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You've got to hand it to Elite. They're as sharp as a razor. A licensed game for nothing really is quite a slick piece of work. Well, who owns the copyright to Battleships? No-one that's you. People have been playing it for years on scraps of paper. Now another question: who owns the licence to the computer version of Battleships? Got it in one: Elite.

Maybe you've never played Battleships. In these days of Transformers, coin-ops, laser guns, not to mention bloody computers (go on I bet you've got one). What you do is try and sink an opponent's fleet which is marked on a 26 x 26 grid by calling out the co-ordinates. The ships are represented by different shapes of filled in squares on the grid.

What a complete doddle to convert into a computer game! The programmers must've taken about a week out to do this one. But as you should know by now, nothing pleases me more than a simple idea well executed. I'm stupid, you see. I'm also bored to death by companies who dress a load of rubbish up and call it the most brilliant simulation that was ever created.

Battleships has been very neatly programmed. It's incredibly simple to play and ridiculously addictive. Elite have even improved on the area they are weakest, sound, with a reasonable tune and good effects.

On loading you are presented with a random placing of your boats on the grid. If the layout doesn't please you then you can flip the shapes around on diagonals or move them somewhere else. If you're playing the computer you'll go straight into battle, but if a friend is playing you'll have to look away while he goes through the same routine. No peeking now.

The one other thing to remember is to set the options screen to Salvo, otherwise you have to go through the appallingly tedious process of firing at each other one shot at a time. Salvo gives you four shots for every ship remaining.

Once you begin, it's all down to strategy, oh and a fairly large dollop of luck. Unless you're psychic or Doris Stokes' little boy/girl you're going to have to grope around firing randomly or in patterns until you hit something. Being something of a naval type ol' Cap'n Pattenden despatched blubbering landlubbers Skipper 'Killer' Kelly and 'Poopdeck' Patterson in swift succession and then followed up by doing the computer as well. The computer isn't that bright. I know, because not only did I beat it, but it missed a very obvious pattern it should have shelled to take out my cruiser in one game.

When ships do get sunk they disappear slowly from sight and are replaced with a little lifeblt and the letters S.O.S. And when the enemy fleet has been sent to Davy Jones' locker what's left of your fleet sails past triumphantly.

Everyone laughed at Steve Wilcox, Elite's boss, when he suggested Battleships as a computer game. Now he's doing the laughing.