Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space

Buzz Aldrins Race Into Space is a strategy game that enables you to play the part of either the us or the ussr in the great space race. It starts in Spring 1957 and you have 20 years in which to land astronauts on the moon and get them back in one piece. You can play against the computer or another person and even by modem. At the beginning of the game and of every subsequent turn a newsreader tells you what's going on. The Americans have Carter Walcrite and the Russians have the glamourous Svetlana Izvestia.

Once youve digested the news you can get on with playing the game. You do most things from the administration building. Buy the various bits of hardware, recruit astronauts and schedule missions; then go to research and development to improve the safety and efficiency of your equipment.

There is an important strategy element here: what you buy should be influenced by your own long term aims and what your opponent is doing. You'll find out about him from intelligence - youll remember how successfully they predicted the downfall of the Shah and the invasion of Kuwait. Often the first time you hear of anything is when the other side beats you to a milestone' mission such as the first man in space.

This makes for a fair amount of tension in the game but the real nail-biting stuff is launching the rockets. Digitised speech -sampled from the real people - and film makes this the best bit of the game. If you're playing the USSR you get a countdown in Russian and people saying Da a lot. Play for the home team and you get much more: 'Trajectory is good, thrust is good, the laconic 'Thats a lovely lift-off, thats not bad at all and the favourite We have lift-off!

Fly me to the moon

A huge amount of work has gone into getting everything right for this game. As time progresses, Ike is replaced with lbj. Cape Canaveral renames itself Cape Kennedy and even social attitudes change. You can recruit all male astronauts in the 50s but not in the enlightened '60s. The program will not let you schedule planetary missions if, by the following season, those planets would be in the wrong position.

The main aim is to get to the moon but to win you need money to develop your projects. The money you get from the government depends on your prestige, which depends on the number offirsts. You get 12 points for being the first to get an orbital satellite up, five for being second and three, if it blows up on the launch pad.

Buzz Aldrins Race Into Space is a user-friendly strategy game that really captures the excitement of the race to the moon. The original was strong on atmosphere but the CD version is even better. There is more film and sampled speech. The words of the CapCom during the lunar missions are completely authentic. First time buyers of Buzz should go straight to the CD version. Even if youve already got a copy of the original, the extra features and the increase in speed make this a worthwhile upgrade.