Civilization 2: Fantastic Worlds

Civilization 2 is without a doubt one of the most addictive games of all time. It doesn't have particularly sexy graphics, it's turn-based, and it has regular competition in the form of the growing army of C&C clones threatening to completely swamp the offices of PC. But no matter. Turn-based or not, Civ2 has such enormous depth of gameplay that it quite simply urinates on all the real-time strategy games out there from a dizzy height. Even Age of Empires, which is in arguably the best of the real-time brigade, can't touch Civ 2s incredibly high replay factor.

Fantastic Worlds, then, is a very welcome addition to the Civ fold. Dedicated fans of the series who have completed the game can now start all over again in new scenarios with new units, new buildings, new technologies and, in many cases, all-new terrain and unit graphics. There are 15 new scenarios of varying quality to choose from, but there are a few here which should appeal to just about anyone.

Here's my pick of the pack. X-COM: play an all-new scenario with many units taken straight from the X-COM games. Midgar: a fantasy add-on with dragons, goblins and all the other strange folk that inhabit these types of things. Master of Orion 2 junior: an excellent take on the classic strategy game, though obviously not quite as in-depth as the full game. Age Of Reptiles: an odd scenario which puts you in control of a civilisation of dinosaurs. There are also many other scenarios included which have been designed by Civ fanatics on the Net. Or, if you feel up to it, make your own worlds with the extensive, intuitive scenario creation tools provided. Fantastic Worlds is aptly named; there's surely something in this package for every CIVfan. Personally, I haven't been able to put the thing down since I started playing it a couple of weeks ago.