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Fans of Paul 'Encounter' Woakes' superb Mercenary: Escape From Targ will welcome this new release. The Second City is not a follow-up, but an alternative data set for use with Mercenary.

Buyers take heed: The Second City is not a standalone program and will not run by itself.

Only Mercenary owners will be able to use it since it is designed to be loaded in only when Mercenary is resident in your Atari.

Once Mercenary is loaded and the opening sequence of the crash landing on Targ has been completed The Second City is installed by the usual restore-saved-game procedure.

Very briefly for those unfamiliar with Mercenary, it's a heady mix of flight simulation, strategy and arcade action using incredibly fast 3D vector graphics. You'll believe your Atari can fly when you see it.

In this alternative scenario the green landscape and blue skies of the tourist haven of Targ Central City have been replaced by the red earth and purple heavens of the wintry southern hemisphere.

At first sight, things seem pretty familiar, but there is much that is not. The two rival races - Mechanoids and Palyars - are still here and still require the services of a skilled mercenary.

Commodity values have rocketed though. The Palyar Commander's brother-in-law has been seconded here as prison governor - I stole his ship at he beginning of the game and he was not best pleased.

Entering the city is via elevators as usual, but the rooms are even trickier. More than once I found myself in a prison with no visible means of escape - what are those two dots on one of the prison walls?

One room is pitch black and seems massive - it took a long time to find the way out.

There's plenty of objects lying around, but I didn't much like the result of picking up a skull and crossbones sign - still I can't say I wasn't warned.

What makes this game stand head and shoulders above all others involving flight sequences is the breath-taking speed of the vector graphics.

Swooping over, around, down and through a structure is simply joyous. This additional data set is worth buying for the chance it gives you to extend and vary an already classic game.