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Fighting in tank battles is a funny old business. One minute you're happily rolling over everything in sight and re-arranging the landscape with the aid of a stupidly large gun. The next - Kaboom! - some blighter lands a corker right on your turret and it's a one way ticket to the Pearly Gates.

The solution to this desperately short career path is to get your mitts on the largest, meanest, baddest hunk of tank in the world, become the envy of the neighbourhood and then blow the whole neighbourhood to the heavens, good and proper.

That, I'm pleased to say, is what Battle Command is all about. The game provides you with a vehicle, which, to be honest, isn't so much a tank as a very big gun on caterpillar tracks. And, if that's not enough to have all warmongers tingling in anticipation, there's also a fine selection of bombs, bullets, missiles and other projectiles which would have old Saddam thinking Christmas had come early.

Battle Command offers you the opportunity to kit-up with all these goodies, pick a mission, and get cracking. Missions usually involve destroying things which a) are trying to destroy you, and b) just happen to be in the way. There's usually a plot like saving an important scientist, or 'disabling' (great word that) transport vehicles, but this doesn't get in the way of the action.

These missions are extremely difficult to complete but don't be disheartened. Once you've learned how to make the best use of that tank, there's plenty of gameplay in here just killing off enemies.

Battle Command works brilliantly because, on a very simple level, it's a well crafted solid-3D shoot-'em-up come driving game with lots to keep you busy. On a more sophisticated level, it quite a tricky tactical affair in which you must decide which weapons best fit which mission and there's a fair amount of damage limitation and navigation to be taken into account.

I played this for hours on end without completing a single mission, but heck, I sure trashed one hell of a lot of tanks, supply vehicles, bunkers, boats and houses in the attempt. Not bad, I thought.

Battle Command is bursting with manic joystick action yet it still manages to squeeze in something for those of you who like to think before you fire. It looks a treat and sounds sufficiently convincing. Your abrupt demise is the biggest downer. If you're killed, the game chucks you into the same (rather dull) termination screen every time. It doesn't deliver any atmosphere. I would have enjoyed knowing just why I kept getting killed. But then, real tank drivers don't have the privilege of de-briefing sessions after they've been blown into a gooey paste, either. This is glorious fun which will, justifiably I think, make Ocean quite proud.

1. Very short missions at first.
2. It's a little shy on the post-battle analysis but you get the message.

1. Action-packed gameplay will grip you for hours.
2. Lovely graphics to fight your way through.
3. Plenty of options in the weapons department, so it's experimentation time!
4. Good selection of missions to accomplish.
5. Just enough strategy to make it more than yet another shoot-'em-up.
6. Extremely accurate vehicle movement.
7. Juicy sound effects.
8. Atmospheric documentation to get you in the mood.