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The nasty black dragons and the nice white dragons are having a scrap. Again. So runs the piot in this latest Dragonlance game from SSI. Anyway, according to this rapidly aging storyline, things haven't been going too well for the goody goodies. While they were busy making patchwork quilts and lighting other people's cigarettes, the baddies sneaked up on them, moved into their homeland, Ansalon, and barbecued the lot.

The upshot is that the crops are frazzled, the people are hassled and Ansalon's about to be lost. You're a knight employed at the only goody outpost still unsinged. Your only chance is to climb on the back of a dragon, guide it into battle, and blast at anything with a big pair of wings and charcoal on its breath.

It takes exactly 22 death-defying missions, and six dragons to win your kingdom back. Each mount has differently scaled climbing, turning and acceleration abilities and two (count 'em) different types of breath weapon (including lightning, cone of cold and chlorine gas). There's a height and pitch bar to show you where you're going and a power indicator to let you know when to stop for arrest. Health potions and other handy objects can be scooped up and utilised as you go along.

A quick look into your crystal ball radar tells you where the bad guys are. These dragons, wyverns, sivak draconians and manticores are so rotten they eat babies for breakfast and hate brushing their teeth. Let them get close and they'll give you a nasty nip or scratch, so it helps if you can fry them first.

Just remember, puff's in short supply - once you've run out you'll need a few seconds to get your breath back.

Sounds exciting? Well it's not. The 3D is bland and unconvincing, conveying about as great an impression of speed as a tortoise towing a small village. And as for that exhilarating experience of iding on a giant monster's back... It might just as well be a rusty bike or a Sopwith Camel for all the atmospheric dragon graphics and sound effects you get. It all comes over suspiciously as if the Commodore's trying to do something it wasn't designed for.

None of this is fast or complex enough to live up to SSI's promise of typical AD&D strategy. All the big talk about flying citadels and huge wars being waged don't amount to very much when the game plods along at this tedious rate.

In the end, all you really get for your 25 quid is some nice packaging, neat presentation, elementary flying, a few droning noises and a lot of pot shots at badly drawn blobs. For action, excitement and adventure, watch Highway instead.

1. Option to pick your own opponents and design your own battle.
2. Attractive between-level presentation screens.
3. Packaging contains eight colour box-sized dragon cards.

1. Very expensive for what you get.
2. Gameplay is bland and lacks all-important challenge.
3. Not complex enough to live up to the SSI standard of strategy
4. Dull sound effects and title tune.
5. Unimpressive, slow-moving 3D graphics fail to convey a decent sensation of movement or speed.
6. Fails to be much in the way of a good flight simulator.
7. Lacks the flexibility of similar AD&D titles.