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The snow in question is the white powder TV detectives are always licking off their finger and saying "Yep, it's cocaine!" it's allegedly one of the world's biggest businesses and the American President has decided to do something about the people behind it - i.e. bomb them!

Unfortunately the drug lords are based in other countries, so it's time to call in Oil North for some more covert, illegal operations in South America. And maybe Saddam Hussein will pay for them, rather than the Ayatollah last time around.

There are ten missions planned, five launched from a land base, five from a carrier. One amusing touch is that you can choose your own co-pilot: these range from Ramboesque types to utter cowards, and they talk with you with text on the control panel. Once you climb into your jet you can be briefed on the weather and combat conditions. Targets include drug factories, transports and even an aircraft carrier!

Your F-14 is automatically armed with a limited supply of air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, plus unlimited bullets. No sooner than you take off, enemy jets will attack - apparently the drug lords have got more MiGs than the Warsaw Pact! Use flares to distract chasing missiles, then blast 'em with guns or missiles.

Should you be hit, it's ejection time, but unless you pull the ripcord in time it won't do you much good.

Despite looking like a sim, this has less strategy than such simplistic than such simplistic blast-'em-ups as Operation Harrier. Graphics are as dated as the ark on the Amiga, and on both versions there's not enough ground detail to provide a convincing illusion of speed.

Worse, the C64 version is really rather sluggish. Yet in both games there's really *nothing* to do! Combat is similarly basic on both formats, the enemy jet on the Amiga version weaving around with no respect for the ground or any illusion of 3D.

Admittedly it can be fun blasting the MiGs but there's so many that it quickly becomes tiresome. Without any real depth to the missions this is a very shallow, expensive shoot-'em-up. For C64 owners, Project Stealth and First Strike are the ones to get, while on the Amiga it's hard to think of anything worse.

You could say Snowstrike is like one of those ancient C64 arcade flight sims, only none of them were quite this bad. Flying toward enemy targets is incredibly tedious with constant harassment from fighters.

Dealing with them isn't particularly difficult, but it wastes time, fuel and patience - particularly irritating is how the radar automatically switches from displaying the ground targets to air-to-air mode, showing only aircraft.

Another problem is the having to fly low for surveillance scans; with no ground detail it's all too easy to hit the deck. On the Amiga this is all a bit of the joke. The C64 version isn't quite so technically unimpressive, but gameplay is no less limited and the five-year-old Skyfox is much better (although I wouldn't rate that too highly either!).

Presentation 48%
Save-to-disk service records, medal-awarding and death screens plus weather, warzone and co-pilot options. Briefing screens, but irritating disk access prior to each mission.

Graphics 27%
Minimal ground detail and yellow MiGs which move completely unrealistically.

Sound 38%
Mediocre title/death tunes, very average engine effect with a mixed bunch of effects otherwise.

Hookability 37%
Very easy to get flying, but there's very little to get addicted to...

Lastability 29%
...while ten missions (two of which are simply free flights) offer very little variety.

Overall 29%
"Winners Say No To Drugs"... and this very weak flight-arcade blast!

Presentation 48%
Same as the C64.

Graphics 21%
Very basic target and MiG graphics, with square patches representing drug fields. Fast but with so little on-screen this is no surprise.

Sound 33%
As with C64 version. Pretty diabolical for the Amiga.

Hookability 31%
Easy to fly - even easier to stop flying. Dull gameplay soon gets boring.

Lastability 24%
Amazingly, there aren't any more missions considering the extra memory! What missions there are certainly don't excite long-term interest.

Overall 27%
You certainly won't overdose on this dire "flight sim".