The most recent articles from Computeract!ve

Review: Crysis Warhead PC game

Jonathan Parkyn — 2008-11-24T10:00:00.000Z

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeract!ve, Monday 24 November 2008 at 10:00:00

Get a fresh perspective on the events of last year’s sci-fi-tinged shooter

Last year the team behind the first Far Cry game brought us Crysis, which well and truly set the bar for first-person shooters with its gripping story, fast-paced action and state-of-the-art visuals. The trouble was that it needed a state-of-the-art PC in order to play properly.

Twelve months on and the recommended requirements for Crysis Warhead – a standalone companion game to the original title – still look a little steep. However, the developers have redone the graphics in such a way that makes it possible to enjoy Crysis Warhead at lower quality settings on lower-end PCs.

It’s good news for anyone previously put off by the original game’s lofty demands and we can confirm that Warhead looks just as stunning as its forebear when running at full pelt, but should be very much playable on most computers bought within the last year or two.

The game’s storyline runs parallel to that of the first instalment. As before, you are part of a team of futuristic super-suited soldiers who are dropped off in hostile North Korea to investigate some unusual goings on. This time, however, you follow the fortunes of the squad’s endearingly foul-mouthed Briton, the entertainingly named Psycho, in an entirely new campaign.

In practice, Warhead plays a lot like the first game, though that should not necessarily be taken as a criticism. Warhead’s single-player campaign is also relatively short, although when you take into account the lower price and the inclusion of a completely separate Crysis-themed multiplayer game (Crysis Wars), the package starts to look a lot rosier.

Review: Far Cry 2 PC game

Jonathan Parkyn — 2008-11-21T10:01:00.000Z

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeract!ve, Friday 21 November 2008 at 10:01:00

More open-ended action in a sequel that’s far from the original

Other than its name, Far Cry 2 has surprisingly little in common with its predecessor. The setting is different, with all the action taking place in an arid, unnamed Central African state rather than the lush tropical island of the original.

The main protagonist has changed too: Far Cry’s hero, Jack Carver, is out, and in his place you can elect to play as one of nine mercenary characters, though our choices didn’t appear to influence gameplay in any significant way.

The story also has little to do with the first Far Cry game. There’s no Doctor Moreau-style sci-fi sub-plot this time round - instead you’ll find yourself embroiled in a much grittier world of arms dealing and civil war.

What you do get is an evolution of Fry Cry’s excellent open-ended take on first-person shooting. Just like the original, Far Cry 2 allows the player to approach most situations from a variety of different angles: go in all guns blazing, pick off enemies from afar or try a sneakier approach.

Further to this, Far Cry 2 presents a vast open world to explore. There are so many places to see – entire deserts, jungles, towns, oases and savannas – that a fold-out map is included in the box, in addition to the in-game map and the GPS navigation units fixed to the windscreens of all the vehicles it's possible to commandeer.

The main task is to track down and take out The Jackal, an arms dealer who's instrumental in stirring up trouble between the factions vying for control of the country. The problem is that Mr Jackal isn’t an easy person to find, so you need to make new contacts and carry out missions for them in order to advance.

On top of that, your character is suffering from a nasty case of malaria (which can flare up at any time and needs to be kept at bay with medication) and just about everyone (except a handful of friendly fellow mercenary buddies) wants to shoot you dead.

Far Cry 2 is a phenomenal technical achievement. On a relatively high-powered PC the game looks stunning, with incredibly detailed environments and sumptuous lighting effects. It can also be an extremely immersive experience and, with a lengthy single-player campaign plus solid multiplayer options, you get a lot of game for your money.

Review: Stalker Clear Sky PC game

Jonathan Parkyn — 2008-10-27T17:44:00.000Z

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeract!ve, Monday 27 October 2008 at 17:44:00

From Russia with deep, dark despair

If computer games are to be believed, we’re in for a pretty bleak future: one in which our planet seems destined to be ravaged, either by an alien attack or a zombie outbreak. When it comes to bleakness, however, few games beat the pure desolation of the Stalker series.

Clear Sky, a prequel to the original Shadow of Chernobyl game, is a none-too-cheery exploration of life in The Zone, a cordoned-off post-nuclear-winter land surrounding the Ukrainian power station, devastated by the effects of a second accident at the facility.

Clear Sky picks up the story a year before the events of the first game, when your character awakens in a strange encampment after surviving a freak accident. You play as a Stalker – a kind of futuristic mercenary type. It transpires that you have been rescued by a group of scientists and soon you are tasked with investigating the bizarre goings on in the Zone.

