The year is 1999. As peace I negotiations break down and global war looks an increasing possibility, The United Nations peace-keeping forces are called upon to prevent the unthinkable. The problem is, the UN is fed up of rumbling into contested territory shiny white APCs only to have them blown to bits by drug barons and rebels with superior fire-power and numbers. The answer? Sinking all its budget into the TFX (Tactical Fighter eXperiment) programme, the UN purchases a small quantity of state-of-the-art fighter-bomber aircraft and takes to the skies. Now they're ready to bring peace and goodwill to all men - napalm styley. The only problem with this strategy lies in the fact that these planes are mucho-expensivo leaving the UN with chronic staff shortages. A fact deduced by counting the number of empty offices in TEX's intro sequence. To this end they've called upon the public spirit, thumbed through the phonebook, and selected you to lead the fight for peace (gosh, golly, and gulp!).

TEX is a flight 'n fight simulation based arourd two cutting-edge fighter aircraft. There's the EuroFighter 2000 and the Lockheed F-22 Superstar, plus an old favourite, the F-117A Stealth Fighter. Looking to out-do everything that has gone before, Digital Image Design has packed TFX's seven disks with features never before seen on Amiga flight sims.

Boasting an accurate, military spec simulation as well as Gouraud shading, texture mapping and topical "Flash Points" scenarios based on recent world events, the game also has the more usual training modes and campaign missions. Arming and briefing screens are available to ensure you don't get into the air ill-equipped and wondering exactly what your mission objective was, and just in case you're really hopeless, you can re-fuel at a friendly flying tanker and land at an air-strip to re-arm as well.

As an added bonus to what the manual calls a "peace simulation", DID has been thoughtful enough to include the AGM 109 cruise missile as an arming option, so if you're late for an important appointment, you can take off, launch from a range of about 300km and nip back to base with time to spare. Just about every feature of the enormous PC version has been squashed into the Amiga, with the only big difference being the lack of the UN Commander mode which enabled the player to design and fly their own missions.

TFX looks like the high-octane mother of all flight sims. Probe a little deeper, however, and you'll find the fuel supply on this one is exhausted long before it reaches the end of the runway. The most immediate problem, unless you've got a hard drive, is the lengthy disk loading time.

Ocean actually recommends that you play it from a hard drive, though, so it would be unfair to slag it off for that.

All seems great as you tap in your callsign, go into training, equip your plane and wait expectantly for take-off. But, as you kick in the engines and the plane begins to rumble along the runway, you find yourself pondering the physics of an aircraft weighing some 14,000kg taking off at an apparent velocity of 10mph!

Despite being AGA-only, TFX suffers a sloth-like lack of speed. Sure, you can change the detail to reduce the horizon colours, simplify objects and change the visibility to something suicidal, but you're still flying a Sopwith rather than a Stealth. Controls are another problem. At the default arcade setting, TFX lets you fly with the mouse which, given the slow update, is the most responsive way to play. Select a more complex level though, say "simple", and you're forced to use either joystick or keyboard, both of which are completely arse. The sound also disappoints, and with the garbled radio messages and a pathetic farting for the mighty chain guns, TFX begins to feel a bit shaky. The problems do not end there.

Having plodded through the training missions and tackled a campaign, it begins to dawn on you that TFX isn't offering much that's new - you've played these missions before in F-15 Strike Eagle 2, Combat Air Patrol, F-117A etc.

True, it attempts an exciting cinematic style, but without a fast 3D engine, the show is dull. In its defence, TFX boasts some very nice graphic tricks such as a convincing cloud layer and groovy storm effects, but regrettably they fail to lift this sim from the ranks of the 'also flews'.

No chance matey. TFX is just too big, I'm afraid. So er... what else shall we talk about? I know, how about the weather? That's always good as a conversational gambit, isn't it? Right, so what sort of weather are you having? Really...