HALO 3 BETA TEST (Xbox 360)

When first-person shooter Halo 2 made its commercial debut for the original Xbox game console in November 2004, it became an instant smash hit.
Incredibly, the game generated more than US$125 million in sales in the first 24 hours, breaking almost every gaming sales record in history.
Following the unprecedented success of Halo 2 and the release of the seventh-generation console the Xbox 360, it didn’t take long for the game’s developer, Bungie Studios, to announce it was in the development stage of Halo 3, promising it would rival anything on the market in terms of stunning high definition graphics and intense gameplay.
Earlier this year, Bungie and Microsoft Games Studios announced a worldwide launch date for Halo 3 - September 25 - and expectations are high for the final chapter in the groundbreaking Halo trilogy.
To wet the collective appetite of the gaming community, Bungie then released a beta version of the game (a work-in-progress edition), that could be played over Xbox Live in a multi-player format.
To gain access the Halo 3 Beta, players were given the opportunity to download it by purchasing a copy of the popular FPS Crackdown, which would act as a key for gamers to participate.
While not only giving gamers the opportunity to play three of the new levels, the Beta was also designed to provide valuable data and feedback that Bungie could use for the continued development of the game.
The Halo 3 Beta went live on May 16, and will run through to June 7, with more than 400,000 copies already downloaded worldwide.
While Halo 3 itself will continue where the Halo 2 storyline left off, the Halo 3 Beta features three multi-player maps, an assortment of weapons and vehicles, as well as a wide variety of differing scenarios in which to participate.
Across each map, players will be able to play a number of team-orientated multi-player games - rumble pit, team slayer, team skirmish and big team battle.
Rumble pit is all-out single player action - a last-man-standing scenario, with you pitted against everyone else.
In team slayer, you can enter alone or in a small group and you’ll be matched against another team of equal size, up to a maximum of four players per team.
Team skirmish is a team-based scenario, with a differing array of objectives - from capture the flag, through to territory capture with a maximum of four players per team.
Team battle is just what it suggests - big teams pitted against each other on big maps. Team sizes vary from five to a maximum of six players.
The weapons available in the beta are limited, about eight to 10 in total, but there is enough firepower on hand to complete any objective.
Bungie has already said that the weapons available in the Beta are just a small snippet of those that will be available in the full game.
The overall look of the Beta (and remember it’s just that - a beta) is already a marked improvement over its predecessor, with stunning backgrounds and highly detailed player visuals.
Unfortunately, there are no single-player campaigns - the Halo 3 beta is purely an online multi-player game.
That said, and despite its limited scope, the beta is a highly addictive and entertaining environment in which to test out the new game.
Overall, if you’re a Halo fan, or simply a first-person shooter fanatic, then you won’t be disappointed with the Beta release.
Far from it, in fact.
Roll on September 25.
Halo 3 Website

TITAN QUEST: Immortal Throne (PC)

Almost all role-playing game fans will already know or have played the brilliant Greek mythology-based TITAN QUEST, which was released last year.
Now, game company THQ has released the first expansion pack for its best-selling hack and slash RPG, TITAN QUEST: IMMORTAL THRONE.
Both the original and the expansion pack are also available in a deluxe gold edition set, aptly titled Titan Quest: Gold Edition.
Immortal Throne picks up where the original left off, with your hero standing proudly over the lifeless body of Typhon.
As your character leaves the lofty heights of Olympus, he (or she) soon realises that not a lot has changed despite his (or her) efforts to rid the land of monsters and restore order to the villagers.
It soon becomes apparent that the evil hoards of Hades have infested your world, and you must now venture into the bowels of the Earth to bring peace again to your home.
Not a lot as changed in respect to gameplay from the original - it’s still one of the easier and more appealing RPGs.
The few minor problems that plagued Titan Quest, ie the cumbersome inventory system, have been ironed out courtesy of a new auto-sorting system, enabling your character to not only carry more, but to prioritise and then ferry the more useful tools back to a trader for some much-needed gold coins.
There are also more than 20 new monsters heading your way, as well as more than 500 new pieces of equipment, spells, potions and scrolls, and eight new character classes to help you on your quest.
While the graphics remain basically the same, your new surroundings do have a more polished feel about them and the ambient music and audio effects give the game a sinister atmosphere that is befitting the dark, dank depths of Hades.
Overall, if you were a fan of the original Titan Quest, there’s plenty to love about Immortal Throne.

