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Battlefield: Bad Company, Xbox 360
THE hugely popular Battlefield series takes a different route for this latest title, which puts players in a squad of convicts tasked with dealing with the grubbiest missions. It is highly entertaining stuff, providing a landscape that can be blown to bits at will, frantic first-person action and some suitably black humour. The game lacks the originality of Battlefield 2, when you were given command of a vast army of soldiers (in Bad Company you are part of a foursome on surgical strikes). The game is fun nonetheless. |
Metal Gear Solid, PS3
YOU’RE immediately blown away by the quality of the graphics in the first few moments of the new Metal Gear instalment – and they set the tone for what is another winner from Konami. The stealther plays well and draws you into the story even if you have no experience of the previous games in the long-running series. The quality of the character interactions is superb, although the camera view can have a tendency to leave you disorientated at times – a feature that is common with many games in the genre. But all in all, this is a quality offering and is well worth a look.
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Tomb Raider Underworld,
Xbox 360 & PS3
SEXY sprite Lara Croft returns for an all-new adventure at the end of the year. And from the latest previews we’ve seen, the game looks as if it will be a definite winner. Only a few sketchy details have been released about the plot, but early indications suggest Lara will be involved in a dangerous quest spanning caverns in South America, Antarctica and far beneath the oceans. Graphics on the preview are faultless while the gameplay has been enhanced to give players more freedom to interact with the environment.
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Call of Duty: World at War,
All formats
AFTER a superb excursion into the world of current ops, the enduring franchise is back for another dose of late 1940s action. World at War uses the same engine that made Modern Warfare such a success but this time players have the chance to play the role of the US Marines and Russian soldiers fighting in locations from the Pacific islands to the heart of Berlin. A wealth of high-intensity battles are promised, with weapons including a flame-thrower added to the armoury. A co-op team mode is also on offer. Call of Duty is launched later this year.
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Fifa Manager 09,
PC
AS Euro 2008 fades into the memory – and with the emphasis now on the World Cup campaign – armchair football managers can play out their own strategies with EA Sports’ latest venture into the beautiful game. Would-be soccer strategists have full control over their clubs, from signing up new blood to extending their stadium. The game features specially licensed club and player data from more than 30 countries while moments of high joy and misery can be relived via a three-dimensional view of matches. Fifa Manager 09 takes to the field this autumn.
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Beijing 2008,
Xbox 360
BROKEN joypads and sore arms are the order of the day in the button-mashing game of this summer’s Olympics. A raft of events – from track and field through to judo, table tennis, gymnastics and cycling – are on offer and require players to master controls ranging from hitting buttons as fast as possible through to delicately rotating the joystick to match an onscreen prompt. Graphics are suitably slick and online play is good fun but the difficulty levels on Beijing 2008 are frustratingly inconsistent between events.
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