Realms for Windows

Guide your spaceship safely through dangerous worlds

Let's face here, if you're not fascinated by Space then there's something seriously wrong with your brain. In fact, I'm sure the vast majority of Earthlings would jump at the chance to zoom off into the outer reaches of the Universe. Now, thanks to the wonders of modern gaming technology you can now do just this on your home computer.

Of course, you won't really be in Space, but install Realms and you'll definitely feel like you are thanks to its rich, colourful graphics, slick animation and pumping musical soundtrack. The game can take a little while to load up if you have a slower processor, and you'll be presented with a series of retro tech-style load screens that seem to take forever to get through.

Once you're into the actual game though it seems like the whole of the Universe is there to be explored, and you can whizz off for miles in any direction of the screen. Steering your craft can take a little getting used to, especially if you try to turn and fire at the same time, as the movements of the ship are quite fluid and perhaps not as precise as they should be.

Nevertheless, Realms is a monster of a game, with scores of baddies to blast, missions to conquer and power-ups to collect. There are loads of options for changing the difficulty of the game by tweaking about with the number of asteroids, hardness of baddies, speed of the game, overall difficulty, etc.

If you want to create the impression of hurtling through the galaxy while you're sat on the sofa, then Realms makes for a great adventure.