WE RATE IT
Graphics: 8
Gameplay: 9
Sound: 7
OVERALL: 80%

Titan Quest Website

SUPREME COMMANDER (PC)

The year is 3844, and mankind has splintered into three separate factions.
A brutal, destruction war, the Infinite War, has raged for more than a millennium, and has spread across the galaxy, ravaging planet after planet.
The three factions - United Earth Federation, Aeon Illuminate and Cybran Nation - have developed technology that enables them to travel almost instantaneously from one world to the next, while massive Command Units make it possible for the military leaders to build entire civilisations and armies anywhere.
Billions of humans have died, and now the armies consist of robotic monstrosities capable of reining down destruction on a catastrophic scale.
But the war has reached an impasse, and now your army holds the fate of humanity in its hand.
Supreme Commander, from Gas Powered Games, is the latest real-time strategy game for PC on the market, and sets new benchmarks on how RTS games are played.
What’s immediately obvious is the incredible scale of the game.
No longer will RTS games be played out on constrictive, lacklustre scenarios.
Supreme Commander boasts some of the largest, most expansive game maps of any RTS game, if ever.
Land, sea, mountains, volcanic wastelands, swamps, barren ice lands - all terrain types are available, all of which affect the way each unit is able to operate.
Like most RTS games in this genre, the aim is simple.
Build enough factories, power generation and ore mining (in this case, mass) complexes to construct an army to defeat your enemy.
That, however, is where the game becomes more demanding.
Unlike many RTS games, success in Supreme Commander isn’t a simple matter of victory through overwhelming numbers.
Unlike any RTS I’ve played before, in Commander you’ll rely primarily on strategy - about 60 per cent on tactics, and just 40 per cent on sheer strength and numbers.
For every offensive weapons platform at your disposal, your enemy will have a defensive platform purpose-built to defend against it.
Often during a game, you’ll require more than a simply front-on attack that relies on weight of numbers.
Instead, hit-and-run sorties aimed at taking out anti-air batteries, followed by bomber runs designed to cripple artillery or strategic missile defences will be necessary.
Visually, the game is highly detailed and immense in stature and while this is a major drawcard of Supreme Commander, it’s also its Achilles’ heel.
Minimum specs listed for the game of a 1.8GHz processor with 512MB of RAM and 128MB of video RAM seems incredibly inadequate (thus why I‘ve listed recommended specs instead).
The test machine in this case was a Vista-powered Duo2 Core machine (2.13GHz) with 1GB of RAM with 512MB of GeForce graphics power, and while these specs seem overwhelming, the game still struggled at times to run smoothly and frame rates dropped dramatically during intense battle scenes.
That said, Supreme Commander is a game of gargantuan proportions and stands alone in its sheer size and playability of real-time strategy games.
While a steep learning curve may seem daunting for newcomers, hardcore RTS gamers and fans of the genre will revel in its complexities.
Overall, Supreme Commander is one of the more impressive RTS games in years and pushes the boundaries of what makes a strategy game a true strategy game, and not one that relies solely on rewarding sheer numbers.

WE RATE IT
Graphics: 9
Sound: 8
Gameplay: 8.5
OVERALL: 85%

Supreme Commander Website

STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl (PC)

On April 26, 1986 at 1.23am, reactor 4 of the VL Lenin Memorial Nuclear Power Station went into meltdown, spewing radioactive material over a massive area of the Ukrainian township of Chernobyl.
It was the worst nuclear accident in history (as far as this game is concerned anyway), killing and seriously injuring thousands of people, and leaving generations of families maimed and disfigured.
In the new first-person shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. from Ukrainian developer GSC Game World, some 20 years later a second incident occurred - an explosion within reactor 4 during a seemingly routine clean-up operation, contaminating an even larger area and spreading even more toxic radioactive waste across the entire Eastern European continent.
But instead of killing thousands of people, it had a much greater, deadlier after-effect.
Creatures more hideous than could be imagined were spawned, and strange paranormal phenomenon has been reported across a widespread area now known as The Zone.
In S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow Of Chernobyl, you play as the Marked One, a heavily armed mercenary, suffering from a severe case of amnesia and somehow trapped inside the deadly exclusion zone that has been set up around the Chernobyl nuclear power station.
You job is simple - to survive, somehow, and regain your memory while making it out of The Zone in one piece - or close enough to it.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is an incredibly immersive first-person shooter, set amongst the backdrop of some of the most breathtaking scenery ever featured in a game of this genre.
To survive and complete the single-player campaign, Marked One will rely heavily on his wits, forging alliances with other stalkers and armed factions, and a seemingly unending supply of weaponry in your fight against mutant beings, wild animals and many other rather unpleasant non-playing characters.
And if your campaign is to be a successful one, you will also have to master the art of scavenging almost anything that isn’t bolted, glued, fixed or melted down - including replacement weapons, ammunition, health packs, food (yes, you will need to eat and drink), radiation antidotes and other various items that you can trade for money or other more necessary items and equipment.
The game engine itself is highly impressive, and one you’ll be required to master it efficiently and expediently. Good coordination between keyboard and mouse is essential to success.
The game’s AI is also a strong-point, with other human enemies and creatures taking full advantage of their surroundings during combat, as well as a fair degree of teamwork and tactics.
Visually, the game is spectacular. The in-game graphics and backgrounds are as exceptional as any RPG on the market.
The audio soundtrack is similarly dazzling, with the wind rustling through the fields and the cries of anguish and terror from distant beasts and creatures alike enough to send shivers down the spine of any hardened gamer.
The Russian and Ukrainian dialogue spoken by all the characters, smattered with snippets of broken English, gives the game a unique feel.
But fear not, the English subtitles add a nice touch.
The atmosphere created within S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is first-class, while the gameplay is undiluted excitement at every turn.
What sets S.T.A.L.K.E.R. apart from other RPG-cum first-person shooters is its ability to break away from the customary linear gameplay. There are no set paths to take, no storyline that must be followed to complete the overall mission and any number of extraneous missions that come your way.
The player is free to roam unimpeded throughout the entire game world, and interact with anyone or anything at any time.
It’s not an simple, straightforward game by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a rewarding experience for gamers looking for a unique and demanding game experience.

