Caught up on Chaser

The year is 2044. But as an amnesia-ridden fugitive in the sights of a heavily armed squad of shocktroop soldiers, that's probably not something John Chaser thinks about.

JoWooD has again been in touch to remind us that Chaser - the near-future, Flashback-style FPS from Cauldron - moves ever closer, and this week they've been good enough to flesh out the story for us.

Picture an Earth where life is no longer possible. Well ok, if you spent any time on the M11 last week you probably needn't imagine, but the rest of you: Chaser is set partly on Earth, where derelict cities provide scant shelter from the hardship, anarchy and suburban crime gangs, and partly on Mars, colonised by MarsCorp in an attempt to save humanity from its own, well, self-destruction.

However, as hinted at a couple of weeks ago, MarsCorp founder Samuel Longwood is a nefarious fella, who has become very rich and influential due to his role in relocating the species, but his ultimate goal is for Mars to be completely autonomous, rid of the Earth once and for all.

It's all very cloak and dagger, and we haven't been given the whole story yet - for that, we'll have to wait until sometime in Q2 2003, when the game is released exclusively on the PC.