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Not for the faint hearted, this one. As you've probably guessed, it's a simulation of the Space Shuttle. And the word 'rigorous' just doesn't even begin to do justice to the level of accuracy that developers Vektor Grafix have achieved. The cockpit is bewildering - all the player can see is bank upon bank of knobs, dials and levers, most of which work and have some effect.

The player not only has to fly the damn thing, he has to open up the bay doors and control the robot arms to deploy satellites and so forth. And this technical accuracy is backed up by some of the best 3D graphics ever seen. There's even a realistically and accurately mapped planet Earth that rotates and the star constellations are all plotted correctly as well.

As stunning an achievement as Shuttle is, the biggest problem with it is its limited appeal. Personally, I think it's brilliant and completely absorbing, but I can understand that there might be some people who find the idea of twiddling all those dials more than a little off-putting. If that's because of the sheer daunting complexity of the whole thing then that shouldn't be a problem, because there's a whole range of player aids that make the game accessible to everybody, no matter what their sim proficiency. But there's no getting away from the fact that if your patience with sims ends at Thunderhawk, then you're likely to find little to interest you here.