It souonds like a kind of mental disturbance, like megalomania. Except that was a game...

Barefoot skiing on sandpaper. Watching the entire series of Eldorado in one go. Being stuck in a lift with Esther Rantzen. Eating something bought at Kentucky Fried Chicken. I would rather do any of these than have to endure Napoleonics again. [The rest of us, of course, like nothing better than a nice KFC every now and again. Yum yum - Libel Ed]

I mean, ha ha, it's a joke, right? No? You mean someone's seriously trying to sell this commercially?

Napoleonics is a compilation of three 'classic' strategic war sims by a certain Dr Peter Turcan recreating three Napoleonic campaigns - Austerlitz, Borodino and Waterloo. Well, when I say 'recreate', I use the loosest possible meaning of the term - a few dozen matches, a marble and liberal doses of tomato ketchup would capture the atmosphere better.

The originals have their fans, but I honestly can't fathom out why. Even the most rabid wargaming fanatic has got to admit that despite their laudable historical accuracy, as gaming experiences they're excruciatingly dull.

They don't exactly use the Amiga to its full ability. To be honest, they look like they'd be hard-pressed to push a Sony calculator to its limits. They're strategy games so primitive, so basic, so completely devoice of anything that make them even vaguely playable that they're about as exciting as playing chess by post. Ah, some people actually enjoy doing that, though. Perhaps they're who this compilation is aimed at.

You can take command of either side in any of the campaigns, which means you can get to be Napoleon, Alexander (the Austrian general in Austerlitz), Wellington (the Brits' top man at Waterloo) or Kutusov (some Russian geezer that history's forgotten). If you can get anyone else to play (which is unlikely!) they can take control of the opposing forces, otherwise the computer steps in to do the business.

Basically, all you do is give commands. Up to eight orders can be issued per turn, and each turn lasts fifteen minutes of game time. You can only give orders to the generals directly below you in the chain of command; they then interpret them and send them down the ranks to individual platoons.

And that's about it. Apparently the game is historically accurate, and sticks as much to what really happened as possible, but frankly, so what? You just end up feeling hopelessly ouot of control. Your eight orders do have an effect, but not much. It's about as interactive as Teletext.

And issuing the commands is such a chore. No helpful menu system or straightforward point-and-click selections here, no siree. You have to type everything in - in sentences! Dull, dull, dull. When you receive messages they flash up so briefly you hardly have time to read them. It's nearly impossible to work out what's occurring.

Even worse are the graphics - or lack of them. All you get are some appalling, completely static views of the battlefield that look like they were designed on an Etch-A-Sketch. There's no animation at all, unless you count the pathetic puffs of smoke that appear when your cannons are firing, but you have to squint to spot them. There aren't even any overall strategic maps so that you can see at a glance how the wars are going.

And as for the telescope feature - what a joke. According to the manual (which, incidentally, is also completely crap) if you point at something on the battlefield and click with your mouse, you get a close-up view. Now, I don't know about you, but I reckon that least we could expect is a little window opening up at that point on the map, showing the regiment in detail. No such luck.

All that happens is that the details appear in the message window - you get told what colours the regiment is wearing, or what town or landmark you're pointing at. Hopeless.

Napoleonics is characterised more by what it doesn't have than what it does. Any what it doesn't have is just about everything that would make it the least bit playable.

Uppers: Well, nobody's forcing you to buy it.

Downers: Just about everything. The lack of care that's gone into the game is almost insulting. More effort seems to have been put into the historical research than the programming. The graphics are the worst I've seen in ages (including the stuff I get in for PD) and the control system is excruciatingly complex.

Frankly I can't see why this has been released. It's so primitive. It's like being whisked back to the dawn of home computing. Napoleonics really has very little to recommend it, except maybe historical research. You would have to be seriously into strategic wargaming or obsessed with Napoleon to derive even the faintest hint of enjoyment out of it.