Producer: Martech
Retail Price: £12.95

In The Armageddon Man you're landed with the thankless task of coordinating diplomatic relations among 16 paranoid and nuke-happy countries, as Supreme Commander of the United Nuclear Nations' (UNN) satellite network. But despite an original scenario, extremely polished screen presentation and excellent, generous physical components, the gameplay is confusing and unworkable.

The Armageddon Man falls down in the usual way 'pure' strategy games do: the player soon realises his own actions don't have sufficient effect on events to sustain a feeling of involvement. There's little 'game incentive'.

But the presentation of The Armageddon Man creates a very favourable initial impression. Inside the large video box are a big, shiny colourful map of the world and two sheets of semitransparent vinyl stickers, which cling to the map, representing the flags of the countries. It's a pity the map and stickers turn out to be not terribly useful...

Another map of the world decorates the top right-hand portion of the crisp, icon-oriented screen display - it only comes into play when countries start chucking missiles at each other - and the six main icons allow access to satellite control, information about missile deployment and resource allocation, direction of UNN troops, communications to and from countries, and the radio.

The gameplay is divided into weeks, weeks in which a remarkable variety of important international affairs seem to happen. Nothing specific is said in the rules, but the end of a week appears to be determined by a time limit. At the end of each week the player is given an assessment of his performance as Supreme Commander and an indication of the world's radiation level. The two are apparently linked.

The player has four tasks to undertake as Supreme Commander: remaining on friendly terms with each individual power, so they actually do as you say; trying to stop countries attacking each other; and balancing the economic and military needs of the powers.

The defence and spy satellites, which can be deployed anywhere on the world map, are important in information-gathering and in minimising damage when the nukes start flying around. If a spy satellite is positioned over a country, it'll come up with random pieces of information about the opinions and affairs of that power. (It can annoy the country, too!)

But I refuse to believe that putting an enormously expensive spy satellite in the air is the most efficient way of finding out a country's attitudes - it's one of the artificial difficulties which The Armageddon Man's system creates.

Scanning radio transmissions and decoding the Jumbled communications also provides information.

Standard letters are your only means of communication with the governments of the superpowers. You can send a letter of support, or a reprimand, or a request for one or two countries to improve their relations with each other. You rarely get the courtesy of a reply, though countries sometimes send you letters trying to get food or resources out of their neighbours or complaining about another country's behaviour and demanding a reprimand. You must respond immediately to these letters on a 'yes, no or ignore' basis, which again leaves little scope for subtlety.

Secret agents go missing (there's nothing you can do about this)' countries give preferential import factors to other countries, which is supposed to indicate a friendly relationship between them; and now and again a Supreme Commander can learn he's no longer wanted in office by a particular government.

Unprovoked messages frequently flash up on the screen, telling the player that two countries have decided to cooperate, or are exchanging cultural visits, or are nuking each s other. Sometimes you are given the opportunity to approve, disapprove or ask for talks. Talks rarely seem to do a lot of good, even if antagonists agree to your suggestion.

Now all this is intended to create a sophisticated and complicated international atmosphere which you can learn to control. But The Armageddon Man comes across as too subtle and complex for its own good. There's no way of keeping track of all the tangled international relations, and no way of influencing events precisely enough.

The map and stickers are supposed to play a part in this; you plot which countries are friendly and hostile toward which other countries by using the vinyl flags. But the game moves too fast for you to use them properly, and if information is simply not picked up it can't go on the map anyway.

And what seems to be the most important set of parameters, the opinion that each country has of all the other powers, is kept deliberately obscure. It's difficult to predict aggression, and because wars in The Armageddon Man tend to erupt between aggressive unstable powers like the Islamic Alliance and Argentina you can't do much about them. The warmongers simply ignore your polite requests for talks, and wouldn't disarm if you told them to.

One country can even decide to throw missiles at another simply because it doesn't have anything better to do on a boring Tuesday afternoon. Quite often there's no escalation. Australia will suddenly decide to discharge its nuclear arsenal on Japan, or Canada on Europe. And when two countries go to war, no-one else will join in; even when I played to lose, nothing apocalyptic happened.

There was simply a series of nuclear wars between pairs of countries, which eventually pushed up the radiation level of the planet to a point where life was impossible, and so the game ended. That seems to be the only way The Armageddon Man can end.

This is grossly unrealistic, even in game terms. For a start, the player's Supreme Commander figure would have all the details of world affairs to hand.

The Armageddon Man is beautifully programmed and reasonably original in conception. Some might enjoy playing about with it for a while, and the vinyl flag stickers have some imaginative uses, but this game isn't likely to give long-term satisfaction.

Martech Games
£12.95

They call me The Armageddon Man because ah'm a-geddon tired of all these warring nations. Seems that things have got so bad in the year 2032 that they've had to add another N to the UN to give it extra weight.

