The ancient game of Kingdoms has been given yet another twist in this variation. Based on the film of the same name insofar as it deals with mining of rocket fuel on the planet "Outworld", you are faced with "your toughest job yet".

You have to make as much money as possible in three years, and you begin by choosing the land to mine and your workforce from the Grobblys, Pifflumps and Slurians. By buying machinery and organising loans you can get to work and hope to survive. (I hate games which say "Good luck", don't you?)

This theme really has been worked to death, the best being the "Mugsy" variations with other others in line behind them.

The game is competent, little sketch characters liven up the text, but there is nothing to get the adrenalin flowing. The program is written in Basic which is adequate for this kind of game as fast responses are not needed.

It is well presented, text and colour are nicely balanced and sound is almost non-existent (it would probably be a distraction anyway). Screen layouts have been carefully thought out.

I must admit I enjoyed playing this game though. It is easy to grasp the fundamentals, fairly well error-trapped and nicely prompted for inputs. During play it is quite difficult to make a fortune, mining disasters and compensation payouts occur too frequently for the liking of budding Mr. Scargills, but overall the algorithms have been nicely balanced.

Nothing to get excited over, but you could do a lot worse if you want a game of this type. My main criticism is that the options, information and events are a bit limited compared to those provided by the kings of strategy games, CCS. But, for a pleasant, simple game, this one is recommended, and at least you can win occasionally.