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The original Solo Flight as about the easiest flight simulation to get into. Now here's Solo Flight II - a special remix of the original. And it's simply brilliant.

It's got all the neat features of the first game with a revamped instrument console and terrific speech synthesis.

Try the flight practice option and a soothing American voice talks you through your first flight from take-off to landing. A great way to learn how to fly. There's even a soothing American female voice that gives you messages from the "control tower" - about weather and such like.

The soothing American voice doesn't even panic when you go into a power dive! It tells you when you're too low, too high, travelling too fast - but doesn't shout "Mind the trees!" or "You're a maniac. I'm bailing out!" or even "Argghhhhhh!"

It seems a bit churlish to call this piece of software a game - it's probably the nearest most of us will get to flying a real plane.

But there is a challenge element in the mail run option - you have to deliver five bags of mail to different destinations battling against deteriorating weather conditions and coping with night flying.

The instrumentation is easier to decipher in this revamped version and the game - unusually for a simulation of this kind - is amazingly easy to get started. The synthesized instructor really helps to get you started.

Solo Flight II continues the long line of accurate flight simulations from ex-fighter pilot "Wild" Bill Stealey's Microprose outfit. In fact it was play tested by "real" pilots during development.

Graphics are simple but extremely effective. Sound is great - and the speech! Well, you won't believe it's coming from your C64. Must be the most accurate synthesis yet heard on a micro. Solo Flight II is the closest thing to flying short of going up in an aircraft. And the price isn't sky high either. Great product - great value.