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Personally, I don't care if no-one ever plays a Napoleonic wargame, computerised or otherwise, ever again. I say this only because some readers notice that I review war and adventure games more than any other type and sometimes think I'm on a crusage to convert people to playing them. Far from it. Most reviewers don't want to touch this kind of game. I do simply because someone has to (it's a dirty job, etc).

Though some PSS wargames look as though they've gone off half-cocked, Waterloo not only seems meant, it also qualifies as a fair paradigm of what a new-wargamers-start-here game should be like. The documentation glides from one subject to the next without introducting too many ambitious ideas too soon for the average newcomer.

It's a one- or two-player game with user-definable levels of complexity. However, you choose to play it all the moves are carried out by typing in sentences of orders to the units under your command. Since all the types of orders, words you can use and what they mean to the computer are explained in the manual, this is as easily done as it is said. It does mean, though, that a thorough read of the manual is a good idea.

Units of soldiers look like colour coded ranks of liquorice allsorts and there are few effects visual or otherwise to stimulate the imagination. yet once you get to grips with the forces you're commanding and you see the consequences of your orders unfold, anyone with a jot of curiosity will wonder just what it takes to win.

And there's the rub. Waterloo moves at the kind of pace that makes continental drift look like prime time TV. But play a couple of well thought out moves per night and the satisfaction you'll dervie from winning will be more akin to contentedly finishing off a main meal than the lollipop level of glee normally gleaned from bashed-out budget baloney.

Slow as hell, and not without its faults. Still, it's a touch of class in comparison to most of its competition.