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The United States is famous for its "peace keeping" forces stationed in various places throughout the world. Whether or not they keep the peace they pack some serious firepower, but nothing as devastating as the Thunderhawk AH-73M.

The Thunderhawk is a fictional helicopter that incorporates state-of-the-art weapons systems, an impressive turn of speed, simplified control methods and a seriously nice paint-job in one multi-role mean mother of a gunship.

As a member of the (also fictitious) crack assault team MERLIN you control one of these beasties. Your job is to visit various troublespots around the globe and defuse potentially troublesome situations before they escalate into world-scale conflicts. This is achieved mainly by blowing the perpetrators off the face of the map.

Each of the six missions you can tackle is split into many smaller sections. In South America, for instance, you might first tape out the enemy's communications points, before destroying their defensive weaponry and finally their laboratories. The Thunderhawk can outperform any chopper the opposition can throw at you, but you still need to be good to tackle the harder missions. Although some of your weapons are self-guided, many have to be aimed manually and you find you're trying to fly straight, aim a missile and dodge an attacking Hokum all at the same time.

The world, as you see it, is displayed in solid 3D. Mountains are simple pyramids, but all other features have a modicum of detail, though the landscapes do often look quite sparse. Buildings, trucks, bridges and other choppers all look extremely realistic.

The best thing about the 3D is the smoothness with which it moves. There probably isn't another flight sim on the market whose graphics are as smooth as those in Thunderhawk AH-73M. Zooming in and out on the external view is just like watching a real camera. Fortunately, detail hasn't suffered - every object has a shadow, smoke belches from wrecked vehicles, flak streaks by your windshield at night and ships actually sink when you hit them.

This smoothness makes handling the Thunderhawk AH-73M a dream. The whole chopper can be controlled solely by the mouse, though the keyboard is used for some peripheral controls.

Controlling a chopper is different to flying a plane - when you push forward with the mouse on most flight sims, you would expect to tilt downwards. However, in Thunderhawk AH-73M, doing the same thing speeds you up.

Another outstanding point graphically is the intro sequence, which features some top-class traditional Japanese-style cartoon animation combined with digitised backgrounds and speech. The intro takes up a disk on its own and is possibly the finest example yet of this ever-growing breed.

Surprisingly, sound is above average. There's a satisfying rattle as you fire off another round of gunfire and an almost convincing engine noise. Other spot effects create just the right air of panic when you're caught in a crossfire.

Thunderhawk AH-73M is definitely the best helicopter sim on the ST. It manages to combine realism, excitement and ease of control in one large package which you just can't help liking. Six missions may not sound very many, but each mission has at least six separate parts and you won't find any of them too easy.

The fantastic smoothness of the graphics is a bonus. And this doesn't mean the non-action screens have been neglected. Each and every graphic is excellently drawn and really gives the impression that time has been spent on the game.

If you're a beginner, you might wonder why you were scared of flight sims once you pick off your first target. If you're a vet, crank the difficulty level up to max, climb aboard with just a gun and one missile and raise hell with the enemy. Either way, you're gonna have a hell of a lot of fun.

1. Beats the only other chopper sim available, Gunship, into a bloody pulp.
2. Controls are much simpler than virtually any other flight sim.
3. Graphics smoother than F-15 Strike Eagle 2 or F-19 Stealth Fighter.
4. Fewer missions than F-15 but they're more interesting.