PC CD-ROM minimum system requirements: 486 DX4/100mhz; 16MB RAM; 40MB hard disk space; Windows 95 or DOS 5.0; Dual speed CD-ROM drive; SVGA £29.99
The best 3-D shoot-'em-ups available invariably see the player taking the part of some human running around like a lunatic, with some serious guns, trying to avenge some nasty extra-terrestrials. And great games they are indeed, the best of them being Doom, Duke 3D and of course Quake. But when game developers try to give this "human" some transport, they either make the vehicle too difficult to pilot, in which case a lot of the fun is sacrificed, or too simplistic to be any way real. It is a fine balance.
But Blue Byte, the people responsible for Extreme Assault, seem to have married the most unlikely couple of gaming genres - Arcade and Simulation. You don't have to worry about the maximum payload for the Sioux AH-23 attack chopper, but when you take it into the air you still feel you are in total control. The action is fast, so you don't have to fly for hours looking for enemies: the mission briefs are just that - short and to the point.
The graphics are also impressive and although Extreme Assault supports 3-D cards and the Pentium II processor, even without these it runs smoothly and impressively. For the bulk of the game you pilot a chopper: you also get to have a blast in a tank, and the missions take you across six enormous operation zones. Some 90 per cent Extreme Assault is about taking out those aliens, but for some variety a number of missions require you to airlift some innocent bystanders.
Regardless of whether you have 10 minutes for a quick blast or then in Extreme Assault you won't be going far wrong.
Graphics: 95% Gameplay: 91% Sound: 93%
Top Ten Games
This week's 10 top-selling PC CD ROM games at Virgin Megastore are:
1) Dungeon Keeper - £29.99
2) X-COM Apocalypse - £29.99
3) Carmageddon - £29.99
4) CIV2/CIV2 Scenario - £29.99
5) Forgotten Realms - £24.99
6) IFA Soccer Manager - £29.99
7) Tomb Raider - £29.99
8) EA Cricket '97 - £24.99
9) C&C/Red Alert Counterstrike - £29.99
10) Atomic Bomberman - £19.99