Gameplay works, by and large, like a first-person shooter, with mission-based forays into various other camps and run-down sites dotted around the Zone. The game also weaves in a touch of role-playing, with customisable weapons, clothing and armour as well as a vast open-ended world to explore. And it’s the world itself that’s the star of the show. The Zone is a great creation: big, brooding, deeply inhospitable and full of surprises.

There is a variety of human factions to deal with, along with plenty of unfortunate mutations, hazardous fauna and weird atmospheric anomalies, all of which can seriously damage your health. The faction element is new to the series and allows you to ally yourself to various groups and carry out squad-based missions.

While Clear Sky is in many ways an improvement on the original Stalker, it also suffers from as many – if not more – bugs and glitches as its predecessor. At the time of writing, a patch had been released that fixed many of these, but we still found a few frustrating problems with the game.

For the most part, though, Stalker is an excellent game. It's a thinking person’s shooter with an astonishing sense of atmosphere and a pretty good story.

Review: Mercenaries 2: World in Flames action game

Jonathan Parkyn — 2008-09-07T10:00:00.000Z

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeract!ve, Sunday 7 September 2008 at 10:00:00

Free rein to cause maximum military mayhem

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is the sequel to a console-only action game from a couple of years ago.

This time around, proceedings have shifted from North Korea to South America, but otherwise things remain the same.

Essentially, Mercenaries is a riff on the type of open-ended gameplay used by Grand Theft Auto, transposing the same sort of missions to a military environment – in this case a fictitious Venezuelan coup d’état.

Like GTA, Mercenaries 2 provides a huge expanse of game universe to explore and offers a wide range of different mission types.

Whether you’re on foot or in a vehicle, however, the main objective in most cases is to shoot as many bad guys as possible. Luckily, combat is probably the most enjoyable aspect of the game and the control system is easy to pick up.

As well as the single-player campaign, Mercenaries 2 includes options for playing online, either against other opponents or alongside a friend in cooperative mode. In all three cases, the game provides plenty of chaotic fun.

Thematically, Mercenaries 2 is on fairly dodgy ground. If anything, the slightly dubious semi-political message of the storyline only makes the game’s obvious relish in blowing things up with big guns (including nuclear weapons) and its general encouragement to profit from the tragedy of war seem all the more gratuitous. The slightly disappointing cartoony graphics, however, serve as a good reminder that this is a game that probably shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Review: Sins of a Solar Empire strategy game

Jonathan Parkyn — 2008-09-06T10:00:00.000Z

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeract!ve, Saturday 6 September 2008 at 10:00:00

Time for some fun in the sun with this space strategy game

A surprise hit in the US when it was released there earlier this year, this real-time strategy game from a relatively small developer has taken a while to make it to these shores. Thankfully, it has been worth the wait.

Strategy gamer fans may already be familiar with the term ‘4X’. This refers to four central gameplay components – exploration, expansion, exploitation and extermination – and pretty much sums up Sins of a Solar Empire.

As one of three different factions you start with a single planet and some loose change and must build up a galactic empire by amassing resources, extending your reach to neighbouring star systems and defending yourself against attack from your enemies.

That probably doesn’t sound revolutionary and, in fact, one of the game’s key strengths is the way that it sticks to many of the unwritten rules that make other great strategy titles – Civilization, for example – so addictive. As such you’ll find many familiar elements in place, such as advancing technology through research and the ability to spread your influence through diplomatic, economic and cultural dominance as well as by military means.

There are plenty of neat touches too, such as a bounty system that allows you to put out a price on your enemy’s head. It helps that the game looks and sounds excellent, too, and the attention to detail is evident whether you zoom in to a single trooper or zoom out to take in an entire fleet.

If we had one minor criticism, it’s that Sins of a Solar Empire doesn’t have a story-led single player campaign of any kind. Instead, you’re left to indulge in an infinite number of one-off campaigns, either against artificially intelligent opponents or against other players either online and over a network.

In practice, this lack of traditional plot isn’t a significant flaw. Sins of a Solar Empire is likely to be a big hit amongst established strategy fans and – thanks to an accessible user interface and a relatively sedate pace – casual gamers alike.

