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You know the feeling. You wake up on a rainy Monday morning only to find that a vicious slave trading empire has set its sights on your post-nuclear-winter island. Andy Hutchinson resignedly pulls on his latex hot-pants, dons his flying goggles and sets a course for Agora, an island where the Flames of Freedome still flicker...

It's now been eighteen months since we reviewed the trail blazing world-game Midwinter. The boys who produced that 94%-rated game have been busy as bluebottles on a really fresh cow-pat, working on the sequel, Flames Of Freedom.

The game's storyline (and for once this is significant) takes up (shock horror) where Midwinter ended. John Stark has saved the isle of Midwinter from domination by the Shining Hollow army, but now the island is sinking once more beneath the sea. The remaining inhabitants of Midwinter therefore join forces with the inhabitants of Agora and form the Federation.

The Saharan Empire controls 41 of the 42 islands which spread west from the African mainland. Agora is the only island they haven't touched, but they've now got their sights set on total domincation and Captain John Stark is mobilising all the agents in the Federation in a bid to stop those thoroughly rough sorts turning Agora into so much silage.

Midwinter 2 can be played in any number of ways, although there are three main options to choose from: fire-fight, campaign or raid. The "fire-fight" option drops you into the thick of the action with the sole purpose of blasting everything in sight. You start off in a flying-sub, but you can hijack further vehicles when yours wears out.

The "raid" option enables you to pick off single islands. Each island offers completely different challenges and objectives and they are thus mini-games in themselves. An average sized island takes at least a day to complete but if you choose this option they have no effect on the Saharan empire - they're simply a shorter game option.

The "campaign" option enables you to play a long, strategy-intensive game, which can easily take you several months to complete. Here, you have to make sure you choose islands because of their strategic importance rather than the level of fun you can have on them. Each island is rated from one to five skulls, with five being the hardest.

The tricky islands aren't necessarily the ones with the highest levels of enemy firepower; they're often the ones with the most stubborn islanders. The islands are populated by citizens, soldiers, resistance fighters and workers. All of these have different personalities, so they may or may not help you. In fact, some who offer their help may turn around and betray you. On several islands, resistance fighters can shop you to the local constabulary.

You definitely need the help of the islanders. They can blow up enemy convoys for you, provide shelter, transport or guns or take you on a trip to meet another person. If they appear a little unwilling to help, you can bring them around to your way of thinking by using your personal characteristics - such as sex appeal, "justice" or strength - to convince them that the Federation is a force for good old-fashioned democracy.

There are 22 different modes of transport, although you can't find all 22 on every island. At the start of a particular island mission, you're kitted out with a vehicle; it may be a nifty flying-sub or a groovy helicopter. Often these have to be discarded - possibly because you've run out of ammo, but more often because you've just been blown up.

If you get close enough to another vehicle, a special action window appears. Hit F1 and you can hijack the vehicle. Each type handles completely differently - balloons cannot be steered, just raised or lowered; mini-subs are quick and manoeuvrable but don't offer much protection; trains have to stay on rails; flying-subs can go anywhere.

To get around, you need to make extensive use of the map screen. This fractal image details all the settlements, people, roads and craft you've encountered or were informed of at the beginning of the mission. Locations can be travelled to via an autoroute function which cuts out the cross-country travelling.

Storming. Midwinter 2 firmly establishes itself at the forefront of graphic effects. Mike Singleton and his team have stuffed over a million square miles of 3D world into the game, all of it generated by light-sourced fractals.

The scenes at sea are particularly impressive. If you're in a boat, for instance, you bob about in real-time. If you surface in a sub, the waves lap up and down in front of the periscope.

You can go anywhere and look at everything in the game-world. The enemy craft zip around with tremendous realism, right down to the fact that they turn their lights on when it gets dark (a scene which itself is accompanied by a slow change from dusk to nightfall).

Each section has its own detailed graphic and special icons which add to the professional feel of the game. Nothing is superfluous; it's all in there for a reason.

Sound, however, is very standard. Theme tunes play depending upon which section of the game you're currently playing - for instance, when you're using autoroute a speeded up main theme plays. Other effects are chip creations which squelch when you fire and crackle when you hit something.

Scew, what a porcher. Midwinter 2 is definitely a classic. There's so much depth in the game that you'll still be playing it five years from now, not just weeks after you've bought it.

Every brand of game-player can find fun in the game. Strategists will love the campaign game, shootsters will love the fire-fight sections; adventure players will enjoy the character interaction; everyone will love the gameplay and the graphics.

The one flaw to the game is the intensive amount of disk accessing which takes place. Every time a map is loaded, a bounty won, a new section of an island entered, or a new vehicle hijacked, there's a long pause while the data is loaded from disk. This can get frustrating at times, especially when you're right in the middle of a massive battle and you've hardly got time to think.

However, even with all the disk accessing, Midwinter 2 offers a brilliant challenge to anyone who thinks that games being and end with licences. There's squillions of objectives to achieve and jillions of enemy forces which need neutralising. One day, all games will be made this way.