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When you've got to save a planet from destruction by bacterial warhead, there's only one group who can help you: the Bureau of Astral Troubleshooters. Join the fun and explore a planet full of hostile aliens and cab drivers. Andrew "Just the facts, ma'am, please" Hutchinson is our man with the holograms and the HAS-10 missile launcher...

Against all odds, the inhabitants of Earth somehow manage to survive into the 22nd century with most of the planet still intact. However, big business is now in control (sounds familiar!) and the Government are getting worried. Their novel solution is to banish all the heavyweight multi-national businessmen from the planet. These poor suffering chaps struggle 20 light years to a planet called Selenia, which they promptly transform into a teeming metropolis. Everyone, it would seem, is happy. Well, not quite everyone: there's a nasty geezer by the name of Vragnor (I'd be nasty if I had a name like that) who wants to use Selenia as a Petri dish for his chemical experiments.

You'd think the folks back on Earth would be quite happy about Vragnor trashing Selenia, but you'd be wrong. Earth now does a lot of trading with Selenia and if the planet went the way of the SDP they'd feel it in their wallets. This is where the Astral Troubleshooters come in. You are their top operative and your job is to nobble Vragnor before he nobbles Selenia.

B.A.T. is a freeform graphic adventure set in 1,000 different locations. The initial section of the game enables you to design your character by setting the key personality traits of force, intelligence, charisma, perception, vitality and reflexes. You must also choose at this point the weapons you want to carry. Your persona can then be saved on a disk and the main game started.

The scenes you see are portrayed in a series of cartoon-like windows. The game is played entirely with the mouse, and to interact with characters and objects you move the pointer around the screen until it's over the item you wish to examine further. The icon changes depending on what the pointer is on: if it's on a door, for instance, the arrow icon appears; if it's on a character, there's a speech bubble. There are twelve of these dynamic icons in total (although you see some of them very rarely) and they enable you to drink, sleep or walk as well as converse with, attack or kill other characters.

There are seven different kinds of alien in the game world - Stickrobs, Glokmups, Kradokids, Skunks, Humans, Cops and Killer Robots. These offer varying amounts of help or resistance: the Cops for example are generally quite helpful; the Skunks will sell you some ammo or drugs and the Killer Robots just want to whip your knackers off.

The odds aren't entirely stacked against you. There are some extremely handy gadgets which make surviving on Selenia considerably easier - especially your inbuilt Bidirectional Organic Bioputer. BOB is built into your wrist and has some very nifty tricks up your sleeve. For a start he can speak alien and therefore is very helpful when a large limb-eating monster decides you've spilt its pint. He also has a complete rundown on how your body systems are functioning at any moment and he can speed up or slow down your heartbeat should the need arise. BOB can be programmed (just like an ST on your arm, really) and thus can tell you when there's a killer robot about or when you're getting too hungry.

For getting around the planet, B.A.T. includes a flight simulator called "the drag" - a futuristic craft set out as a three way split screen displaying a radar, the view in front and a view of yourself, all on-screen at once.

Detail is crammed into every screen of the game. There are so many characters to interrogate, locations to search and machines to operate that it's possible to spend a millennium (approx) on just one screen trying to get some information. The graphics are excellent: moody backdrops of the futuristic city are overlaid with people and objects. The scenes develop in portions of the screen in a very comic book style, varying from close ups of aliens to panoramic views of the city. Animated characters scuttle across these scenes and really bring the whole picture to life.

Sound is amazing, basically because the game comes complete with a 16-track sound card. You can either plug your headphones into the socket on the card or connect the whole thing up to the stereo for some dazzling sound effects. There are innumerable songs, playing according to your location, and some great spot effects for items like lasers.

B.A.T. is a revolutionary game in many ways, so remarkable that it's likely to be copied mercilessly by other software houses. It looks great and plays well - in fact, the gameplay itself is so surprisingly quick that it's all too easy to get blasé and be killed. There's no chance of getting bored, though: one of the best features is that there's no set route you have to take through the world of Selenia, and there are several different ways of solving any one problem.

The thinking behind the dynamic icons is inspired: they enable you to interact with characters or move from one location to another swiftly and effortlessly. The sound card produces superb results and hasn't bumped up the price of the game too much - and considering that it's going to be used with future Ubisoft releases, it actually represents exemplary value for money.

B.A.T. has all the makings of a classic game. Particularly in terms of ease of use and long term interest, it simply leaves the rest of the field standing.