Review: Battlefield: Bad Company Xbox 360 game

Anthony Dhanendran — 2008-08-16T10:00:00.000Z

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeract!ve, Saturday 16 August 2008 at 10:00:00

Relive 'Nam in this classy shooter

The bad company in question here is a squad of misfits – these aren't the classy, committed, highly trained troops to be found in most war games. That, along with the superlative visuals and sound effects, lends Bad Company a patina of reality that's missing from most of the competition.

It's a lot of fun, too, not least because of the impressive scenery. Not only does it look good, but most of it can be blown up, too. You can throw a grenade and have it destroy large parts of a building, unlike in most games, in which buildings remain largely pristine while body parts fly all over the place.

Gameplay is entertaining and the difficulty curve is well-judged. The entertainment factor extends to the back-story and to play as well – your fellow soldiers are the laughing, joking types, even in the face of death, and the dialogue is good enough that it doesn't get stale quickly.

Combat largely follows the lines of other shooters, with the ability to drive vehicles to get places faster, and a good selection of weapons (although it's only possible to pick up one kind at once, so you must choose between the weapons you want to hold and drop the rest).

If anything it's a little too easy, partly because of the ability to heal yourself anywhere in the game simply by switching to a healing syringe and injecting yourself. But there's enough here to make it worthwhile for a long play.

Vista compatible: No

Review: Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures PC game

Jonathan Parkyn — 2008-08-02T10:00:00.000Z

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeract!ve, Saturday 2 August 2008 at 10:00:00

Indy’s back – and this time he’s a chip off the old block

Although it accompanies Indy’s return to the big screen, Lego Indiana Jones isn’t the usual sloppy movie tie-in.

Instead, the game takes a nostalgic trip back to the first three films in the series, giving them the same Lego treatment that was previously employed to a surprisingly successful degree with the two Star Wars trilogies. Indeed, the net effect is very similar to that of the Lego Star Wars titles.

The idea is to platform your way through various Lego-ised set pieces from the movies, grappling with enemies, solving puzzles and collecting treasures as you go. Often the way forward requires the assembly of some Lego bricks, but this is less complicated than it sounds – a single button press does the trick.

Even if you’re not familiar with the concept, Lego Indiana Jones is a fantastically simple game to get your head around. As such it’s suitable for younger players, though the Lego series’ signature tongue-in-cheek take on proceedings mean that a lot of grown-ups will probably it enjoy too.

If anything, Lego Indiana Jones is just mildly less enjoyable than its Star Wars equivalents, simply because the subject matter lends itself slightly less well to the format.

For instance, each level features Indy plus another character whose special ability you’ll need to use to progress at certain points. In single-player mode you can switch between Indy and the computer characters at will, while in two-player mode your on-screen partner can be controlled by a real-life buddy.

But, where Lego Star Wars was fun to play whether you had Yoda, Chewie or R2-D2 as your sidekick, in Lego Indiana Jones, the secondary characters just aren’t as interesting and even avid fans may struggle to recognise some of the more obscure individuals the game rolls out.

That said, Lego Indiana Jones certainly offers a lot of game for your money. There are effectively three games in one here – one for each of the original films. On top of that, there are many hidden challenges and items to collect in order to complete the game, plus the entire thing can also be replayed cooperatively.

Review: Civilization Revolution Xbox 360 game

Anthony Dhanendran — 2008-07-28T16:32:00.000Z

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeract!ve, Monday 28 July 2008 at 16:32:00

Conquer or be conquered

Most people who switch to games consoles from computers find it hard to adjust to the single controller, particularly for certain kinds of games.

Most of the time, this means first-person-shooter fans who find themselves reaching for a keyboard shortcut in the heat of a battle only to find it's not there.

Another kind of game that doesn't seem ideally suited to the console controller is strategy, and Civilization would appear to be a case in point. What with all the organising that you need to do in the game, a single controller simply doesn't seem to have enough buttons to do the job.

Civilization Revolution, the new incarnation of the venerable game on the Xbox 360 and other consoles, turns that wisdom on its head. The controller, it turns out, can work really well for strategy – in this case, the left stick moves your units, while the right stick navigates the map, and pop-ups and small icons indicate what each button does in each of the game modes.

Play remains the same, although it's been improved from the somewhat moribund Civilization 4. Chiefly that's because much of the city planning has been removed, so it's now simpler to keep control of your empire by building things in each city – you no longer have to actively allocate funds to science, culture and so on. That simple change makes it a faster game, and a more entertaining one, although it does put the emphasis back on war and competition with your neighbours.

