TOP GUN

The impressionistic launch screen — the planes scramble from their carriers into the livid sky

Now’s your chance to emulate the exploits of hunky superstar Tom Cruise and the rest of the pilots at America’s top school for combat flyers. Seated firmly in the cockpit of an F14 combat you can engage the computer in high-tech dogfight, or battle it out with a friend in a head-to-head session.

The action is viewed on a split screen which shows the instrument panel and cockpit views of the two opposing aircraft. The main display uses simulated 3D and vector graphics to show the aerial antics, with a dotted line marking the artificial horizon.

A joystick can be used to control the fighter in the air in the time-honoured flight simulator tradition, with the throttle and weapon selection effected on the keyboard, or the keyboard can be used on its own. The controls are self-centering — left to its own devices a plane flies straight and level.

The Tomcat’s armoury includes cannon, missiles and flares. The appropriate icon is called into a window on the cockpit display before using the cannon or pressing fire to launch a flare or heat-seeking missile. The cannon, which overheat with continual use, are sighted with a cross-hair and the border flashes red when shells hit home. It takes twenty-five hits with cannon shell to destroy the opposing plane.

Selecting a missile brings a large, square sight onto your viewscreen. The target must be kept within this area for a countdown of three seconds to allow the Sidewinder missile to lock on to the enemy plane before fire is pressed. One hit from a missile is fatal, and the only way to avoid being blown to smithereens if a missile is on your tail is to drop flares to confuse its guidance systems and keep away from it for twenty seconds — the missile then runs out of fuel and dives to the ground.

Speed and altitude read-outs are superimposed on the cockpit view, and the altitude reading flashes if the plane is dangerously low (below a thousand feet). The instrument panel includes displays that show the throttle setting, cannon temperature, thrust, and damage sustained. A radar scanner gives the relative horizontal position of your opponent and this display turns red when a missile is locked onto your tail. An arros indicates whether the enemy plane is above or below you and is used in conjunction with the radar to locate the enemy. Windows are used to display the weapon icon currently selected and the attitude of your fighter.

In the one-player version, missions consist of shooting down three enemy planes, and become progressively more difficult — on the first two levels, the computer opponent does not use missiles. In two player mode, each player gets three aircraft, and the winner is the pilot who stays airborne the longest...