Defcon 5

It's the future.... On a distant mining planet, owned by the powerful Tyron Corporation, human troops are being shuttled off in order that they can be replaced by an automated defense system. You play as the software engineer responsible for setting up the system. Things seem to be going smoothly...that is. until the last shuttle departing the planet is blown out of the sky by an oncoming armada of space cruisers. To make things even worse, the defense software has been sabotaged. Now it's just you versus the enemy in a one-man struggle to save the planet. Do you think you're up to it?

A cross between Doom and a 3-D version of Missile Command, Defcon 5 looks like a promising action/adven-ture game from Data East. With all of the varying styles of game play and involving storyline, you can expect an interesting and refreshing experience.

It's 2204, And What's It To Ya? You still haven't won the lottery. The descendants of Noel Edmonds have long since been summarily hung, drawn and quartered and their horrible futuristic aluminium sweaters melted down to make designer kitchen utensils.

But neither of these facts actually have anything to do with the game. It's 2204 and, for once, the universe is calm and harmonious. War is a thing of the past, fights are distinctly passe. Even heated arguments are something no self-respecting life-form would indulge in (whispered insults, as long as they're not punctuated by any form of gesture, are just about acceptable as long as you cover your mouth with your hand). The universe is now dull, dull, dull.

Everywhere, peace reigns. Even leaves seem intrusively loud as they flutter to the ground. Corduroy trousers (of any colour), with their intrinsic capacity for aural disturbance, have been banned. Crepe-soled shoes are de rigeur, anyone wearing Segs is beaten in the street by the Quiet Police using the new long-handled - but foam covered - batons; Blakey possession carries a life sentence and the immediate neutering of the culprit's family. In the all-pervading calm, the crackle of a Frenchman's grime-stiffened underpants sounds like a rifle shot. Chef is the universal designated sitcom; The Diaries of Ann Diamond are studied in all schools. Crowds gather (quietly) to watch repeat episodes of TheVal Doonican Show. Jesus, it's quiet. If we were going to be dramatic about it, we'd pause slightly and say, "Too quiet."

Science and capitalism

The people who are in charge at Tyron Corporation are not happy about this. They want things to generally get a bit more hectic - and not because they've a particularly high level of autonomic nervous activity and thus a greater need than most for the thrills and spills of day-to-day existence, and find that the stultifying conditions of life in 2204 are sending them out of their overactive minds with boredom, but because they are greedy bastards who just love to make obscenely enormous profits wherever possible. And the nastier the universe, the more money they stand to make: the Tyron Corporation make weapons.

Enter Shelford Pitts, a man with no future. Chief Cyberneer, First Class, at the evil Tyron Corporation's Outer Space Division, leading light of the local amateur dramatic society (his version of Bottom was much admired in the local press), captain of the darts team and - heck, why not just come right out and say it - something of a ladies' man, he might seem to have everything going for him. But he's a man with a problem: namely, that he's going to be killed off in the very first couple of minutes of the game. Check if you don't believe us - it's there in the script. So don't bother making friends with him in the bar before the start, you'll only be wasting your time.

I'm in the hoover

You're his second in command. As soon as the boy Shadwell (Shelford - Ed.) cops it the big bosses give you his job, which could mean you may well be on the way to sharing his fate. Anyway, off you go in the shuttle from Space 1999 to the Mining Resource Planet 6f, or mrp6f as it's known to its bedfellows. Ah, what sublimely evocative names these distant planets have - they just make you want to pack some tasty titbits for lunch, get in that interstellar craft and travel, don't they? It scarcely matters where, with names as beautiful as these.

Naturally, no sooner have you arrived than you're in deep shit... or, in this case. Deep Shit Nine. Your job is to complete the automation of the planet. You have 48 hours to complete the task before a ship will be coming to pick you up, and if you finish it with plenty of time to spare, according to the chirpy talking girly head who welcomes you to the base, you are free to make full use of the recreational facilities. It's all right for her, sitting across the other side of the galaxy in a position of total safety, but unfortunately for you the base in which you're trying to work seems to be under attack from a bunch of oversized cappuccino machines on legs.

Why, it looks a bit like...

So off you go, wandering around all the levels in a first-person perspective, almost Doom-like way. (You knew that was coming, didn't you? After all, what game isn't Doom-like these days?) But the wandering isn't an end in itself, it's just the way you get about within the various locations on the base, while you try to find PADs, which enable you to use stuff. And you attempt to log on to computer terminals which allow you to do things like activate the outer defence turrets to try to fend off some of the alien robot things, assign patrol routes to the internal combat droids, look at star charts and read up on the Tyron, Dinex and MXC Corporations with the on-line information system.

Don't take too long doing this, by the way, because it's one of those games where you read in real-time, and you're quite likely to be shot and killed while you're picking your way through the minutes of the last AGM.

