It's easy to drag the map around, while the zoom button makes it straightforward to see detail, as well as get an overview of the action occurring in your colony.Įqually important is the interface, which is boldly designed to make the most of the DS's small screen, and the way information is presented to the player is also impressive. What's most important in this context is the excellent stylus-driven control system, which replicates the fluidity of using a mouse with resounding triumph. Although it started life as a PC game, unlike the recent disappointing SimCity and Settlers conversions, it's one of the best designed DS games we've played.

Thankfully, we're not shipwrecked back in the 18th century when it comes to ANNO 1701's presentation. Keeping your colony as prosperous as possible is akin to juggling - you've always got several balls in the air at any one time and it's imperative that you don't let any of them drop. While military concerns do crop up quite frequently, the main focus of the game is the micro-management. Dumped onto a faraway island at the start of it and immediately you're thrown into tasks, such as stopping your fledgling nation from starving to death as well as avoiding the attentions of hostile natives. Take ANNO 1701: Dawn of Discovery, for example.

But as our lives become bogged down with day-to-day concerns, such as whether it's now worth buying Berbatov for our Fantasy Football team or whether a final bid for an eBay item should end in 21p or 57p, it's worth remembering the Herculean effort required by our pioneering ancestors.

Dawn of discovery