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Stonkers is quite simply one of the very best general's-eye-view battle simulations around - certainly there's nothing in my knowledge to touch it for the Spectrum. Designer/programmer John Gibson has developed the available memory artfully, preferring to sacrifice some screen area for the sake of high - if miniaturised - resolution on the remainder and what must be enormous amounts of data handling. The result - complete with panic-making tickertape "intelligence reports" which only serve to fluster you - is a fast-moving, multi-screen strategic war scenario.

Your overall map is of a corner of the world vaguely Middle Eastern in profile. You move a cursor to the part you want to zoom on, touch a key... and there you are - the zone in close-up, complete with military units (yours and your enemy's) and full topography. This smaller area will scroll if you push with the cursor; using this facility you "deploy" (i.e. pick up and direct) troops. And - the nub of the opening strategy - each group of units much have their own supply train; or you start getting piteous bleats by way of tickertape. Eventually, units peter out altogether for lack of... what can be in those trucks? Then comes the combat.

Much of this game reminds me of the programming style of American designer Chris Crawford, now with Atari, who wrote Legionnaire (Avalon Hill) using many of the same quiverful of programming "licks": automatic deployment, for instance, with units boldly plodding whence they're bidden. The smoothness and reliability of the action, and the urbane tricks to delight the eye (the tickertape is great), all testify to a wholly professional piece of work. Kriegspielers will love it.