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Bejasus. The manual for this game runs to a full 130 pages. Fortunately - surprisingly? - it's very well-written and eases you into the game like a trusty shoe horn, except you don't get a nasty pain in the back of your heel. The idea behind this flight sim is the usual one-pilot-stands-alone sort of thing, with you as the ridiculously gullible hot-shot fighter jock. In Falcon itself you fly a series of air-to-air and air-to-ground attack missions with silly names. The two expansion disks bolt jingoistic storylines on to all the high jinks and high explosive.

You're aided in your missions by an array of electronic doohickeys, all tortuously named to provide acronyms and designed to make your flight as safe as possible. This does, however, mean there are loads of dials and gauges to keep your eyes on. Five skill levels - and the fact you can't crash or die on the first - complete the picture.

The major stumbling block is the ghastly complexity of it all. It's easy enough to get into the air and blow things up. However, it can be a while before you can take on the enemy with any confidence. The solid 3D graphics nip around without glitches, while the sound is awful, with some horrible samples and a couple of whooshy bangs - but who cares, eh? Falcon's a comprehensive flight sim with hundreds of train-spottery knobs and buttons. It works rather well as a game too, although the enormous amount of information you have to deal with can stifle the gameplay - but it's a tasty buy at just £15. The expansion disks deliver tougher missions, though they are rather similar and they're overpriced at £10 each.

Ah well. There's a bandit on their sixes, as those frightfully witty pilots say.