Life's not easy as head of the UNN, when its members are determined to do the dirty on each other behind your back. With allies like these, who needs enemies?

The game's an icon driven exercise in strategy, which may look like The Fourth Protocol, but it's far more diffuse as everyone tries to break every other protocol as well. Be grateful for the friendly control system because everything else is one hundred percent hostile.

International diplomacy is just like juggling, only more difficult. You've got 16 nations to keep happy, and four aims. The first is economic stability and the second concerns the military balance. Allow either of these to get out of hand and sure enough, truces will topple.

Keeping the peace is your third aim. After all, you won't have much of a world to govern if they let loose their missiles at each other.

But a strict letter condemning that outbreak of rioting which was aimed against the Indian Embassy in Canada won't do any good unless you've maintained a good working relationship with the countries involved. This is where your real diplomatic skills come in. You have to know how to react to individual requests and actions as they occur.

To help you in your task you have five primary resources. An information window lets you access the figures on food, technology and nuclear capability. This last area presents particular problems, as you try to work out whether it's safe to agree to a country's request to increase its allowance of warheads.

Backing up this data are the waves of communications that flood into your letter rack. Often these will flash onto the screen, interrupting whatever you're doing, but others may pile up in the tray, and vital information could be lost if you don't get to them in time.

However, it's not all reading, and your mail is made easier by the use of certain standard communiques, ranging from the congratulatory to the sharp slap on the wrists.

Of course, there are times when the pen isn't mightier than the sword, so the UNN provides you with a peace-keeping force, which can be ordered anywhere in the world to put the squeeze on a potential aggressor, though it will take a week to get there. But you won't be top man for long if you garrison the troops in somebody's backyard for months on end!

In the field of high-tech tactics, you have six SDI defence satellites and three Big Bird 'eyes in the sky'. Shift the former around the globe to warn generals that their missile strikes may not reach their targets when a country gets out of line. The spy satellites let you keep tapped in on secret communications, and a well- placed one can cover more than one nation.

Finally, you'd do well to listen to the radio. No, not Mike Smith - eavesdrop on the military and the politicians to find out what they really think about each other - and about you! One problem is that all messages are coded, but a bit of playing about to discover the correct sequence of the eight buttons on the cypher panel may unscramble them.

If you do your job properly everyone will co-exist in perfect harmony and flowers will grow and little fluffy bunnies will bounce in summer meadows... but if you don't the world will get blown to kingdom come!

Conventional conflicts are the first signs of things going wrong, and while they don't do too much to upset the power balance, they can soon lead to limited nuclear wars, and if the opponents have built up strong enough alliances, all sorts of unlikely partnerships can develop resulting in the biggest bang of your life.

For a game based on the brainbusting diplomacy of international relations, The Armageddon Man plays remarkably smoothly, thanks to the icons and menus.

The slick presentation extends to the packaging, which includes a fold-out map and stickers - invaluable to keep track on alliances and, if you're as bad at geography as I am, as a guide to positioning satellites. Unfortunately, there's an economic factor here that shouldn't puzzle a potential UNN leader - the map has forced the program's price up above the magical tenner.

There's also the question of the game's long term appeal, because as week follows week and your personal ratings are displayed, you may find that there's too little variety in your task. In fact, the whole affair could become as trying as watching children squabble amongst themselves, and you may just feel inclined to lie back and watch the animated display as they blow each other to kingdom come!

STRATEGY IS BACK!!

Yes, folks, strategy is back! Bigger, better and now fashionable too!!

With so much coverage in the news of the Reagan-Gorbachev arms limitation talks - you can't move these days without hearing or reading something about it - quite a number of the new titles deal with world power struggles. We review Armageddon Man from Martech and preview Power Struggle from PSS and High Frontier from Activision. Convoy Raider - which is reviewed - is all sea warfare and Exocets and Guadal Canal - here previewed - follows the fortunes of the US and Japanese forces in WWII.

Label: Martech
Author: John Wilson
Price: £12.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tamara Howard

Strategy is BACK! Don't ask me why - but suddenly strategy games are all in fashion.

One of the first releases of what is promising to be a flood of Star Wars SDI influenced games is Armageddon Man from Martech.

Imagine playing the parts of Reagan, Thatcher, Gadhaffi, Gorbachev, Gandhi and a cast of thousands, all at the same time.

Now imagine that you have to act for each of those Heads of State, with complete impartiality, making decisions for them, without being biased towards one country. Providing everyone with enough food, technology and armaments to keep them feeling secure. Prevent the stronger countries from making too many demands on the weaker ones. And prevent a full scale nuclear war.

In a nutshell, Armageddon Man gives you your first (and probably only) chance at playing God.

