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Making simulations accurate is difficult. Getting anything close to reality takes vast amounts of research - which is costly, time-consuming and possibly even a little boring. Magic Bytes seem to get around the problem entirely by setting USS John Yong, their Naval Warship Simulation, seven years in the future, predicting a few predictable enemies and basing the whole lot on a se,i-real, half-baked, good ol' American ship (Yecch!).

You can tell within the first minute and a half that USS John Young is not in the same league as Silent Service, Red Storm Rising or even Hunt For Red October. All those sims featured elements of realism both in strategy and visuals, whereas USS John Young contains neither.

Your objective is to attack and destroy convoys of tankers, submarines or oil platforms in the Middle East region. Your opponent is Iran (whoops!), who's reached flashpoint and is now endangering the free world (yawn, yawn).

OK, forget the plot. What's the game like to play? Not good. The control systems are simple enough to operate, but bear about as much resemblance to Naval Warship controls as Pong did to real tennis. The emphasis is on fitting the controls on screen with the sea still visible, but they're all flat and dull, total guesswork surrounded by the kind of space-filling knobs and switches you see in Saturday morning cartoon spaceships.

About half the gauges and dials on each screen do absolutely nothing. The other half give you basic control of the ship, with a speed controller, a rudder and a list of sub-systems on the first screen, operated by mouse or keyboard.

The sub-menus enable you to enter the other so-called "rooms" on the ship, with the operating systems for torpedoes, the main gun, navigation radar, damage control, engine room and depth charges. Great, you think. Lots of systems, lots to play with. But what you actually get is another lower-half screen display with different knobs and switches, and there's nothing to see. All the time the forward sea view contains either empty water or a cardboard cutout ship or platform, and maybe a few explosion sprites from any old shoot-'em-up (if you're lucky enough to get a hit). Not thrilling, even with the best imagination in the world.

But, I hear you say, it's a simulation. Sims are supposed to concentrate on the strategy rather than on pretty effects, aren't they? Well yes, but USS John Young doesn't concentrate on either. It makes a half-hearted attempt to look like it has depth, as well as detail and effects, but fails to deliver either. The maps aren't clear enough to do any real planning and the animation for torpedoes, shells and the ships themselves is all very comically low-grade.

Sounds and music are sad, sad examples of what not to do with an ST. The front-end music in particular is an absolute dirge.

Magic Bytes have plastered the words "A Naval Warship Simulation" on every side of the box, obviously hoping to see USS John Young to the vast market of simulations players - but the only naval in question is the one on your belly and you'd probably have more fun contemplating that for a while. Don't part with your cash expecting to become Captain of a large and powerful military vessel. You won't. You'll be Steamboat Willie on a Mickey Mouse boat.