As even its manual points out, ProFlight is hardly the most innovative game ever; it's a flight sim, and in all fairness there are tons of flight sims already available for virtually every known breed of home computer ever invented (Even the BBC!).

Actually 'tons' of flight sims is quite an appropriate collective noun to use because, as someone once said, you can tell how good a flight sim is by how much it weighs. ProFlight comes in at a slightly disappointing 1 1/2 lbs (700 grammes) though, so (as the theory concludes), it looks like it's little to get excited about.

The author explains in the blurb that his reason for writing such a game was that he wanted to create a flight sim that isn't stifled by the simplicity of others. And you must admit, he has succeeded. Here you get to pretend that you're piloting a Panavia Tornado, one of the fastest aircraft in the world, and yes, I can't deny it, it all seems extremely realistic. In fact far, far too realistic.

Okay, let's play the game. First you select your way through a few menus (tweaking absolutely everything envisageable), give your plane the once over and a number of one-key presses later you're airborne. Now you can select the map, set a destination, flick on the auto-pilot, and sit back and relax. The graphics are fast, but not outstandingly stunning (you can have different around-plane views, though), so how about a glance at the manual to find out exactly what can be accomplished?

Here you'll find over 160 pages of information explaining everything from how to pull off various complicated manoeuvres (barrel rools or stall turns, anybody?) to graphics illustrating the 'drag co-efficient' (whatever that is). The snag is, you see, that as pointed at before, ProFlight is so accurate down to the very last detail that it has become more like a serious simulator real fighter pilots would use, and far less of an enjoyable computer game. More evidence backing this up is the combat option - it sounds pretty good but, unless you've had considerable flying practice, it's a joke.

For serious flight sim buffs with excessive amounts of patience, ProFlight will no doubt be fulfilling their wildest dreams. But for everyone else? A bit of a nightmare, really.

An overly complicated, visually unimpressive and off-puttingly expensive flight sim which is far more of a sim than a game. It has a reasonable amount to offer, but only if you stick at it. (And it's got horrible business program-like packaging too.)