You've been appointed Supreme Commander of the United Nuclear Nations, it's up to you to maintain peace and harmony between the sixteen states, and stability within the 240 countries which make up those states.

You must maintain a good working relationship with each state You must promote good relations between each of the states themselves. You must achieve economic stability and maintain it.

Obviously no easy task. Your appointment lasts for a year, regular weekly progress reports will be given throughout the course of the game. You begin with a smart map of the world, a full complement of satellites and spying equipment, and what is commonly termed an "on-going situation".

Armageddon Man works rather like an icon-driven adventure. At the start it's up to you to deploy your satellites in sensible positions. You have three 'Big Bird' satellites and six SDI satellites. Big Birds are used to spy on the area directly underneath them and they relay messages to you as to what the country beneath them is up to. SDI satellites are used in the event of a nuclear attack and are capable of trapping some of the missiles, and preventing them from reaching their targets.

It makes sense therefore, to place the Big Birds in an area that is likely to cause trouble and needs careful watching, and to place SDI satellites near either known missiles bases or near important targets.

SDI satellites are only useful in small-scale wars. If the Big One does break out, there's nothing you can do to prevent world-wide destruction.

Once the satellites are in position, you're in control. Regular memos flash on to the screen informing you of world events. Some are a little dull - China have a cultural exchange with Libya. Others are pretty heavy - a full-scale war has broken out between America and the USSR.

Each time a memo flashes up, you'll have a choice of what to do. You choose between agreeing or disagreeing with the action, supporting it, criticising it, or ignoring it.

However, if you choose to ignore an event, make sure you have a good reason for doing so. Forget about what seems to be a minor event, and you would well find yourself being caught out later on.

You can also send letters out. Should you decide to do so, move the cursor over the Out tray, and press Fire. A standard list of letters will flash up. Insert the country/countries name, and a complete letter will show on screen. You can then choose whether to send the letter.

You'll have to think fast. It's all real-time and while you're dithering about wondering whether or not China's request that the Americans give them ten tonnes of food is reasonable or not, the Libyans could invading Algeria. (Unlikely, but don't discount the possibility).

Best thing about the game is you get a free shiny poster-map of the world, and a set of re-usable flags for each of the States. By using the stickers to remind yourself who likes who and who hates who's guts, you have a slightly better chance of keeping up with current affairs.

Don't count on it though. Armageddon Man is tricky and there's a lot of time to get through before you finish the through before you finish.

After only four weeks as Supreme Controller, despite several letters of confidence from the European Unite, my record was described as 'Very Poor', and many were howling for my resignation.

At times like these, it feels as though Armageddon is just around the corner, and the temptation to deliberately bring it about gets too much to cope with, and naughtiness creeps in. Missiles start to fly, and the term Goodnight Saigon comes into play. I destroyed Australia at my first attempt. No more Fosters for us.

Armageddon Man is almost frighteningly absorbing, although I'm not sure that I could make it through fifty-two weeks without getting a little frustrated. Madness would undoubtedly creep in. Keeping the world ticking over has to the ultimate in strategy play.

Supplier: Martech
Version Tested: Spectrum

IT'S 2032 AD and the world is not a safe place. You are the Supreme Commander of the UNN - The Armageddon Man: your mission is to keep the peace between the rival nations, using all available resources to ensure that nuclear war does not break out. You are resident in an enormous and sophisticated satellite codenamed Olympus, where you control a network of spy and laser defence satellites.

In this icon-driven strategy game the screen is split into two main sections. A map of the world occupies the top right comer while the five main icons displayed to the left and across the bottom of the screen are your means of controlling the game, your satellite icon means you can secretly listen to messages. The communication icon is divided into In and Out trays enabling you to read and send messages. The radio monitoring icon, enabling you to receive radio messages; some of these though need a fair bit of decoding.

Armageddon Man's gameplay depends largely on the memo's which pop onto the screen throughout the game; they demand action either immediately or in the future, and how you respond to them determines the course of events. Firing off a stiff note reprimanding two powers who aren't getting along can defuse an explosive situation, if you just ignore events then sooner or later there's going to be a nuclear war.

Since maintaining peace and stability are your main objectives, you must ensure that countries have a sound economy and that they are getting along with the other countries. And military stability is, of course, particularly important.

There's nothing graphically outstanding in the program but Armageddon Man has a lot to offer; the deeper you get into it the more rewarding it becomes. Note though, that The Armageddon Man is a game more for the seasoned strategist than the dabbler.

