As a poor C64 owner, I can honestly say that the conversion of this fine flight/combat simulator to 8-bit has left me feeling nothing but cheated. To say those programming types have skimped is putting it far too lightly.

There are only half the missions, for a start and most of them can be completed at the first sitting. Secondly, the option to define and create your own missions is now non-existent. But that is only the start.

The outline of Bomber is the same as that found on the Amiga. Fly a jet plane of your choice against armed enemy forces in a certain patch of desert-like territory, performing combat strikes and defensive actions alike.

However, there are a number of things about Bomber that annoy me. The first is the amount of things that have been dropped. The choice of planes available has been halved, plus there are now only three types of enemy aircraft, half the missions, and practically no scenery within the game, hardly any 'enemy' to be found. Add to that the slow vectors, the unresponsiveness of the controls, the missing mid-flight refuel sequence. I could go on, but I won't, I think you have the gist by now.

Clearly it's only fair to expect omissions, but if there's hardly any enemy or much scenery to speak of how can the game be so slow? For most of the game, all I ever saw were large expanses of green, apart from the odd triangular hill (very odd indeed) and a road or river crossing my path. The only enemy units I found were my objectives, and after flying five of the eight missions, I've yet to see another aircraft so much as blip on my radar, let alone get close enough to fight!

It seems to me there's little fun to be had from a combat simulator that provides no combat. Or much simulation for that matter. Much as it breaks my heart, I'm afraid I'm going to have to give this one a miss.