Alpha Black Zero: Intrepid Protocol

Stick a number, a colour and a letter from the Greek alphabet together and you get the name of an elite combat squad. Just try it - Khaeon did to come up with Alpha Black Zero, a futuristic team-based stealth/shooter that follows the exploits of an interplanetary anti-colonialist terrorist squad.

You play as ABZ leader Kyle Hardlaw in the year 2366, but despite this you have to achieve most of your mission goals using the kind of technology you could pick up now on the East African black market. Night vision, grenade launchers, silenced machine guns and sniper rifles -the times they aren't a-changing. The missions are set across a pleasing array of alien planetary vistas, which instantly makes a pleasant alternative to the oil refineries, disused factories and jungle encampments of most tactical shooters.

Did we say tactical? Actually, ABZ is almost anything other than tactical. Team-based it is, as there are four troopers in your squad, but the limited range and simplistic nature of the orders you can issue to your buddies means strategies are limited. Instead, you use your chums as back-up firepower, doing most of the donkey work yourself.

While this means ABZ is far from subtle or deep, it does make for a lot of action. There's much less creeping around than there is laying waste to all and sundry, which is ABZ's strong point. So for all the weak enemy Al and graphical glitches, ABZ remains a decent and carnage-filled team-based blaster, worth checking out when the price drops.