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There's nothing like a good shoot-'em-up. And X-29 Fighter Mission is nothing like a good shoot-'em-up.

The back cover blurb shouts hysterically: "Experience the excitement of air-to-air/air-to-ground fast action combat. See enemy Jets and Helicopters blasted into a thousand pieces... Using maximum firepower, the total obliteration and destruction of the enemy base takes place before your very eyes." Well, not before my very eyes, it didn't.

Loading takes less than 90 seconds, so you know straight away that this program, written by one Rene van Goethem, isn't exactly going to take your C64 to the very limit of its capabilities. Once loaded, the familiar cockpit interior appears, full of interesting little dials and flashing lights. The largest scanner shows the side and rear elevations of the enemy aircraft currently within range - a Phantom, Cobra helicopter of Eagle F15 - while the screen to the left shows the direction in which you're heading.

The digital display is not, as you might think at first, your score or time remaining, but the compass reading of your course in degrees. And on the far right, is the status indicator of your three onboard computers. When each of these turns black, due to substained damage from missiles, the computers are inoperative, and the mission is aborted. Little of this is explained in the grossly inadequate game instructions, so I'm saving you the trouble of working it out.

The rapid blipping of the radar tells you whether you're on course for destroying the cloaking beasons which shield the enemy base from sight. According to the instructions, all ten of these must be destroyed before the base appears. It won't be long before you realise that the beacons lie in the straight line stretching west to easy, so you might as well turn your plane through 90 degrees and keep going on a setting of 270 degrees, blasting at the beacons as they hove into sight.

The graphics are barely adequate - a flat green plaiin extending towards the traditional distant mountain range. Your incredible speed is supposedly emphasized by the white clouds scudding across the blue sky, and an endless stream of giant cowpats rushing towards you on the ground. Whenever an enemy craft drops into view you see it tail on, and an exciting puff of smoke appears if you hit it with your devastating machine gun fire. If you keep up the attack, the craft explodes.

At first you might be tempted to zoom around, shooting up the aircraft. This is enjoyable for about five minutes, but won't get you very far. I've destroyed 20 in one flight, and the blighters kept on coming, so on my next sortie I decided to ignore them altogether, and concentrate on blowing up the beacons. After removing sixteen of these - six more than required - the enemy base still failed to materialise.

Third time lucky. After destroying five beacons to the west, I turned through 180 degrees and headed due east, and after taking out another five beacons on this course, the cowpats disappeared and the radar went silent. I then changed direction and went north, and there, sure enough, was the elusive base. A quick burst from the machine guns and I witnessed the total obliteration of... the game. For no apparent reason I was returned to the title screen, mission incomplete.

If this was a very cheap budget game then you might be willing to forgive Rene for the juddering graphics and the sheer pointlessness of it all, and just sit back and punish your joystick. But at nearly six quid, such sloppiness is an insult to wallet and intelligence.