That can be done on the computer or online against human players. The computer opponents are fairly easy to roll over in the lower and medium difficulty levels, but the game becomes much harder when you get to Emperor level. The only problem here is that it's a bit of a step-jump between the two, rather than a gradual increase in difficulty.

Graphics and sound, while good, are nothing to write home about, and it's annoying that you can't zoom out far enough to see the whole world, or all of a large empire, at once. But apart from that this is an excellent reworking of an old classic.

Review: Stronghold Crusader Extreme strategy game

Anthony Dhanendran — 2008-07-24T16:07:00.000Z

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeract!ve, Thursday 24 July 2008 at 16:07:00

Show me your war face

Crusader Extreme is an update to the now-fairly-old Stronghold Crusader.

The original was a pretty good war strategy game involving, as the name suggests, laying siege to forts and castles with a backdrop of the Middle Ages.

Sadly, there isn't much that's new in this so-called Extreme edition, except that the new Extreme missions are exactly that: extremely difficult. It's a cross between the pure military strategy of Age of Empires and the civilisation-building of Settlers – you have to do both, building a sustainable economy and a working army, in order to get anywhere.

You get the choice of playing the original game and playing the new one when you start. The original is still entertaining but it looks dated now. Gameplay can get hectic because enemies appear with such speed after the start of a mission. There's a decent learning curve in the tutorial campaign, but some of the other missions are very hard to get started on before your armies are mown down by marauders.

The new version adds very little, other than making the missions much harder. We took several goes at the first one to get by without being hopelessly thrashed very early on, and it didn't get much better from there.

Graphics are the same as they were before – it looks fine, particularly at high resolutions, but it's nothing special. Sound is the same – the music is dull and the silly vocal responses your troops give to commands quickly get irritating.

If you're a Stronghold fanatic and you've been waiting all this time for the next instalment, dig in. Otherwise, look elsewhere for your strategy hit.

Vista compatible: Yes

Review: Mass Effect role-playing game

Jonathan Parkyn — 2008-06-20T16:16:00.000Z

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeract!ve, Friday 20 June 2008 at 16:16:00

A space-age role-player with mass appeal

Mass Effect is an action role-playing game (RPG) developed by the same team that created the highly acclaimed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

You play as Commander Shepherd, a bright young space marine upon whose shoulders rests a rather heavy weight: the prospect of galactic peace.

The game plays a neat balancing act throughout, remaining challenging and intriguing while ensuring that nothing is ever difficult enough to arrest the flow of the genuinely interesting plot.

As well as the main story campaign, there are dozens of unconnected planets to visit, side quests to tackle and relationships to explore. Suffice to say, you’ll be playing this one for quite a while.

Many casual gamers are put off by the complexity of RPGs but, right from the get-go, Mass Effect can be as simple or as intricate as you want it to be.

You can custom-build your own hero – male or female – or just settle with the default character if you’d prefer to get stuck in quickly. Likewise, you can closely monitor and develop individual attributes as your character gains experience points or simply choose to level up automatically. Perhaps the best example of balance is the gameplay itself: Mass Effect is almost equal parts RPG and action shooter, which makes for an extremely playable combination.

Though not connected in any way to the Star Wars universe, Mass Effect clearly owes a lot to it. The ships, technology and weapons all bear a distinct similarity to their equivalents in George Lucas’ space opera (though there’s no lightsaber, sadly), while the telekinetic Force-style powers displayed by certain character classes and the backdrop of interstellar political intrigue feel like they’re lifted almost directly from the Skywalker saga.

None of that particularly matters, given the breadth of the Star Wars influence. But we would say that if you’ve already played Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect occasionally feels like the same game but without the official Lucasfilm branding. That shouldn’t put you off, though. Mass Effect is a high-quality PC RPG, and one that seems to have suffered very little – if anything – in translation from the original Xbox version.

Review: Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis game

Jonathan Parkyn — 2008-06-06T15:58:00.000Z

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeract!ve, Friday 6 June 2008 at 15:58:00

The great detective’s new adventure is anything but elementary

Sherlock Holmes is, in many ways, the perfect character for a point-and-click adventure game.

Clue-hunting, crime solving and general sleuthing all work very well within the style of the genre.

Less familiar is the character of Arsène Lupin, a Raffles-like French gentleman thief and literary contemporary of Holmes.

Lupin is the nemesis of the title (the game is actually known as Sherlock Holmes vs Arsène Lupin in other territories) and, in fact, he has a history of fictional run-ins with Holmes, who made several thinly disguised guest appearances in the original Lupin stories, by French author Maurice Leblanc.

