One of my main complaints about Exodus is the quality of the graphics. They all look very nice but have unfortunately been scaled down to mode 13 quality; this means that our PC owning friends will smugly sit there and say things like: "Hmm, crap graphics," and not even give the gameplay any consideration. Another niggle I have with this game is the annoying status/financial reports that are given for each planet at the end of a month. This becomes even more annoying once you have a large empire and you couldn't care less about what's happening on your minor planets!

The music becomes a bit annoying after a while, but this can be turned off. But that's just the bad points. Exodus has excellent gameplay, and an astonishingly good completion sequence. Artex have moulded together the genres more or less successfully to produce a great product, well worth the money.

Once into the game, I was impressed by the layout of the whole thing. The tactical displays are well thought-out and clear, and some downright works of art; unfortunately it does seem forced into the old-style Mode 13 screen display, and one gets the feeling that it could have looked even better if Artex had made the effort. That said, it does not detract from the gameplay, which can be surprisingly addictive given the sedate, turn-based nature of the game.

There are a number of irritating little niggles as well - at the end of each 'month' (read: turn), you are given a status report. On every planet. One-after-the-other. Even if you own planets in double figures. Also, it can get to a situation where a planet cannot hold any more defensive military units, and yet this is still not enough to defend it against the enemys' huge arsenals, so you end up helpless to prevent the loss of your planets.