Wings gives nostalgic danger-junkies a taste of life as a World War One pilot. It lets you relive those heady days when planes were made of wood and Von Richthofen ruled the skies, when synchronised machine guns were state of the art and radar was science fiction, when sidewinders were still snakes and a SAM was the Uncle you signed up to serve.

Essentially this is three arcade battle sequences bound together by the ongoing story of 56th Aerosquadron. To earn your pilot his wings there's a single dry run mission, which is all that's asked of you to prove your flying skills - and is probably a much better training than the real WW 1 pilots received!

You select your pilot's statistics, choosing between flying and shooting ability, mechanical aptitude and stamina. Then it's time to join a squadron and leave for the fields of France.

The meat of the game is flying, be it dogfighting, bombing or strafing. These are the only styles of flying you'll encounter. As the war drags on, the battles get harder: new planes appear, better weapons are developed and ground defence improves.

Bosch-bashing is best in the 3D-style dogfights. Sitting behind the pilot's head you control the pilot's head you control the plane in time honoured 'sim' fashion but without the usual sensory overload from dials and HUD systems. As the battle rages the pilot's head spins indicating the nearest enemy. Travelling at a constant speed, all you have to do is line up Fritz in the small round gunsights while avoiding the ground and the other guy's bullets.

Dog fights are never easy because as well as the Hun there's the prehistoric kit to cope with. The planes are massively underpowered, spluttering to a stall in climbs, while the guns tend to jam with a terrifying regularity. Bombing runs only appear in the latter stages of the war, which is realistic because historically bombs were in short supply. Luckily these sorties, like strafing runs, are non-fatal affairs.

In classic shoot-em-up style you scroll up the screen searching for your primary targets while dodging the ack-ack fire and shooting incoming fighters. There's a limit of 10 bombs per plane, so it's not wise to try and invent blanket bombing 40 years ahead of its time.

Strafing lets you fly a plane low over a track, blasting, anyone or anything in sight. Except, that is, Red Cross trucks, which if bagged earn you a caution and a chewing out form your CO. On strafing runs you could be after troops, tents, trains, trucks or tankers full of fuel, most of which have the audacity to fire back as you slaughter them.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND

Cinemaware's graphics are up to the usual exemplary standard. Beautiful animations and great battles scenes help to recapture that spirit of detrmined courage the realpilot exhibited. The battle sequence are linked by the Company journal, which tells the story of the conflict on both a global and personal scale. Sonically the game supports the theme of WWI France, with haunting tunes running whenever you're back at base. Naturally it also has the all important 'dagah dagah' machine guns, without which no biplane game could show its face in public.

LASTING INTEREST

With only three core elements and low life expectancy for pilots, Wings should hit the ground in flames on the first sortie. Yet the facility to enrol a new pilot the same day your last one died gives Wings a stamina it shouldn't possess. It's possible to play through to the end of the war by continually enrolling pilots, seeing who - if any - of your original squadron makes it through the whole show. What spoils Wings is the disk-swapping nightmare. Two-drive flyboys are fine, but single-drive pilots will spend more time swapping than flying before Amistice day.

JUDGEMENT

Despite the disk swapping, Wings has that seat-of-the-pants feel. Bombing and strafing are fun, but the dogfighting makes the game. Here you struggle for ills while risking mechnical failure and instant death. Favourite flyboys can be scrubbed from the roster for one mistake, making it edge-of-the-seat stuff all the way. Still, if you lose your current hero, there's always plenty of volunteers on the home front eager to replace him!

Once more Cinemaware's researchers draw from history for the inspiration behind a game. This time the creative time machine has stopped midway through World War I and inside the hangars of the 56th Aerosquadron.

The obligatory 'movie' intro is an account of the Wright brothers first powered air flight, along with a quote from Orville Wright claiming that wars will be impossible with the arrival of the plane. The scene then dramatically changes to two dogfighting biplanes over a battle field.

Now you, a new recruit in the Royal Flying Corps (predecessor to the RAF) have to earn your wings to qualify to join the 56th by completing one of three set training missions - bombing, strafing and, best of all, dogfighting. Should you qualify your transfer comes through and you're off to the front line.

You pilot has four ratings: Flying - the higher this rating is the more manoeuvrable your plane becomes; Mechanical rating determines your ability to control the plane when it's damaged or stop your guns jamming; while shooting determines how many shots it takes to down enemy planes; Stamina is the amount of damage you can take before wigging out completely. These ratings increase according to how many targets you destroy and how well you perform on missions.