Huge oily tubes

To travel between the various locations, there are Timos' (or what seems like futuristic promotional speak for 'tube trains' to us), which trigger lengthy prerendered travelling sequences through tunnels to whatever location you chose when you got on the thing. It's just like being a tube driver on the Underground (except it's all a bit cleaner and there are no hopeless victims of an uncaring government throwing themselves in front of your train).

And there you more or less have it: DefCon 5 is all about racing furiously against time, exploring, shooting stuff, catching the Tube, using droids to do all the dirty work (this is before droids got emancipation and the vote) and... er... finding the thing that will allow you to operate the base self-destruct system. Because apparently, it's the only way you're going to escape from the planet. Yes, I know they didn't tell you this at the start. But you wouldn't have taken the dead guy's job if you'd known all the facts, would you? Dummy.

"Defcon" is short for "defensive condition," and it's condition red for the long haul here. You're stranded on an automated space station that's under attack by unknown alien forces. Inside, robots called Berserkers are hunting you; outside, you must coordinate defensive weapons to protect your asteroid. If patience isn't your virtue, don't even attempt to tackle this lengthy, brainstraining strategy game.

HACKER HEAVEN

Defcon requires procedural thinking and detailed tactical planning. The game does a good job of weaving several interfaces together to create a challenging environment.

Using a Doom-style first-person view, you travel around the station and fight off invading Berserker 'bots. Don't be fooled by the Doomlike combat, however. It's limited, and definitely not the focal point of the game. When alien spacecraft attack, you fight them in a classic first-person shoot-em-up. The serious strategy action, however, takes place through the station's computer system called the VOS. You must hack the VOS interface to control a critical array of activities such as reloading gun turrets and deploying helpful robot droids.

The game's controls do a workmanlike job at managing Defcon's workmanlike pace. The three-dimensional VOS interface is innovative, but it requires you to constantly cycle through several layers of icons. The frequent alien spaceship attacks may drive you crazy, not because of the intense challenge but because the travel between gun turrets takes an interminably long time.

AVERAGE AUDIO/VISUALS

Defcon's graphics and sounds won't distract your deep thinking, either. The visual highlights are the excellent, animated cinematic sequences and the slick VOS computer interface screens. The first-person gameplay by which you live or die, however, is decidedly ordinary.

The sounds are definitely low-key but effective. The crystal-dear computer voice relays critical info and the edgy music keeps the atmosphere ominous.

HIGH FIVE

Defcon 5 is tough, slow, and epic. If you're up to a Herculean strategy challenge, Defcon is definitely for you.

In DefCon 5, you play a software engineer whose job is to activate an automated defense system on a recently evacuated planet. When something goes wrong with the installation, you're stranded on the planet. To make matters worse, a fleet of alien spacecraft attacks the planet.

If you want to stay alive, you must figure out how to get the defense system back online. This first-person shoot-em-up uses ray-traced, rendered 3D graphics to combine action with strategy.

Defcon 5 is a strange new game for the PlayStation. It may look like one of the many Doom clones out there, but this title is so much more.

You are a programmer who was sent by a corporation to install security programs into the systems of a far-off colony. Things went wrong, and now you have to find a way to escape.

It all starts out simple enough, with you just hooking up the computer systems. The main segment of the game is from a first-person perspective with you wandering through the colony constructs. Try to memorize the basic layout. You'll need to be able to get around in short periods of time later.

Once patched into the computer you can start to get the systems online. Most important is getting each of the six gun turrets functional. These will work either with or without you have you guiding cursors over attacking ships. These ships in turn will attempt to drop in troops or disable the colony functions.

If a ship manages to get by with a squad of troops, there are a few things you can do to survive. You have a number of automated drones that you can place at strategic locations. These are mindless at best, but at least they can slow down the vicious enemy Berserkers. You have several firearms for yourself, most of which you have to find within the corridors of the colony.

The Berserkers get more and more intelligent as the game progresses. They will home in on your location, so you have to keep moving. Killing the Berserkers will create trouble too. There is a set air. supply, and carnage pollutes the atmosphere. You can regulate the air by opening doors.

Your best hopes of getting out alive involve scavenging the necessary equipment from downed enemy ships and piecing together clues that prove your enemies are actually part of a corporate plot. There's a lot of stuff to get accomplished. All the while, you'll have enemies hunting you down through the corridors. Use the computer as a tool for stopping the enemies.

Defcon 5 has some excellent graphics. Every section of the colony has been drawn. Cinemas show you taxiing to the outer sections of the colony. Each time you play, the game is different. It depends on whether or not you respond to attacks, and how fast you eliminate problems, The total space that you can explore is massive, possibly getting new players "lost. Defcon 5 is not just another Doom clone, rather it simulates a pseudo-realistic situation. This game may start out slowly, but things heat up quickly enough.