With severe risk of sounding suspiciously like every other person who has ever ventured to review a war game, I suppose I'd better get on with it. Afrika Korps is, as I just mentioned, a war game, simulating the campaign fought in the western desert during World War II between Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps (the baddies), and Montgomery's Eighth Army (the goodies). Traditionally, you choose which side to play, and then feverishly attempt to beat the other (taken by the computer), the game ending when one side is over-powered, or either side reaches a specific destination.

That's the scenario set (always the first thing to do when reviewing a war game), so now onto the waffly option part. Afrika Korps is in fact the sequel to the inexplicably popular Blitzkrieg May 1940 - coded by the same author, but with suitable improvements made over the original.

Indeed, the instruction booklet claims that it has taken years of development and testing to result in a program with such a highly sophisticated artificial intelligence system. However, this isn't immediately obvious from the cute little squares, cuddly scrollable brown map and lovable menus which greet you on loading. As we all know, you can't review a 16-bit wargame without mentioning the Spectrum, and then contemplating whether the game in hand wouldn't seem more at home loaded into Mr. Rubber Keys himself, so here goes - there's actually nothing to initially distinguish this from, oh, I don't know, a Spectrum game.

Once you've got past the initial impressions and get to do a bit of careful analysis of the instructions things get even more depressing - there seems to be nothing new on offer here in gameplay terms either. Yet again, little has been done to exploit the potential of the Amiga (another customary wargame review phrase, there).

Of course, long term wargame extremists beyond help will be up in arms about my rather cynical view, shouting things such as "They're not all the same", "Who cares about the graphics?", "Well, I like them", "Etc.". And if this highly sophisticated artificial intelligence system is the one redeeming factor which actually sets Afrika Korps aside from its counterparts, then they'll no doubt be shouting about that too.

And unfortunately, there's no one who can stop them. All but the most fanatical strategy nut should keep away from this unimpressive desert romp.

It's a war game, and it's on the Amiga. A slightly dubious combination, really. Dull. Another one meg only game.