First taste of air force life is a briefing from your CO, Colonel Farah, who kindly puts you in charge of the Squadron's log, the diary of what's going on at your base.

Soon the day of your fist mission dawns and you're led into combat for the first time. Mission one is a routine patrol where you come across two German Fokkers. The information before a battle is relayed to you in the form of the pilot's thoughts with phrases such as '...Harry the Hun wouldn't know what hit him' or 'there was only one but he boldly signalled for a fight'. These messages can often be quite funny and bridge the gap between plot and game.

The journal keeps you up to date with the game's story and the war as it unfolds. It informs you of the squadron's progress, the men involved, and technical developments that have a direct bearing on the war. This includes details such as the new German machine gun or the French built anti-Zeppelin rocket.

Recruits and fatalities are recorded on the pilot roster. As you're not the only one in the squad it's interesting to keep an eye on how well other team mates are doing, as you're going to end up flying with or leading some of them into combat.

The missions vary quite dramatically. They need to be - there are one hundred and fifty in total. The majority of these are dog fights. As biplanes are not too sophisticated they have hardly any equipment or control panels that you need to keep an eye on. All you have to worry about are the guns jamming, hitting the enemy and avoiding them hitting you.

To track the planes you need to follow the pilot's line of sight as he'll turn his head to look at his nearest adversary, a novel system which is not only fun but also useful. Bombing missions don't appear until later in the game. These are virtually pure arcade. You get a top view of your plane as it races across enemy territory. Tapping the fire button releases a salvo of bullets and holding the fire button drops your bombs. This section is weak, but is easily supported by the rest of the game.

When you go on a strafing mission the screen scrolls diagonally from bottom right to top left, with forced perspective (a 3D effect without actually being 3D) graphics. The mission overview gives you a list of what priority targets you have to go for, and this means destroying at least half of them.

With the length of the game, and the changes which go on throughout, the chances are you're going to 'buy the farm' (as we air-force types say). If such should be your fate a rather tasteful sequence follows with your comrades lowering you into a hole so you can while away your time pushing daisies. All is not lost, though, as you can always train up a new pilot and re-join your squadron as your own replacement!

Wings is a brilliant game. It's both atmospheric and easy to get into. It comes with Cinemaware's usual brilliant presentation and can hardly be faulted. At the moment it's one megabyte only, although Mirrorsoft claim there will be a version for unexpanded machines coming along. Let's hope it happens soon. It would be a shame for anyone to miss out on such an excellent game.

Suddenly the First World War is becoming almost fashionable. Hard to imagine how spending four years up to your neck in mud, slogging it out with an equally tired, cold and frightened enemy could ever be regarded as fashionable. Then again some people go to Ibiza on holiday. Whatever the reason there are more than a couple of games set in the killing years of 1914/18 in the offing.

However nobody has yet devised a trench simulator. Companies have looked to the air for their inspiration. This is not really surprising. There is considerable romance surrounding the early days of flight. The days when you flew by the seat of your pants rather than the dials of a computer. Just as a spitfire has a greater sense of romance than a Tornado so a Sopworth Camel is more romantic than either. It dates from an era when combat was more personal. This may not be a good thing but it's certainly an exciting one.

Cinemaware's foray into this arena aims to capture the romance of the air and mix it with the romance of the cinema. The action takes place in France in 1916. As a new pilot you must first earn your wings. This is done at flying school where you have three fairly rudimentary (I thought that's what cows did. Ed.) tests in straffing, bombing and balloon busting. If you can get past one of these then you'll be sent straight to the front. (Well, there was a serious pilot shortage.)

You can skip the training section if you wish but you'll be ill prepared and worse still you'll be called Waldo R Barnstormer. (He's the only pilot who starts the game with his wings, presumably because they felt sorry for him at flying school.)

Once at the front line you meet the tough, stern and not-at-all-interested-in-boy-scouts-no-sirree Colonel Farrah. It doesn't take him long to gauge your prowess and he swiftly entrusts you with looking after his collection of interesting tea pots. Well perhaps that's not quite fair. He entrusts you with the Squadron Diary. This allows you to write a brief description of your bowel movements and the weather conditions as well as much less interesting things like a description of each mission. Except the one you don't return from of course.

The missions vary from downing an enemy observation balloon (easy peasy) and strafing enemy convoys (pretty much a cinch) to taking on a squadron of the Bosche. (Deadly.) As well as different missions there are also different perspectives. For strafing and bombing runs you view the plane from above whereas for dogfights you're in the cockpit. Well just behind it to be exact, your view is over the pilot's shoulder. His head turns from side to side to let you know where danger lies. One handy tip is - if the head slumps forwards and tomato ketchup starts to flow from the neck start worrying. You're dead.

