Planes aren't particularly easy to fly in real life, and neither are they in a good simulator program. That's all well and good for those who like fiddling about with rudders, flaps, ailerons and three-hundred-page instruction manuals. However, sometimes you just want to whizz around in the air, up-tiddly-up-upping and defying the ground along with the laws of physics.

If it's accurate flight mechanics you're after, then Attack on Pearl Harbor isn't going to satisfy. It's an unashamedly arcade game, with simple controls (up, down, left, right and fire) and simple physics. There are also buttons for a temporary boost of acceleration (and deceleration) but they don't have a great deal of effect on your speed and it's nigh on impossible to actually stall your kite.

The focus is purely on the action: plane-to-plane dogfights when you're piloting a fighter, and bombing runs when you take the controls of a bomber or torpedo plane. There's a choice of missions in the game's four campaigns (two American, two Japanese, all set in the Pacific theatre of World War II) with a selection of planes to fly. The campaign is persistent, meaning that if you lose a plane from your hangar it's gone for good, and should you run out of aircraft it's game over. Fortunately you can earn extra planes, along with medals and promotions, by completing missions successfully.

The mission objectives vary depending on the plane you fly. For example, in the initial Pearl Harbor strike as the Japanese, if you pick the bomber you'll be taking out the anti-aircraft batteries with your payload, whereas in the torpedo plane your objective is to sink the ships. Take to the skies in a fighter and you'll be expected to escort the bombers and protect them from the US air force.

Initially it all seems rather fun and reasonably varied, and the lush graphics (particularly the pyrotechnics as you down planes and ships alike), which run at a very smooth frame rate, also impress. However, it soon becomes clear that the game's controls aren't the only superficial element in its make up, as the scenarios are quite repetitious.

Once you've flown a few dogfighting sorties they begin to feel depressingly similar, with only the backdrop and weather really changing all that much. You are thrown the odd tangent, such as a reconnaissance duty, but in the main the missions all start to blur together. The controls are also slightly frustrating, as the largely ineffective brakes mean you can't slow down properly to keep on the tail of an enemy bandit.

Having said all that, as long as you're not coming to Pearl Harbor expecting too much, it does provide a reasonable dose of dogfighting and bomb-blasting fun. While the single player campaigns won't keep you busy for all that long, there's a little extra longevity in the multi-player, which boasts free-for-all deathmatch and teamplay modes on LAN or over the Net.

This is a simple arcade dogfighter that will give you exactly what you want if you're a pilot wanting to switch off your brain and arc through the skies in a hail of mindless machine-gun carnage. Just don't expect too much in the way of longevity.