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Superpower is a strategy game showing the superpowers' influence over Third World countries, and is intended to supplement a Political Studies course. Each player runs the intelligence agency of a major world power, with the ultimate aim of protecting his power's assets in a continent of developing countries.

At the beginning, each player has assets in the nine Third World countries, and each is struggling to achieve the highest rate of profit growth. This might be brought about by peaceful strategies, such as building a defensive alliance among the strong countries, or by more aggressive means such as encouraging nations to nationalise a rival's assets. A variety of information is available: a report on any country shows its stability, wealth, foreign relations and government spending: a comparison can be obtained between nations in terms of industry, debt and government spending; or a study can be made of a superpowers' assets table. This information should help the player to make decisions, including what to do about investment, foreign policy, taxes and the armed forces.

Annual budgets must be adhered to, and the players must therefore indulge in a variety of strategies, either to maximise the growth rate of their own country or to minimise that of the others. A player might, for example, find himself weighing up the arguments and counter-arguments for persuading a friendly nation to spend more on welfare. While this might reduce expenditure on the hated police force, it could mean that the country is left unprotected from coup or assassination attempts.

A detailed understanding of political theory is a pre-requisite for the successful tackling of this program, but it is useful in extending a student's depth of understanding.

Control keys: clearly explained and kept as simple as possible
Keyboard play: very good
Graphics: sensible use of graphs and tables in most programs. The graphics in Airline are particularly good
Use of Colour: limited