Incubation: The Wilderness Missions

If you were to describe Incubation as Doom meets X-COM, you wouldn't be far off. It's an atmospheric game with incredible sound and graphics -especially if you've got a 3Ofx card -that requires more in the way of cerebral input than an itchy trigger finger and cat-like reflexes. You need plenty of strategic thinking to get you through the average level.

Although developers BlueByte have released half-a-dozen freebie levels in the past via their website, The Wilderness Missions is the first commercial add-on pack. It comprises a CD with an additional ten missions, four more monsters, two extra items of equipment and four new weapons, plus a level editor, just in case you fancy putting together some single or multi-player missions yourself.

The missions are pitched somewhere between hard and impossible, which should provide a challenge for anyone who's completed the first game campaign. The new enemies certainly give you something to think about, and the extra blasting power adds to the mayhem.

New weapons include a light plasma gun, enhanced laser, enhanced mine thrower and the ubiquitous chainsaw, plus an absorber to boost armour protection and a cooler to stop guns over-heating. Added enemies include a couple of bug-like things and the impressive Gore'Coo, who have long-range weapons and clever attack routines.

The level editor is strictly reserved for anoraks; aimed well and truly at programmers, it requires heavy use of a text editor and the on-line manual. Given a couple of weeks you could probably just about work it out - but then it could take just as long to figure out how to win through the ten missions. Some of it is set outdoors, which makes a welcome change, and each one has new traps and puzzles to face. They're not all blast-fests, but if you're an Incubation fan, you'll already know what to expect...