Z: Steel Soldiers - PC Games

Digitised comic-style pictures convey the storyline in cut-scenes, with added split-screen and a mixture of cod American and British accents. The story starts with a peace agreement on the table when two stray junior units bring down what looks like an enemy ship, dragging you back to a centuries-old conflict.

Territory is captured via stationary flag posts and this facilitates unit movement, especially as the enemy only appears on sight. There are few peaceful moments in the game--you're given the briefing and you've got to keep your finances up by wiping out the enemy and capturing ground instead of by C&C-style resource management. The problems are more familiar, with sluggish and sometimes unintelligent robots, although since the construction robots repair the warrior units, they are of course deliberately slower at times, forcing you to group them up. This can be mastered, but the camera takes longer--this 3-D system still doesn't beat Ground Control or Earth 2150 for the flexibility of views.

So what made the original ahead of its time--the pure speed of gameplay required--is also ZSS's major attraction. As its robot vs robot there's next to no blood, and the maximum install is around 650 MB. If you want a strategy game that pushes you into a constant, chess-like state of war, look no further--it's certainly one of the faster RTS games released, and, as it's only the first sequel, the gap in time has done the gameplay as much good as the graphics. --Kenneth Henry