and explore the wreck of this great liner. If you're a wimp, you can choose to command only the search for the Titanic - or be a man and have a go at a complete game where you need to build up experience and a healthy bank balance before embarking on a search for her.

The equipment and skills required to find such a seriously sunk wreck are expensive and take time to collect. Hence at the start of a 'complete game', you're stuck in Miami with just $10,000 and no equipment - doesn't sound too bad to me, can we forget the wreck hunt and just have a good time? [No, you can't and that's my Miami advice - Ed]

Your aim is to rent (and eventually buy) an affordable boat - there are four types to choose from with varying equipment-carrying capabilities - complete with necessary items such as weather radar, ship's sonar, and magnetometer plus a capable crew. Then use this equipment to seek out and search wrecks and build up your liquid assets to enable you to find more wrecks and so on until you're eventually ready to look for RMS Titanic.

Port options include visiting various organisations to try and obtain a grant for your work (the better your rep as a wreck finder the better your chances), renting or buying a ship and equipment, hiring a crew, and stocking up with sufficient food, water, fuel, etc for an expedition.

There's a wreck called The Fly just off the coast of Miami and the manual suggests you visit her first to gain experience. Should you be incorrectly decked out for your voyage (insufficient crew, for example) you're not allowed to leave port. An organisation will evaluate your plan (for $1,000) and tell you where you're going wrong.

Once you set sail you can either use Navigation mode (for travel) or Explore more (for diving). Using coordinates provided in the manual, make your way to a likely looking wreck and prepare to dive. Remember divers aren't allowed to go down on their own. Which reminds me: reading the whole manual before you commence play is a good idea (boring though it may be) as this snippet of information was hidden amid the reams of text and I didn't notice it until I'd set sail, with one diver on board, and found a wreck. Only then did the game inform me that divers have to go down in pairs at least. I had to go back to port, minus a few hundred dollars, and start again.

Once over a wreck you may either send divers down to use whatever equipment they have to salvage items or get them to survey the area for booty. The longer they stay down, the better their chances of finding something - and the more reset they'll need before ready to dive again.

Apart from the not-so-big-deal of having digitised graphics to ogle should you successfully find RMS Titanic, there's little to see in the game. Screen layouts are uninteresting, consisting mostly of garish boxes displaying options or maps.

Although most elements required by such an extensive undertaking as searching the sea bed for wrecked ships appear to be included in Search For The Titanic (giving it depth?), it's implemented in a yawn-inducing way. The excitement of searching above and below the waves for a taste of history is destroyed by having to stare at boring little boxes and watch dots move around the screen. To be pacific, I thought it sub-standard and, without being too stern, difficult to fathom.