Pearl Harbor: Strike at Dawn

OK, let's get a few things straight. The Americans did not 'win' at Pearl Harbour. They were caught with their pants down, and had it not been for the pure luck that their aircraft carriers were at sea, Japan might well have knocked America out of the war in the Pacific (at least for sufficient time to achieve its goals). What's more the US was not geared up for full-scale military action. Their equipment was vastly inferior to the Japanese, and the men had poor training. Not a great way to start a war. And not a great way to start a game either. At least if you're American.

So developer Scarlet Software has dropped all pretence of any historical reality, and given the Americans the best aircraft developed during WWII. So instead of ageing P40s (if you've seen the film, you'll know what we mean) you get 1945 vintage aircraft. There's even the B29 Superfortress that dropped the atom bomb. The developer should have just called it Pacific War and had done with it, instead of trying to piggyback one of the most expensive (and worst) films ever made.

All this would be forgivable, if the game was any cop. But the long and short of it is that it isn't. The game gets dull within the first 30 seconds, and within two minutes, you're searching for the uninstall option. It's just clumsy arcade-style action, which still manages to lag up on a high spec PC. You can't even play as the Japanese, so any scope for actually attacking the American fleet is lost. And we haven't even touched on the rotten control interface. If you are daft enough to buy this donkey, make sure you keep the receipt. Then you can exchange it for something more worthwhile, like an inflatable banana.