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There are a lot of larks to be had when somebody puts you in charge of billions of pounds worth of preposterously dangerous military hardware. And the fun just mounts up when the locations for your japes happen to be such unlovely spots as the Gulf and the Falklands. For that alone, this game sounds like it'll be a lot of fun.

Strike Fleet puts you in a position of some power. You're in control of a large fleet of ships, submarines, and choppers which on each mission must set out to foil various evil empires which have mainfested themselves around the world. At the beginning you're simply in charge of one warship (though, it has to be said, this is a seriously vicious piece of kit) but as you progress you can build up huge fleets, and you'll soon be setting sail with enough tonnage to sink a small island.

Sounds like it could prove to be incredibly complicated, true, but happily this isn't one of those simulations where you spend your whole time tearing around different screens checking up on silly little facts and figures. All you really need do is settle down in front of the radar/sonar screen, and wait for some idiot to fly off a few anti-shipping missiles. Then you click on a box which indicates the appropriate piece of weaponry to counter it at it's KABOOM.

Still, it's not so easy as it sounds. At first you'll spend most of your time either getting killed or simply a bit bored. Lucasfilm have taken the old maxim that war is essentially a big bore with a few highlights to heart, and there's much hanging around to be done. A speed-time option has been included, but I find these things irritatingly false and atmosphere ruining (and anyway, you tend to die pretty quickly when someone's firing an Exocet at you at 64 times their normal speed...)

Take out all the pompous stuff about real-time war simulation, then, and this boils down to a woefully simplistic game, supported by an impressively large manual. Once you've figured out what missiles do what, which ships are best at what and so on, it's all standard fare, and not a little old-fashioned.

It's no surprise that this is an old C64 game updated for the Amiga market - it looks and feels like it in every way. In fact, it makes you wonder if Lucasfilm shouldn't have spent their considerable talents on a few more worthwhile projects. If you're into sea warfare take a look at the wonderful Silent Service II for action, or Harpoon for hardcore strategy instead.

Military hardware freaks will enjoy the number of missions, and the amazing array of hardware on offer, but discerning gamers will be disappointed by the shallow nature of gameplay.

Less of a game than an excuse to play around with big ships, and not really what we've come to expect from Lucasfilm at all.