Sir Thomas More dared to dream of a utopia - but a Startopia is a more fantastic concept. What is it? A space station housing many different alien races, who all get along together famously... in theory. Of course, any good Sci-Fi fan knows from watching Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 that this is impossible... the carbon monoxide breathing Smylorks in their hefty black atmo-suits hate the Screegles with their radio antennae hair, and Lord, don't even mention the Griftikes from Zauron 7 who... etc.

Startopia is all about creating this perfect space station environment, where everyone is happy, and everything runs along just "tickety-boo"; whatever that means. You are, of course, in charge of space station development, starting from scratch in each mission.

And every mission presents you with a different mandate. For example, you might be required to develop a recreational facility for workers... or a hospital station might be needed in a quadrant of the galaxy where a series of viral plagues is doing the rounds.

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The game plays very much like Theme Park, Hospital or any of that series. You place various buildings down, watching your operating costs, power consumption, available space and so forth. Dorms are needed for visitors to sleep in, restaurants to eat in, recycling plants to deal with waste, lavatrons which... also deal with waste, and so on.

All sorts of gameplay elements need to be considered by the successful station controller - workers must be employed from each batch of visitors (picking the ones with the right skills), combat units must be recruited and stationed in case you encounter rival station owners (they're a vicious, territorial lot), you've got to make sure your operation is kept profitable and clean (sanitation is important), visiting diplomats must be dealt with and given the red carpet treatment, and so on.

If you shy away from micro-management this won't be the game for you - it's quite a pressured, real-time affair. However, the varied scenarios are excellently designed and present a well-balanced challenge. In later missions you have to work over three decks, overseeing residential and industrial concerns along with the bio-deck, an artificial planet environment. Visually Startopia is something of a treat too, although the slight tilt on the 3D camera can be occasionally annoying.

It's addictive stuff once you get into the game proper. The introductory tutorials aren't that good, but the solid in-game help makes up for that. There's plenty of good quality, long-term space station-building challenge here, and there's also a four player online mode to add further longevity.

While, on the face of it, Startopia is another Theme Park-style real-time building game, the scenarios are so well sculpted and varied that it becomes quite addictive and the combat element gives it an extra edge. As long as you don't hate these sort of micro-managing games, you'll be as happy playing this as a Schniblick from Zaltron IV who's just blown his own Tattle-horn.