This is not a flight sim. Don't be fooled by the aeroplanes in the pictures, this is simply not what I'd call a flight sim. No, instead I'd call it a Biggles sim. For those not familiar with Biggles, in a lengthy series of books he went and gave the Boche a jolly good beating in his biplane during World War I. That's exactly what you do here too, all to the sound of music that could have come straight out of an old British war film. Apart from the 3D action itself, the only thing to worry about on screen is your missile count, throttle and health which is displayed in the top left corner of the screen. That's it. Wonderfully simple, as is the gameplay, although that's not to say it isn't challenging. For a mere 15 dollars (about ten pounds), which is less than you can pay for a short lived and disappointing add-on pack these days, you get a charming game that you can dive right into and spend hours working through. Bargain.

I could go on forever reviewing the games on offer here as there are a surprising number of good ones amongst the odd stinker (Bingo Bonus Slots? Oh please). Aironix is a puzzle game so good that everyone at LAN party I went to spent their time playing it instead of multiplayer games. Monkey Brains is a particularly creative puzzle game with bright, Amiga style graphics (ah, good old Amigas) where you have to move a professor in a wheelchair through the complex level by transferring mind control between different helpful monkeys (I kid you not). Then there's the expected assortment of puzzle games, space shooters, sports games and action games, some of them very good. In fact Real.com even managed to swing an exclusive deal with Sierra where they get to distribute a stand alone version of the excellent Team Fortress Classic via Real Player.

So, is it worth a download? Yes, almost certainly, regardless of what sort of gamer you are. Granted, it's not without its faults. I experienced the odd crash and failed demo download during testing, and the frequent ads for the Pentium 4, many of them in game, can become annoying ("More crash, boom, bang, kabam, kerplunk, pop, pow, smack, splash, splat, swish, wahoo, yay and yippee" - does the Pentium 4 come with onboard sound then?). In particular I was rather frustrated by the fact that in the TABB demo you can't play some of the levels unless you have a P4. Still, despite the constant and sometimes intrusive Intel ads and the odd bug, Real Arcade is much better than I expected it to be.

Bottom Line: Real Arcade is an easy to use all-in-one program for browsing, trying and buying games from a surprisingly large collection with numerous excellent little titles. Best of all, it's free, so what have you got to lose by trying it?