Helping hand for serious knowledge-seekers

Encyclopedia Britannica
Multimedia Edition
PC $395

Chances are that you will already have an encyclopedia - most likely Microsoft's Encarta, which retailers bundle with many new computer systems.

It's good, so why should you buy Britannica? If you have a perfectly reliable Toyota Corolla, do you really need a Range-Rover at three times the price?

The answer in both cases is: only if you want to get off the beaten track.

Britannica is for the serious knowledge-seeker - form six and seven students, or undergraduates - and it claims to have twice the content of any other reference CD on the market.

That may be so but there seems to be more than enough in Encarta, Groliers, Compton's, or the IBM World Book for most users.

Nevertheless, Britannica sells well, despite the fact that more than 90 per cent of buyers already own a CD-Rom encyclopedia.

Web access is an integral part of reference titles for updates and links. An Internet connection to Xtra is part of the Britannica package and you get 30 days' free access to Britannica Online.

I suspect there's not too much new in content over Britannica 1998, but there are some useful fresh features.

Users can attach notes to articles for future use. A study trail which can be retraced is created during each session. Web-style bookmarks allow easy access to favourite articles.

For the record, the two-volume Britannica 99 contains 45 million words, 8500 photos and illustrations, 1200 interactive maps and 1.5 million clickable Web links.

New digital video-disk technology enables 10 times more information than in the past to be crammed on to a CD. Microsoft has already put out a DVD Encarta and the Britannica version comes out next year.

Needed: Pentium 75, 16Mb Ram.

Shogo Mobile Armour Division
Monolith
PC $109.95, MA 15+

Japanese cyberpunk meets MechWarrior in this fast-paced shoot-'em-up.

Monolith is a small but successful company, perhaps best known for Blood, a Quake clone which built up a loyal following without hitting the bestseller list.

Shogo looks set to be their most popular title to date and is one of the most downloaded demos.

It has a lot going for it including quality 3D graphics, neat gameplay and a good storyline and mission structure.

You get to pilot the Andra Predator MCA, which can fly, swim or turn into a hovertank to tackle 30 classes of enemy. Imagine playing Unreal as a transformer and you're pretty close.

Some messing around with your video-card drivers may be necessary as Shogo installs the latest version of DirectX.

I had to download updated drivers before I could get it to run.

Needed: Pentium 166 (Pentium 2 recommended), 32Mb Ram, Direct 3D 4Mb video card needed for systems under a Pentium 233.
--Peter Eley, 7DAYS