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It's tough being at the front. Bullets whistling overhead, shells exploding just feet away and you're still expected to storm the enemy positions. War, as they say, is most definitely hell.

Frontline is a wargame simulation similar to wargames of the board variety. If you've ever played a board-based wargame then you'll know just how complicated they can be. Frontline tries to get round this by letting the player get on with playing instead of wasting time messing around with dice, looking up endless cross-referenced tables, and working out horrendously complicated formulas to decide the outcome of every event.

There's a choice of six varied scenarios and you can place yourself in the boots of either British, German, Russian, Japanese or New Zealand troops. The game concentrates on the use of infantry and small artillery in the field. You command army units and must carry out military objectives within specified time limits.

Once everything is distributed, it's time for battle. The game screen is split into three main areas. A scrolling map takes up most of the screen, acting as a window onto the battlefield. Unfortunately the scroll rate is extremely slow, and it's infuriating moving from one side of the map to the other. An area at the bottom of the screen relays messages and controls movement around the screen. The left-hand side of the screen is occupied by a panel. The information here is changeable, but generally covers the options available to your units.

Despite the computer taking the really tedious work out of the calculations, you still need your wits about you when working out your movements and whether you'll be able to hit a particular target from your position. The control system is fiddly at first, but you soon get used to it. Two of the scenarios are reserved for training, and introduce you to the game concepts gently. The computer plays so professionally that you're practically guaranteed to lose the first few times you play, though it's definitely easier to defend than attack.

The game certainly doesn't make the most of the ST's graphic abilities. It emulates the board game style successfully, but who wants an ST release to look like a board game? The battle area is represented from an overhead viewpoint with the troops and artillery under your command merely depicted as crude coloured squares.

Sound is mediocre and restricted to the usual monotonous rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns and the occasional interesting explosion.

Frontline is a wargame simulation far more obsessed with simulation than gameplay. It doesn't attempt to stretch, or even make use of, the ST's capabilities, relying instead on the trusted board game approach that we've already seen a zillion times in, er... board games.

Suffering from formal schizophrenia and content with mediocrity, it's of minor interest to wargame buffs only.