Aliants: The Desperate Battle For Earth!

Aliants: The Desperate Battle For Earth! is a science-fiction strategy game built around the suitably alarming idea that humanity has run out of time and extraterrestrial enemies are not particularly interested in negotiating. Players must manage resources, make tactical decisions and deal with the wider strategic situation rather than simply pointing a laser cannon at everything that moves. The game belongs to an era when strategy titles expected players to read instructions, experiment and occasionally accept that a disastrous decision made twenty minutes earlier is now their problem. Its presentation is fairly austere, but the atmosphere works because the central premise is easy to understand: Earth is in trouble. The fun lies in trying to turn limited resources and imperfect information into a plan that might, with luck, keep the planet from becoming somebody else's property.