WE RATE IT
Graphics: 9
Sound: 9.5
Gameplay: 9
OVERALL: 92%

MOTORSTORM (Playstation 3)

If Mad Max ever felt the proclivity to race off-road dune buggies, then he probably would have been a master at Motorstorm, the first Playstation3 offering from Evolution Studios.
As one of the first games released for the seventh-generation Sony machine, Motorstorm was always going to be a popular seller (there were only a handful of games available for sale at its March release).
Despite this, Motorstorm is one of the most visually spectacular racing games on the market and even at such an early stage of the PS3 gaming evolution, it already demonstrates the amazing graphics capabilities of the machine.
Motorstorm is set some time in the future, one can only assume, in a location more reminiscent of a post-apocalyptic wasteland - thus the Mad Max reference (specifically the really bad one with Tina Turner).
Your weapons of choice aren’t laser rifles or rocket launchers, instead mud pluggers, rally car hybrids, colossal trucks, jeeps, crossbred SUVs and ATVs and motorbikes.
Sadly in Motorstorm, and probably the game’s only disappointment, there are just two modes of play - single player and online racing.
While that may suit some, the restrictions of the single player `campaign’ can be a source of frustration, particularly in a game that sets such high visual and gameplay standards.
You can’t modify any of the vehicles, and even then the number available to choose from in each category is limited to just three or four.
That said, there is a reasonably wide range of different vehicles at your disposal, as listed earlier.
The premise of the game is simple.
You choose your track (more open up to the player as you work through the game), choose your set of wheels, and go racing.
Every track on Motorstorm has a number of different and varied paths available.
Include in that a wide range of jumps, diverse terrain (all of which have an impact on your speed and handling, depending on type of vehicle selected) - all mixed with a chaotic sense of mayhem and destruction.
The secret to success in Motorstorm is finding out through trial and error, which path around any given track is most suited to each vehicle.
And while there are just eight tracks available across the entire game, they are long and individual races can take anywhere up to 10 minutes to complete, and with a number of different class races on each track, even the best driver isn’t going to finish the single player section of Motorstorm in a short period of time.
One of the more enjoyable areas of Motorstorm is the ability to run your competitors off the track, off a ravine, into a cliff or boulder, or into one of the many obstacles and chunks of debris lying around the track.
That is, as long as you’re on the giving end, not receiving.
Each vehicle can take copious amounts of minor damage before they become a nightmare to control, but the subsequent destruction sequences are both breathtaking and gut-wrenching.
All vehicles also have a boost ability, a reasonable-length burst of nitrous that whips your given ride into a frenzy of velocity.
But be warned, hang on the nitro button too long and your vehicle will become a lethal fireball of destruction.
The graphics of Motorstorm, as mentioned, are a sight to behold.
Background visuals are well above average, but actual track and car graphics are incredibly detailed and one of the highlights of the game.
The soundtrack is similarly impressive.
The vehicles sound like what you’d expect them to sound like in real life. You can feel the explosions and collisions, when played through a theatre system, and the backing music is some of the best you’ll find on any game anywhere, with songs from Nirvana, Wolfmother, Queen and Slipknot.
The vehicles themselves are also a pleasure to drive, and give the feel of a good mixture between simulated and arcade racing.
With an impressive online capability (the ability to compete against up to 12 other online players at any one time), Motorstorm, while it has some minor gripes, is a wonderful, entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable racing experience.

RATINGS
Graphics: 9
Sounds: 9
Gameplay: 8
OVERALL: 85%