Expectations have been running high at the prospect of Cinemaware's third release of the year. The quality of their sports simulations and interactive movies has largely been responsible for taking gaming forward into a new era, and establishing a benchmark by which other software houses and the public test their releases.

At the heart of Cinemaware's success is their belief that gaming should encourage players to plunge themselves into complete roles with the mood augmented by impressive sound and graphics. It Came From The Desert continues this approach by taking 50's B movie science fiction and creating a complete melodrama in which the player is the main protagonist. It works instantly.

The plot of It Came From The Desert is a hybrid of 'It Came From Outer Space' and the bug movie 'Them'. After a meteorite crashes in nearby mountains, the small town of Lizard Breath, California, is disturbed by bizarre events, disappearances and the appearance of huge killer ants - pugonomyrex rugosus to you.

You play Doctor Greg Bradley, a geologist who rapidly becomes involved in a battle, first to persuade the authorities that the creatures exist, and then top stop them before they overrun the town.

The game begins at your ranch house in the centre of town, with the visit of an old prospector, Geez, who drops some rock samples from the area where the meteorite fell. From this point on you are on your own, and you will have to collect evidence of the insects, and formulate a plan of action by moving around the area, talking to the townspeople, looking for clues and most importantly staying out of trouble.

Confrontations with ants or the wrong kind of people can result in injury and lost time. Since you only have fifteen days before the ants strike, you need all the time you can get. Like any human though, you will have to spend some of that time asleep.

You interact with the other characters and operate by selecting from a series of options which appear in boxes throughout the game. It is efficiently done, making the role playing/adventure side of the game painless and enjoyable. As usual Cinemaware have crammed every form of gaming in there. Strategy is ever present as you work your way through the game and battle the ants. Problem solving intermingles with elements from wargaming to adventuring.

Most importantly the arcade sections are there in force. They occur frequently and variously enough in the game to maintain their freshness.

Confrontations with an ant usually result in mini shoot 'em ups in which you have a frighteningly short time to blow off both antennae to stop it from getting you, but a bizarre and often tongue in cheek array of activities await you from firefighting to a knife fight with the local rednecks. You will have to navigate the plane for aerial reconnaissance and bombing runs, and even try and save time by escaping from hospital in a wheelchair in a hilarious Gauntlet pastiche.

It goes without saying that It Came From The Desert is extraordinarily polished. The sections all interlock fluently, whilst the graphics, as ever, are excellent. All the townsfolk you come into contact with appear as large animated stills, whilst the locations are authentically put together.

The sound adds to this, with a suitably eerie tune for much of the time which changes as you visit other locations, for example to country rock at the bar and the radio station (KBUG), and hoe down violins at the various farmsteads dotted around the map.

I could tell you about there being over twenty locations, and how large amounts of the game play randomly, but you have probably got the picture by now - It Came From The Desert is Cinemaware's most complete game yet. All this and you get to see decent Americans terrorised too!

Insects, eh? Where would the science fiction movies of the 50s be without them? I mean, The Incredible Shrinking Man would've looked a bit of a shandy-drinker if he'd been fighting a rather large mouse. Anyway, It Came From The Desert, tells the story of Lizardbreath, a small American town which is suddenly invaded by giant ants. Eeek!

In the game you play a geologist, and your first task is to persuade the Mayor, that he's got a little insect problem, before leading the people of Lizardbreath into a final battle in the ants' nest.

Sean: It Came From The Desert - several months late and just about squeezing onto an Amiga. Desert is yet another brilliantly drawn and conceived Cinemaware game, absolutely stuffed full of strategy, puzzles and numerous arcade sections to boot. The game is vast (which is why it's only available to those of us with one meg amigas) and has hours of playability.

In the early stages it seems like a fairly straightforward adventure and it appears to be mainly a case of being in the right place at the right time. Your first task is, to find the objects needed to persuade the mayor of Lizardbreath to introduce a general alert. But later in the game the arcade and strategy elements become more predominant.

There are three major arcade elements: ant shooting, escaping from the view from above hospital and finally, a view from above battle against hordes of giant ants. You're armed with dynamite, hand grenades... you name it, you've got it. That's just the basics, 'cos this game is huge! There's loads of places to visit, tons of people to chat to and a squillion other things to do.

Considering the number of different elements in the game, it all hangs together very well and though it involves a fair amount of disk swopping, it's certainly worth the hassle. All the sections are really well programmed and great fun to play, and the variety means that it's virtually impossible to get bored.

Desert has a brilliant atmosphere and tons of effort has gone into making sure that everything is correct. It's funny and spooky in turn and the music (an excellent pastiche of the kind of soundtrack you find on all those old black and white movies), is perfect. Added to that are the in-game sound effects, which are the usual high quality samples.

I played it with a hint sheet for about three hours and even then, I felt that I had only scratched the surface of the game and it will be quite a while before anyone actually saves Lizardbreath from the rampaging ants. If your Amiga has the memory, then there can't be that many games around that are more worthy of 30 quid.

Lizard Breath, California; a small town in the backwater of cultural development - and the current base of geologist, Dr Greg Bradly. He's cut short his vacation to study the remains of a large meteorite which crashed in the nearby mountains a week ago. Nothing much ever happens in this one-lizard town so the townfolk here are thrilled by it. But their excitement is soon to turn to horror... (cue dramatic music)

You see, the meteorite was extremely radioactive and affected the local wildlife in a literally massive way - the sleepy town of Lizard Breath is about to be attacked by giant ants!

