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Microdeal are a Cornish company rightly famed for carefully researching their market. Research told them that their Space Shuttle game, at that time already out in BBC and Dragon versions, could stand a little spreading across the board; which is why it now appears on Atari.

In a sense the game's designer has been handicapped by a praiseworthy desire to effect a genuine simulation. This means the velocity parameters, for example, are necessarily inflexible. Perception of these from the pilot's point of view (the p.o.v. you get) is necessarily slow. So even the smoothest code wouldn't be able to cope with the problems posed by lack of high-enough resolution: even single pixel movement, if slowed down enough, can and will be jerky.

That said, instruments faithfully record your progress; and through the window you see stars, floating satellites, etc - but all the same a bit of showbiz would have been welcome. In a word (and this is an odd criticism to make of a sim), too much data fidelity and not enough pizazz.

Space Shuttle comes in the usual Microdeal cryogenic packing with the naff artwork. Two versions - 16K first and then a 32K version - follow each other, which is thoughtful considering Ataris also break down along these very lines. Fans of faithfulness will go for it; me, I found it a little on the dull side - but then, I imagine the real things must have its moments of ennui also.