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It's the most expensive military aircraft in the world. Radar sees straight through it, and as far as Sonar's concerned, it doesn't exist. It can perform high-speed low-level bombing runs virtually undetected, dogfight at high altitudes and outrun almost anything else in the air. In short, the US Air Force's fabled F-19 Stealth Fighter is one serious piece of hardware.

And it's gone.

Nobody knows exactly how or who, but the F-19's disappeared from its top secret test site and the government isn't too happy about losing the linchpin of the United States' air superiority. Now it's up to the CIA to get it back before it's too late.

And so begins Operation Stealth, the second game (after Future Wars) make use of Delphine Software's evolutionary Cinematique adventure system. With no text input required, all commands are executed via the mouse and a series of pull-down menus. As James Bond-like CIA agent John Glames, it's your job to track down the Stealth and ensure its safe return to the right hands.

Operation Stealth's strength is its strong. It's constructed in such a way that there's always something to see or do - and that something is normally finding a way to get out of a tight spot. The James Bond espionage feel is effectively recreated (Glames is never seen in anything but his tuxedo), and the bad guys are very bad indeed. There's even a love interest! Thankfully, the difficulty is well graded so that there's nothing too off-puttingly devious awaiting in the early stages. Once you get halfway through though, you can expect to be tested to the limit.

Visually, Stealth's a treat, and the music score, while not as impressive as that in Future Wars, heightens the atmosphere - particularly during the frantic arcade sections. In fact the only aspects that really let the side down are the Cinematique system itself (which hasn't been greatly modified since the first game and therefore stills isn't as ideal as its potential suggests) and the 'nasty' factor of some of the puzzles - even when you know how to solve them you can have some trouble telling the program what you want to do.

But these are only minor blemishes on what otherwise is a highly-polished and playable adventure. Ian Fleming would love it.

The only major diferénce between this and the Amiga version is the sound - there's slightly less of it and it's not quite a 'sold'. But apart from that, it's more or less identical, right down to the number of disks it occupies (three).

Currently under development in France, IBM Operation Stealth promises to support all major graphics cards and sound boards. September's the time, and £29.99's the price.