Defcon 5 - PlayStation, 21/3/96

Don't. Under. Stand. Defcon 5 clearly doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it Doom-style shoot 'em up? Is it FMV interactive movie nonsense? Is it a man with a gummed-up mouth?

It is all of these things, and it is nothing. Following a reasonably nice intro sequence, you're sent to an off-world mining colony where you must investigate some mystery or other.

We think Defcon 5 is suposed to be some sort of interactive movie thing, where the action flows seamlessly without any cutting.

So you see, you have to physically walk to each location in the base, or catch a funny little train and watch an FMV movie of your journey.

Suffice to say this slows the game down to the level of a goat with no legs, or "nanny bean".

From start to finish Defcon 5 is a shambolic mix of styles.

We knew things were going to be bad when we got lost in a maze of identical corridors at the start of the game.

Much of it could be described as a baddie-less Wolfenstein 3D.

Occasionally aliens attack, and you must shoot back from a gun turret. You don't have to. You could wait until they break in and shoot them then. Or perhaps you could just do nothing.

For half of Defcon 5 we didn't know what the hell was going on. For the rest of the time we wandered the corridors of the base desperate for something to shoot at.

We remember the game being demonstrated to us a while back, by a little guy who clearly had as little idea as us as to what he was supposed to be doing.

We can't even see the game ever existing as "a nice idea". Quite honestly Defcon 5 is one of the worst games ever devised.

Defcon 5 - PlayStation - by Psyngosis/Millennium

Players: 1
Graphix: 57%
Sonix: 79%
Gameplay: 23%
Lifespan: 35%
Originality: 12%
Uppers: Nice, err, FMV sequences
Downers: No structure. A mess
Overall: 20% - Duffcon 7