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Top Gun - the number one film starring the silver screen's current number one heart-throb, Tom Cruise. Ocean has snapped up the licence and, no doubt, is hoping for a number one Christmas hit.

The resulting game is a pretty neat combination of flight simulation mixed with sky high duelling. With the Top Gun name, it's a winner.

The film deals with the training of F16 Tomcat fighter pilots. The game puts you in the seat of the F16 and into battle, either against the computer or another player.

The screen is split into two identical displays. At the start you see a side view of your F16 taking off from an aircraft carrier. The display then switches to the view from the craft's cockpit.

The flight simulation part of the game is the kind I like. They're are no huge manuals to digest, hundreds of controls to master of hundreds of failed attempts to take off.

The controls are very much simplified and the layout is clear and easy to understand.

Most of the controls are grouped on the lower half of the screen, the exceptions being air speed and altitude which are situated at the very top.

The most important instrument is the radar which locks on to enemy aircraft. Others are plane altitude indicator, damage indicator, cannon temperature, missile locking on countdown and missile warning indicator.

A dotted line running across the screen represents an artificial horizon.

There are three weapons which you can use. You can see which one is in use by looking at an indicator on the control panel. But it's far easier just to look at what kind of weapon aiming sight is being displayed on screen.

The first is the machine gun/cannon, shown on screen by a small crosshair sight. A total of 25 hits are needed to destroy an enemy. The hits are shown by border flashes. This wasn't my favourite weapon. I found it quite difficult to "down" any aircraft.

The second weapon is the side-winder heat-seeking missile, shown by a larger square sight. To fire the missile is quite tricky to start with. Once the enemy aircraft is in your sights, you must keep it there for three seconds to enable the missile to "lock on" to its target. Complete this successfully and you guaranteed a "kill".

Your main defence against enemy side winder missiles are heat-generating flares. It's also possible to outrun the missiles which "burn out" after about twenty seconds. There is no sight displayed when you are using this weapon.

Each level of the game has three aircraft which must be destroyed before you can progress to the next. The battles become progressively harder. If you are playing against a human opponent the winner is the one left flying.

I'm not sure if the game I had contained a bug. At certain times the white dot on the radar, which I took to indicate the enemy, was juddering around like mad, leaping from one part of the screen to another. No matter how I tried I couldn't manoeuvre my F16 to get the aircraft into vision. I had to reload the game to carry on.

All in all, I found Top Gun enjoyable to play. The 3D vector graphics are okay and the sound adequate. I'm not sure if the game will have a really long playing life after the initial newness has worn. I can't see myself returning to it in the future.