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A new name on the game scene, Midas, brings a new graphic style to the flight-sim shoot-'em-up. You may have seen this sort of game before but never with the sort of graphics Fighter Mission throws at you.

There are big, filled-in jets and helicopters to fire at together with ground installations just asking for a burst of machine gun fire.

Your mission is to take your fighter on a search and destroy mission to the enemy base. The base is protected by a cloaking device generated by beacons. You have to destroy ten of these beacons - tracking them with your on-board computers - in order to destroy to see the base and destroy it.

Hindering you are the aircraft flow by enemy pilots - two sorts of jets and a helicopter.

Talking of helicopters - remember the big of equipment that most famous of TV helicopters Airwolf has? The computer that allows Stringfellow Hawke to find out just what the latest airborne geezer is trying to shoot him down from. It's a computer that flicks through loads of aircraft plans on a computer screen, before fixing on the one the baddy is flying. Got it? Well, you get something similar in this computer jets instrument panel. A nice touch.

Other than that X-29 is a pretty basic flying shoot-'em-up with smooth fast scrolling and good graphics.

The sound leaves a lot to be desired - especially the irritating helicopter sound. And the explosions are a bit wimpish too. Especially as you have to pump the enemy aircraft full of lead before they'll go down! The enemy bases takes a good bit of shooting as well.

You track down the cloaking beacons by using your homing bleeper which ups its tempo once your flying on the right course. The radar doesn't seem to have much use apart from showing you what direction you are flying.

The enemy jets fire rockets at you which you can dodge or attempt to shoot down. Damage to your aircraft is registered by the three on-board computers.

A few direct hits will knock out of these out. Once they've all be knocked out it's time to say goodnight Irene...

You get three skill levels, selected via the joystick and the aircraft controls are extremely simple - just right/left/up/down. No messing about with the keyboard here!

You've seen it all before - but if you can live with the naff sound you may well enjoy a couple of flights with X-29. Just don't expect it to have lasting appeal. Strike Force Harrier this ain't!

The solid graphics are the thing that make this game - reminds me a bit of the old Tymac jet fighter shoot-'em-up. The helicopters are particularly nice - despite the jerky animation.

At £2.99, X-29 is pretty good value - and Midas could be a company to watch.