Jane's USAF

****

PC

Electronic Arts

$99.95, G

Review: Peter Eley

If you've hired Top Gun more than twice, this is the game for you.

Short for United States Air Force, it puts you in command of eight fighter planes in combat situations ranging from Vietnam and the Gulf War to "what if?" future scenarios.

Jane's flight simulations - stretching right back to the one-floppy-disk Chuck Yeager's Air Combat - aren't ultra realistic but they are great fun.

Let's be honest. If they were true to life, man would have landed on Mars before most of us had learned how to take off in an F16.

Even so, it will take a good couple of hours to get the hang of flying one of the planes featured in USAF.

There are around 100 different commands, and you need to know most to play the game effectively at the higher difficulty levels or online.

Don't be tempted to dive straight in and give Saddam a going-over as you'll almost certainly crash and burn in flames.

There's an excellent tutorial, with Scooter "Ah've never failed yet" Davies. A couple of sessions going through the techniques of taking off, landing and the various control and weapons sytems will mean you might survive your first combat encounter.

Indications are that USAF will be the key game in Jane's World War, an epic online project that will let players the world over take part in massive, continuous air combat.

Graphically, USAF is about the best Jane's title to date, with excellent detail at the higher settings.

When you're in the air it's great, although the terrain detail isn't up to the standard of Electronic Art's Flight Unlimited 3.