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The latest foray into the Real-time Strategy gaming market takes the form of Ascaron's Arena Wars. The premise is simple; take first-person shooter (FPS) game play modes and inject them into a modern real-time strategy product, and bolt on lots of fun features. The results of this hybrid approach prove to be both good and bad.

Arena Wars is designed primarily to be played over the Internet, with some of its features oriented to this mode of play alone. However, multiplayer is often not enough to prompt a buyer to purchase a game, so I decided to focus almost entirely on the single player experience.

Starting from the top, Arena Wars is all about rapid, fast-paced combat that will test your reactions to the limit. There are very few RTS games that I have played that demand such quick responses (although Z springs to mind), but this is both good and bad. Each mission places you and a number of computer opponents on a nicely rendered 3D map, and tasks you to capture a flag, dominate the map or carry a bomb into your opponent's base. These game play types are more commonly referred to as Capture the Flag, Double Domination and Bombing Run.

Those of you who are familiar with the FPS genre will immediately notice the similarity with Unreal Tournament 2004, as it also contains these modes. Arena Wars changes the modes slightly to make them more suitable for RTS play, and they do seem to work quite well. These modes are offered in the single player model in the form of tournaments, where new maps are unlocked as you progress through increasingly difficult missions.

There are slight spins on these modes that create new tournaments such as 2v2 Capture the Flag, or the thoroughly enjoyable Fun tournament where each aspect of the game is exaggerated in turn. The demanding pace of the game certainly suits these modes, and Arena Wars is original in this respect.

To go with the multitude of game play modes are collectable power-ups that, when deployed, alter some aspect of the game. Bonuses range from unit damage upgrades ('Quad Damage' no less) to regeneration, invisibility and asteroid attacks. In total 16 power-ups are available, and they add a fun random element to each map. Teleporter buildings which exist on some maps also add the ability to move units across vast distances almost immediately, adding another strategic element to the game.

Arena Wars has taken the unit only approach to army development. Buildings are placed automatically at the beginning of the game, and your forces appear from one of two structures when built. There is no such thing as a technology tree either, as every unit is available from the start of the game. The limiting factor however is your bank balance, which is a fixed $1,000. Each unit purchased costs a certain amount, and when your balance runs low your army is consequently limited in size. When a unit is destroyed, the total cost of that unit is immediately refunded, thus enabling a replacement to be built. This has the inherent advantage of preventing huge battles where both players build up their armies and then clash in the middle of the map, but gone are the large-scale tactical manoeuvres that we all love to use.

Your limited bank balance and the slightly confusing rock-paper-scissors damage model forces you to buy one of each unit if you want to cover every possibility. This is exactly the opposite to games such as Command & Conquer: Red Alert where a mass of tanks will win the game for you. As a result, those of you who like large battles and lots of carnage will not find much satisfaction in Arena Wars, but those of you who like decisive, brief skirmishes will love it.

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