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Topical or tropical? With the US government failing to take action against evil Colombian drug barons, the military decide to go it alone. As an ace pilot, you take your F-14 on a raiding mission against enemy drug carriers and coke factories. Bombs away!

No, not a snowballing simulation, silly. The snow of the title refers to cocaine, the drug Robin 'Mork' Williams once called, "God's way of telling you you're earning too much." A motion in Congress to declare war on the drug barons has been defeated. Fed up with the politicians' inability to crack down on these villains, the military forces decide to take the war into their own hands. Time to scramble your F14-LCB Cosmos jet fighter, take to the skies, and waste those evil-doers!

However, prior to all this scrambling and wasting business, you have to log onto the Snowstrike computer console. After entering your name and callsign, you can select your co-pilot, choose the weather conditions (a bit of a luxury, this!), your difficulty level and a specific mission from the ten on offer. Taking off from an airstrip or the carrier USS Epyx, you can launch your very own airstrike against enemy carriers, drug transport ships, convoys, cocaine refineries, drug warehouses and even a drug laboratory.

Once you've decided your own fate, it's time to take a look at the control room. This section is very smart with a working radar and an animated station officer, who you direct to the different buttons to bring up information about the local weather, status of your own jet and the deployment of the enemy forces. Right. Now you're all genned up and ready to go. Shift those chocks and you're up, up and away (er.. as long as you turn the engines on and the brakes off).

The cockpit is very techy-looking, but dead easy to use. All you really need to watch out for are the radar and your altitude - one to make sure that there aren't any bogles on your bum, the other to make sure you're not trying to fly underground. It's this simplicity that makes the game fun. Snowstrike is very reminiscent of flight combat sims like F-15 Strike Eagle and Ace: not terribly realistic, not very complex, but loads of fun to play. This is definitely aimed at people who like to get in the air without hacking through a 500-page manual, and like the action to come thick and fast.

And speed is definitely of the essence, although the graphics have suffered slightly because of it. No amazing filled 3D graphics here (although the close-ups of ships and buildings are pretty funky) but there's just enough ground detail to give the impression of whizzing around in the air. There's even a hill or two.

Combat is pretty straightforward, relying upon radar to show where the opposition is, and cockpit visuals for the final kill. None of this heat-seeking-kill-'em-hundreds-of-miles-away rubbish - this is seat of the pants stuff, with visual lock-on missiles and good old-fashioned cannon fire (and very macho it sounds too). You have chaff and flares to confuse any incoming hardware, but should you take a hit, it's best to bail out.

One swift ejection later, and there's a brief spot of parachute practice before being rescued (hopefully) and restarting the mission from base.

If you manage to down the bandits, you get the chance to destroy your prime target: this is where the Fury Air-To-Surface missiles come in to action. Line up your target in the crosshairs, press fire - and hope. Most large targets require multiple hits, and with a limited stock of ATSs you have to be pretty accurate!

With another set of druggies chalked up, it just remains for you to cruise home, kill a few more marauding fighters en route, land (sorry, but there's no co-pilot assisted landing on the C64 version -you're on your own) and wait for the medals to be dished out in your direction.

The game has a lovely front-end (oo-er), with smart intro scenes, and an equally smart outro - though you'd rather not see this too often! There are loads of different options, including practice flights and the nose-cone camera for recording sections of your fight (so you can play them back later on)!

Successful missions can be recorded on disk, allowing your character to be used in later missions and a pilot's log to be built up medals and all.

And that's about it. Snowstrike is simple, straightforward aerial combat, and something of a relief in these days of stupidly complex flight simulators. It's entertaining and not too much of a strain on the old grey cells. And remember - just say, 'No' (to drugs, anyway).

1. Disk access is quite heavy in between missions and for the control room.
2. Limited ground features on the 3D cockpit views (Where's the scenery?)
3. Even with ten missions, the action remains fairly constant.
4. Short range radar could be better.
5. Simplistic aerial combat won't be up everyone's flight path.

1. Intense air combat provides some adrenalin-pumping action.
2. Intro and intermission sequences are very nicely done.
3. No music but great sound effects: nice engine whine and realistic cannon fire!
4. Arcade-style controls mean even a novice can chalk up his first kill very quickly.
5. Useful character save option.