Paul: This game ought to include a free bag of sweeties in special rustley wrappers. Not because WWI pilots were particularly partial to a mint humbug between sorties but because Cinemaware have produced a game dripping with cinematic atmosphere. The opening sequence, complete with Orville and Wright inventing flight, could easily have come from a film. This is the First World War not as it was but as Hollywood would like it to be. Accurate? Well maybe. Atmospheric? You bet your prop it is.

A lot of the atmosphere is built up before you're in the air. The screens of the airfield and Colonel Farrah's office are beautifully detailed. The flight journal, which you write up before each mission, attempts to capture the feelings of a young pilot stuck in a field in a foreign land. To be honest it reads more like the feelings of a Hollywood scriptwriter though the language jars slightly if you're trying to play a French or British pilot. Still it's an imaginative idea and a nice touch.

Once you're in the air, the main things you notice are not the graphics, though they're fairly effective. It's the sound that grips you. Take off and all the arty farty music stuff is replaced by the roar of engines, the chattering of machine guns and the tightwire zing as bullets tear through canvas and wood.

It's almost worth getting shot down to hear the screaming engines and wind as you plummet to earth. As you haul back on the joystick will the last sound you hear be the comforting thud of your wheels on mud or the explosion of oblivion? Read on and find out.

There are two styles of combat in Wings, each has its strengths and weaknesses. The most fun and atmospheric is the dogfight. Although the graphics (with the exception of your own cockpit) are fairly basic, the gameplay isn't. Banking and turning are all smooth and there's a real sensation of action going on around you. As well as the tension of killing and avoiding being killed there's an element of competition involved. Nothing is more frustrating than doing all the hard work against an opponent only for your wing man to nip in and steal the kill and all the glory. One solution to this is to shoot down your wingman first of course.

Less successful are the arcade sequences, involving strafing and bombing runs. And although the graphics on these sections are a lot more detailed than in the dogfights the game-play soon becomes rather tedious; something that has to be gone through in between dogfights.

In fact one of the faults of Wings is the amount that has to be gone through before getting into the air. The missions themselves are fairly short and don't require you to return to base once they're completed. Sometimes the whole thing's over in seconds, then you're back with the Squadron journal and dear old never-worn-a-black-silk corset-no-not-on-your-life Colonel Farrah. You seem to spend more time on the ground than in the air. This might be realistic but it's also a bit boring.

But at least on the ground you get treated to some attractive graphics and once in the air there's no doubting the excitement. Wings is an atmospheric and exciting game in a new and challenging arena.

Not for you the slime and ignominy of the trenches, ratburgers for tea and mustard gas for cologne. Nope, you're an Allied fighter pilot, a glamour puss outfitted with a silk scart and designer leather jacket. Your life expectancy may not be more than a few days, but you look good and that's all that matters.

But before you can experience that stylish going down-in-flames death, you must complete flight school. First you must create your pilot by naming him and attributing a set number of ability points to four skills: flying, shooting, mechanical aptitude and stamina. Then you must successfully complete a training mission (strafing, bombing, or flying) to join the 56th Aerosquadron.

Once in the squadron, your Commanding Officer, Colonel Farrah, will give you the job of writing the squadron journal - a diary which often contains useful information about your next mission. There are three basic mission types: a Zaxxon- style strafing run, an overhead- view bombing run, and a 3-D aerial combat section. The first two have specified targets to destroy - a bridge, convoy, or even a moving train - while avoiding anti-aircraft fire.

Aerial combat missions include dogfighting with enemy planes (including Eindeckers and Fokkers), bursting enemy recon balloons, and protecting allied bombers and balloons. For all these you're accompanied by one or more computer-controlled pilots. Your 'backseat' cockpit viewpoint shows the pilot's head turning to spot enemy planes - in addition you can look around using four external views. For such a basic biplane, controls are simple: bank left/right and pitch up/down - there's no speed control. Your only weapons are twin machine guns which have a tendency to jam every so often, leaving you a sitting duck! Like your enemies, you can take a number of hits before being downed. Sometimes you may be able to ditch your damaged plane and survive, though Colonel Farrah won't be too pleased - three warnings from him and you're thrown out of the force.

Back at base your performance is evaluated and the league table of pilots shown with number of missions flown and kills. Do well and you could win a medal or even promotion. However, your real aim is simply to survive 230 missions until the end of the war. If you die, your next pilot starts off at that date, so you can play through the war with a number of different pilots.