What must life be like in the army, eh? Getting up at the crack of dawn, peeling some spuds, doing a quick three hour jog around the park, followed by target practice and intensive shoe-shining. Come to think of it, that all sounds vaguely reminiscent of the routine at EMAP Towers, and in particular Mean Machines.

Admiral Gus has us up at the crack of dawn, nipping off to the local sandwich shop to get a large tea and a cheese toastie for his breakfast. Then we not so much jog, as burn our fingers off, doing all of our work in double quick time. The target practice is us again, for anything he feels we need to be mocked about (usually our social lives and health) and then the shoe-shining duties are all that stand between us and the Emap barracks for our daily six hours of sleep. And to think you thought we had a cushy job! Well, at least that was the case until this game came along. Because now Admiral Gus has found other people to practise his strategies and tactics on, namely the crew you inherit in Iron Storm, the new wargame from Sega US.

There have been previous attempts at war strategy games, namely Panzer General, but this is the first game of its kind on the Saturn.

Once your mission is selected, you must defeat all of the enemy planes, ships, troops, subs, etc.

The best thing about this game is that there are numerous cut screens used to break up the endless starting at the hexagon-strewn playing area. These occur when your troops attempt to destroy the enemy craft. Then action then cuts to a Wing Arms-style shooting sequence as the planes, for example, do battle with each other.

The numbers in either corner of the screen represent how many craft or energy points your guys have left, and how many the baddies have. Each of the craft has a couple of sequences with our personal favourite, the submarine, being particularly noteworthy.

Any trainspotting types out there may find this game has an added little treasure trove to feast your eyes on. Available to you at any time in the game is the ability to view each of the good and bad targets on the playing map.

By highlighting any vehicle that has had its go, and pressing C, you'll be treated to a 'fiddle' screen in which you can rotate the craft in any way, zoom in and out and have a baz at the stats surrounding it, like weapon storage and class etc.

For the mere mortals amongst us, this is just a waste of time and is annoying if you press the wrong button, but everyone else will probably find this pretty smart.

This is a very complex and detailed game. Working Design (who were also responsible for Shining Wisdom) have clearly gone to a lot of effort to get every detail right - 50 World War Two campaigns have been recreated here and my shaky history lesson memories tell me that everything is spot on.

I reckon a game of this size, complexity and detail deserves as much time as you can invest in it - there's clearly no room here for people who aren't into instruction manuals!

My experience of strategy games is pretty limited but, although this is the only option to Saturn owners, I certainly rate this on gameplay and appearance. If you're prepared to put a lot into your games to get a lot out, I reckon you won't be disappointed.

Blimey, this is a little long-winded. If anybody has a spare 20-odd hours to burn, then you could really get into this, but for anyone else who isn't a recluse or serving a life sentence, this may be a little too tedious to get into. It's not a game that you can pick up and play straight away, and as a result many will be put off, as you'll end up getting completely bored and fed up because you're not actually shooting anything.

However, it is all presented in a very polished manner, and gets around the restriction in size on tanks and such by showing very detailed miniature versions of the weapons.

As mentioned elsewhere in the review, it also contains some excellent cut screens, which help to break up the action. But at the end of the day, I found my mind switching off and wandering too quickly, and playing soon became monotonous. Definitely not one for the short-tempered.

Graphics 80%
P. Some good cut-screens and a lot of attention paid to small details mean that this has the best possible presentation.

Animation 79%
P. Other than the fight sequences, animation isn't really required in a game like this.

Music 73%
N. Nothing to write home about. The odd Platoon-style tune, but that doesn't cut the mustard.

Effects 81%
P. Explosions and bangs are above average.

Playability 77%
P. Spend the time, and you'll be rewarded...
N. But becomes too tedious too quickly, so you'll be reaching for the off button.

Lastability 80%
P. It's rock hard!
N. But why would you want to play through it if it's boring?!

Overall 79%
Probably about as good as you're likely to get with this sort of game. For budding Hitlers only, however.