In this tribute to 1950s B-movies you play the part of Greg, attempting to destroy the ants before they reach the town. Your first problem is that unsurprisingly no-one believes you - four pieces of solid evidence must be collected (a plastercast of a creature's tracks, a recording of creature sounds, creature fluids, and a creature part) to convince the mayor into calling out the national guard.

But to know where to look for evidence you'll first have to talk to people about some recent strange occurrences. You can phone people from your home and most other buildings, or alternatively, visit them at their place of work (although the may be out, usually at the pub!). Travelling is generally done by car. A scrolling map shows all the locations, and the estimated time of arrival for each - you can't afford to waste time as you have only 15 days to save the town.

Once a location is selected you are automatically transported there. That is, unless you run into the local gang - The Hellcats - who'll challenge you to an extremely dangerous game of 'chicken'. In an arcade sequence, your car speeds towards the Hellraisers', the loser being the car which chickens out and swerves off the road.

On arrival at the chosen location, you are greeted with a static picture and a text window showing your current thoughts. If anyone's there they'll usually talk to you, sometimes giving you useful information, but beware of hoaxes!

One very helpful character is Professor Wells, a scientist at the local university who can analyse any evidence given to him. Other important characters include a female radio DJ, a newspaper reporter, and the police sergeant. However, some of these people are not so friendly and may even challenge you to a knife fight!

It Came From The Desert A visit to the airfield allows you to survey the town from overhead. The plane is equipped with a limited amount of chemical spray to use on any ants seen. Fuel is also limited and must be carefully watched so that you have enough to get back to the airfield - if not, you can try crash-landing in the desert or on a road. Flying is also necessary to get the recording of creature sounds.

For some of the required evidence you'll need first-hand contact with the ants - they usually hang out around the mineshafts or volcano craters. A massive ant crawls across the screen - you must aim your gun at it and hopefully destroy it before it attacks. However, if you kill it the view switches to an overhead one as you are chased by more angry ants! This time you can use grenades against them - kill enough ants and the rest will run away.

If at any time you get injured (by an ants, knife fight, plane crash etc) you'll be sent to the hospital. Any treatment here wastes valuable time, so the usual course of action is to try and escape! In an overhead-view sequence you must try to get to the ground floor and out of the front door. If they spot you the doctors and nurses will chase you and, if they catch you, stick a large hypodermic needle you know where. Luckily, you can hide under desks and in spare beds, and you can even find a wheelchair for extra speed!

Ultimately, to save the town you must find the opening to the nest and destroy the queen. If you haven't achieved this by Day 15, you will have to defend the town from an all-out attack. The mayor will call a general alert - he is finally convinced when one of the ants eats his car! - and will allow you to organise the defences: you can allocate townfolk, construction workers, soldiers, and police to any location under siege. You can then leave them to it, or go to help in another overhead arcade sequence - here you can enter and control any of the army tanks. Jet strikes can also be ordered from the general alert map.

If you successfully defend the town, you can have another crack at the ants' nest; otherwise it's 'THE END' of Lizard's Breath!

The game comes on three disks so an extra drive is recommended to cut down on the inevitable disk swapping. You also need 1Mb of memory to run the game: unfortunately Cinemaware are not planning a version for the unexpanded A500.

What with Friday the Thirteenth part 9 and Halloween 4B, sequels still seem to be quite popular - and lucrative. Ant Heads, Cinemaware's follow up to It Came From The Desert, contains two disks worth of sequel matter that clues on to your existing It Came disk, providing the quiet town of Lizard Breath with a new twist to its story.

It has been five years since the giant ants first terrorised Lizard Breath. As Dr. Greg Bradley you had to prove the existence of the ants and then wipe them out once and for all, a move that was successful. But five years is a long time in B-movie land...

In a suspension of disbelief reminiscent of something from the BBC2 series Quatum Leap, you find yourself playing the battle toughed Brick Nash, a Korean vet, who hijacks a truck load of plutonium from a local atomic test stie - a seemingly irrational act, unless you are one of the few people who kow the after effects of a nuclear test (Brick's brother, for one, will be glowing green until well into the twenty-fifth century). Unfortunately, a wandering group of giant ants have found the plutonium supply and have ripped the truck apart for some heavy meatl meals on wheels for the Queen Ant.

Lizard Breath is pretty much unchanged from the first game. There is familiar faces - ice, Biff and Dusty, although Dr Wells has been dead for five years and, unfortunately, it looked like he was the only one who could help Brick prove that atomic testing is bad news for Lizard Breath.

Meanwhile, the ants have been busy. A new nest, a new queen and a secret egg story. Worst of all they have learnt a new trick and are getting some of Lizard Breath's seedier chracters to do their dirty work for them and to make sure nobody enters the pest control business.

I found Ant Heads rather weird at first. In It Came From The Desert everybody knew you and was willing to help, but now you play a complete stranger whose only real interest is himself. The new plot leaves you almost completely without a clue as what to do next and is far more complex than its predecessor.

Most of the sound effects and graphics are the same as those in It Came. A few game play options and a greater depth to the conversations make a welcome improvement, as does the seedier sleazy nature of Brick Nash.

A brilliant follow-up which excels in graphics, sound, and in its intricate plotting. If you own a copy of It Came From The Desert I heartily recommend purchasing this follow-up. One of the best sequels to date.