You remember Campaign, a wargame that swaggers to its friends about having a added 3D battlefield option. Despite this hard pub-talk, the game didn't work too well. It just tried to do too much and ended up not doing anything brilliantly.

Back in issue 44 we awarded the original Campaign 20 per cent. This, as it turns out, was a little harsh. The bugs which caused original copies of the game to crash were later removed, and the game was re-released bug-free. So, if you buy Campaign now, you shouldn't have any problems. (Indeed, to run this mission disk you need an original copy of Campaign.)

Anyway, undaunted by our review, Empire have launched a counterstrike with the cunningly entitled Campaign: From North Africa To Northern Europe. This, quite patently, is a stack of new scenarios, all historically accurate down to the last jerry-can of stale water. So maybe you liked Campaign. Maybe you love the idea of having another 25 scenarios to play around with. Maybe when you rushed home and tore open the box, you were disappointed when all that dropped out was one disk and a thin manual, occupying 1.7 percent of the actual space of the packaging. Never mind. 25 missions is a number not to be sniffed at.

The scenarios are arranged in rouogh chronological order, presumably so that it's possible to play through them in order and end up feeling exactly like you've just come through the latter half of the war. The rumbling all starts at Tripoli, then drifts across Libya, briefly popping up to Berlin for a scrap, before settling back down in the deserts for some more slapping. Then the melee spreads to Italy. Of course, it doesn't last long there, and before you know it, the focus is on Russia. Someone once said, "Never find a land war in Asia." I forget who it was. Fanny Craddock, possibly.

Anyway, around scenario nine you get to test out this maxim by having a go at Kiev or Leningrad. It's an incredibly complex tank-frenzy, and if the idea of lots of heavy armour moves you - you're going to be riveted to the screen.

So you get the general idea. There are loads of maps basically. You can try rearguard actions, beach-landings, massive tank wars, river crossings and, oh, everything.

Whether or not Campaign: From North Africa To Norther Europe is any good depends on what you think of Campaign itself. The major problem is just that it tries to be two things and fails to be either. If you want 3D vehicle destroying, surely you can get a Battlezone-type game? If you're a strategy fan, you're likely to recoil in disgust at the idea of actually driving a tank across a plain, and shooting at differently coloured baddies.

The graphics aren't too bad. Well, the 3D sections are quite good. They inevitably slow down badly when there are lots of vehicles around, though. The strategic views aren't so hot. A jerkily zoomable map and a few screens depicting units is your lot. It does the job - just.

You can play either the Allies (hooray) or the Axis forces (boo), and it's possible to customise each scenario to weigh it heavily in your favour, as any self-respecting General would do. In fact, the customising options of Campaign is one of its strongest features. You can lay minefields, set forces and decide their locations and formations. This means that the amount of work that went into producing this missions disk must be less than any other comparable product; the writes could do it all from inside Campaign.

Campaign is flawed, but still remains playable, especially if you didn't partake too much of the 3D sections. This addition takes the game further, and 25 is a healthy number of scenarios to play.

So really, it's impossible to criticise a missions disk which is limited by the parent program. Let's put it like this: From North Africa To Northern Europe is Campaign at its best. And it'll take a long time to play though (and win) each scenario. If Campaign worked for you, this disk is a necessity.

1. 25 long battles, all historically accurate and very varied.

1. Campaign isn't the best wargame around, though.