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To celebrate the release of this brilliant sci-fi role-player, those nice people at Gremlin Graphics sent us a copy of the original board game to play with when we're supposed to be worki... er, when we've got a bit of free time. It turned up in the morning post in a big brown wrapper, and there was a mad scramble as we ripped the parcel open, tipped the contents of the box on the floor and set to work.

We put together the playing pieces, armed the little men and sorted through the cards, punched out all the die-cut counters, counted the dice, joined the different sections of the board, assembled all the scenery, put the little men in their stands, selected a mission, and then... er, then it was time to go home. Space Crusade the boardgame is fab, no question, but there are a couple of minor problems with it. Firstly, the fact that it takes the best part of a week to set up (and even longer if you plan on reading the rules). And secondly, there's no one-player option, which means you can't play it when you're alone in your room and supposed to be doing your homework. Gah!

But worry not, dear readers, such is the miracle of microchip technology. Space Crusade the computer game traverses both those niggling little problems. The scenery assembles itself and the computer provides a more than adequate inhuman adversary. Hurrah!

If there are any complaints to be made about Space Crusade they'd probably revolve around it being a bit easy. A committed gamer will finish the twelve missions within a reasonable period of time, most of them at the first attempt.

The covertape demo lists the "exalted rank of Captain Semoris" as the target for the Space Crusade player. Sorry, but yours truly managed that within two hours (and three missions). And that was with completing the missions properly. Never mind the secondary missions, you can get away with-out finishing the primary ones. Just shoot a few aliens and you'll have enough points to gain those galactic jelly tots (honour badges).

Having said that, Space Crusade is clearly a Mastergame. Even if you do finish all the missions, you'll still go back to them (whilst waiting for that expansion kit to appear), because these games have a level of involvement about them sadly lacking in most games today.

The sound (for 6128 owners at least) is brilliant, the graphics are wonderfully detailed (the stylish Mode 1 stuff we expect from Gremlin), and tactical thought rather than finger-power is the necessary pre-requisite.

The dice rolls add a little luck to the proceedings. We don't really know what's going on as far as the dice bit is concerned, but that's only because we haven't looked at the manual. The fact we can get into the game without having glanced at said hefty tome is in itself a tribute to the quality of the game.

Like its predecessor Hero Quest, Space Crusade is an overhead-view tactical game with arcade sequences for the bits that go bang. Read the box-outs on these pages, play the covertape demo, and if you don't immediately rush out and buy the thing then you're either very poor or completely daft.

A great game. I much preferred it to the swords-and-sorcery of Hero Quest. Laser Squad is still the strategic role-player to beat in my books, though.

There are twelve different missions in Space Crusade (you'll find the first one sellotaped to the front of this ish). Each one plays the same way. The differences come in the form of twelve different spaceships (i.e. map layouts) and twelve different objectives (though most just involve blowing up something/someone). Oh yes, and the baddies get harder and more abundant as the mission numbers rise.

You can select any mission you like. There is no set order in which you have to complete them, and none of that 'you can't go on the final mission till you've finished the other ones' rubbish. Here's the (primary) missions in brief...

1. Seek And Destroy This is the one on the covertape. You've got to find a Dreadnought (a very nasty ED-209 style robot) and blow it up. This is one of the hardest missions of all, since it's the one of only two in which the objective isn't marked on the map. You've really got to look for the thing!

2. Eliminate And Survive Kill lots of aliens. In a one-player game, you've got to wipe out the five Chaos Marines. These are on the map. They're just round the corner from where you start the game. This is very easy.

3. Disable Alien Vessel Go to where the engine is and blow it up. By the way, there's around 20 million aliens guarding it! This is not so easy.

4. Locate And Rescue Grab a brain and run off with it. This is very similar to mission three.

5. Locate And Retrieve Brains you rescue, experimental weapons you retrieve. A third opportunity to leg it to a target, get shot at a lot. then leg it out.

6. Purge And Withdraw The title could have been better phrased: this one involves running to an outer door, opening it and running away again before being engulfed by the vacuum. You're about twice as fast as the vacuum. Baddies galore, but pretty easy.

7. Interception The easiest mission of the lot. Shoot fifteen aliens (if you can find that many!) and leave.

8. Exterminate Kill some Soulsuckers (ten in a one-player game). These guys are nasty and quite hard to kill.

9. Locate And Exterminate Tricky. Find some Soulsucker eggs (they're not on the map) and destroy them. What do you reckon the chances are they're being guarded by some Soulsuckers? Hmm...

10. Sabotage And Withdraw Similar to mission six, but with a greater number of hard baddies (androids) in it.

11. Destroy Alien Ship 17 Activate the self-destruct in the control room. Similar to missions three, four and five.

12. Destroy Cube Of Chaos Yet another run in, gunfight, run out one. This probably isn't the hardest mission, but there's so many baddies in your way that it is pretty darned tricky to reach that Cube.

Graphics 93%
Totally bodacious four-colour art. Very detailed.

Sonics 64%
A few explosions and footsteps and things (on the 6128).

Grab Factor 94%
You raced home to load the demo, didn't you?

Staying Power 78%
You'll finish this. But you'll still want to play it again.

Overall 91%
Space Crusade is a game and a half. Hero Quest with laser guns - you can't go wrong, can you?