Reviewer: Andy Smith

RELEASE BOX
Spectrum, £12.95cs, Out Now
Amstrad, £12.95cs, £19.95dk, Imminent
C64/128, £12.95cs, £13.95dk, Imminent

Predicted Interest Curve

1 min: 5/10
1 hour: 6/10
1 day: 7/10
1 week: 6/10
1 month: 4/10
1 year: 3/10

MACHINES: Spectrum/Amstrad/C64
SUPPLIER: Martech
PRICE: £12.95 (tape), £14.95 (C64 disk), £19.95 (Amstrad disk)
VERSION TESTED: Spectrum

Armageddon out of here! The world is a dangerous place and I've been put in total charge of it! Talk about mind-boggling - it's even worse than running the C+VG office!

Martech's newie is a strategy game which you'll either love or hate. There's no real action - but it will tax your patience and test you diplomatic skills to the max.

Like Catch 23 it's a big game - but this time not big in terms it's a complex simulation. And although it's supposed to be set far in the future some of the scenarios you come across are horribly close to the present.

Playing the game is like Risk or Diplomacy in reverse - instead of looking after the interests of one country you have to babysit the whole world! Which makes it a bit of an acquired taste.

The year is 2032, there are 16 nuclear superpowers and the world is balanced on a knife edge. To prevent disaster they have formed the United Nuclear Nations and appointed a Supreme Commander to oversee the economies, technological development and weaponry of these nations.

The Supreme Commander, that's you, sits high above the world in a space station codenamed Olympus, collecting information and reports via a network of defence and intelligence satellites. You are the Armageddon Man, in control or the destiny of the Earth.

Your task is to prevent Armageddon. How you achieve this is up to you! There are three main aims.

AIM ONE: Achieve a good working relationship with each individual country.

There are 16 member countries of the UNN. Each country has its own political system, its own problems, its own aims and most importantly its own personality. The only thing they all have in common is a desire not to be destroyed. You must learn how to deal with each country in different situations, some serious, some not so serious.

Each country will be in regular contact with you for advice, guidance or approval of their actions. You must learn when to give way, when to be firm and when to compromise.

A country which becomes unstable is much more likely to be unreasonable or aggressive towards both you and any other countries it has poor relations with.

AIM TWO: Promote good working relationships between each individual country and each of its 15 fellow UNN members.

AIM THREE: Achieve economic stability.

Each country has two principle needs, FOOD and RESOURCES. If a country has a deficiency in either of these areas it will be less stable, it will also be seeking to gain any shortfall from other countries, either by coercion or trade. You must keep an eye on each country's resources and as far as possible try to allocate them fairly or in whatever way you feel is appropriate given the prevailing conditions. The extent to which you are able to control the movement of resources will depend largely on your relationship with each country involved and also on their relationship with each other.

AIM FOUR: Achieve military stability.

Some countries may be naturally more aggressive, others more peaceful. However, of paramount importance to a country is its own security.

INFORMATION: If you select this icon a window will open presenting you with three further sub-icons. By choosing one of these you will be presented with the latest intelligence reports on each country's status in three vital areas, food, resources, missiles.

COMMUNICATION: This icon is divided into IN and OUT. Choose the IN icon you can look at letters that countries send to you. Choose the OUT icon a menu of standard letters that you can send to countries will appear.

SATELLITES: Choice of this icon will display the satellites which are available. By moving the cursor over a satellite and pressing FIRE you pick the satellite up. Move the cursor over the World Map to position the satellite in geo-stationary orbit and press FIRE to release it.

RADIO: The world's airwaves are alive with radio transmissions which originate from each of the 16 UNN member countries. The information carried by these transmissions may provide you with invaluable information.

Wars come in two types, conventional or nuclear. Conventional wars are punitive. In such a conflict both sides realise that due to the enormous advances in weapon technology it is virtually impossible for either side to win. However, they can ease the tension between two countries, but whether this happens depends entirely on the relative strength of each country involved and further to that, on who attacked who.

They do little damage in themselves but if they are not over quickly, they tend to escalate into nuclear war.

If one country launches a missile or missiles at another country, you will see the missiles tracking towards their targets on your world map. At this stage, it will be too late for your to move your SDI satellites to shoot them down. If you did not spot the conflict coming and did not cover it with your satellites, then all missiles launched will strike their targets.

A side effect of any nuclear conflict is an increase in the level of radioactivity in the Earth's atmosphere.

It is not necessary, therefore, for every country in the world to be destroyed for Armageddon to occur. A large scale nuclear war between two countries only may still release enough lethal radioactivity into the atmosphere to kill the entire population of the world.

As you can see you've got a lot on your plate if you decide become the Armageddon Man.

I went for a total nuclear disarmament policy before I could get rid of all the missiles Japan and Libya decided - out of the blue - to have a little conflict! No warning at all.

Then I attempted to start a big conflict by doing stupid things and suddenly got fired!

Armageddon Man is a thought provoking and well put together gamebut you'll have to be a strategy or wargame fan to enjoy it to the full.