The premise for Nemesis is that Lupin, having apparently decided that the arrogant British need to be taught a lesson, sets in motion a series of high-profile robberies, each involving a particular national treasure.

Unable to resist the temptation to go head-to-head with the greatest investigative mind in the world, Lupin sends a cryptic message to 221b Baker Street, goading his rival into a battle of wits that sees the player as Holmes (and, occasionally, Doctor Watson or Inspector Lestrade) attempting to foil the thief at every turn.

It’s a fun premise and one that’s executed in a pretty engaging manner. Unusually for a point-and-click adventure, the action all takes place in a 3D first-person point of view, which helps to make the game feel more involving.

Ironically, what lets Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis down is its attention to detail. Environments are beautifully designed (particularly if you’re a fan of late 19th Century furnishings), if a little sparsely populated. The voice-acting, on the other hand, will have you wincing, while the frequent misspellings and grammatical errors in the on-screen text are unforgivable.

Despite that, it can be very satisfying to unravel the twisting plot, though the inconsistent difficulty levels of the puzzles make Nemesis an oddly uneven and occasionally confounding experience.

Review: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6: Vegas 2 game

Jonathan Parkyn — 2008-05-28T10:00:00.000Z

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeract!ve, Wednesday 28 May 2008 at 10:00:00

More first-person tactical shooting from the Clancy stable

These days the name Tom Clancy is just as synonymous with a certain type of video game as it is with a certain type of novel. And, by and large, in both cases you can be fairly sure of what you’re getting before you’ve read a single page or played a single level.

On those terms, Rainbow 6: Vegas 2 doesn’t disappoint. It’s the second title in the Rainbow 6: Vegas series (rather than the sixth title in the Rainbow: Vegas 2 series) and puts the player in the role of a member of an elite black ops anti-terrorist squad (so far so Clancy).

The twist is that, in this case, the battleground on which the majority of the action takes place is not some identikit Middle Eastern or eastern European backwater, but America’s very own Sin City, Las Vegas.

Unfortunately, this supposedly unique setting is somewhat spoiled by the fact that the previous Rainbow 6: Vegas game also took place there, and if you’ve already played that version you won’t find much more that’s new here.

As before, you and your computer-controlled squad mates will find yourselves covertly sneaking around casinos, rappelling off rooftops, poking cameras under doorways and taking out the bad guys throughout the fairly predictable single-player campaign.

The game comes into its own a little more if it is played online along with other human opponents and team-mates. A good range of familiar multiplayer game types and co-operative modes make this a worthwhile purchase if you’re already a fan of shooter games.

We would, however, warn prospective players that, in addition to the relatively high computer requirements (3GHz Pentium 4, 1GB memory, 7GB hard disk space), Vegas 2 suffers from some annoying graphical and gameplay bugs. Hopefully a downloadable patch will have fixed these by the time you read this.

PEGI age rating: 16+

Vista compatibility: Yes

Review: Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Nintendo DS game

Anthony Dhanendran — 2008-05-07T15:31:00.000Z

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeract!ve, Wednesday 7 May 2008 at 15:31:00

More courtroom drama for the handheld console

Nintendo’s DS handheld console has become home to a number of unusual but compelling games over the past few years.

One surprise success was Capcom’s conversion of an old title, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. This odd game, half graphic novel and half courtroom drama, sold well enough for the company to transfer both its sequels to the DS, then commission this completely new chapter for the new console.

The previous three Phoenix Wright games had neatly tied up all the loose ends in a long and somewhat improbable saga involving all the main characters, so this new game sees you take charge of an entirely new fictional attorney lawyer: the improbably named Apollo Justice.

Armed only with a ludicrous haircut, a teenage assistant who happens to be a magician, a magic bracelet whose provenance is never really explained and “chords of steel” vocal training, you must take on four cases and in each defend a client as they fight against a strange judicial system and the possibility of a death penalty.

Despite being developed entirely for the more powerful DS, this latest game is remarkably similar to those originally designed for the Gameboy Advance.

A few new touches have been added, such as the ability to examine evidence in 3D and some video sequences, but for the main part gameplay is the same as ever: examine the scene of a crime to find evidence, then use this to find fault in the evidence given by prosecution witnesses.

The cases themselves are as ludicrous as ever but for the most part – the exception being the odd role of a pair of “magic panties” in one investigation – they come across as charmingly outlandish rather than ineptly plotted.

A critical eye will find the same faults as in previous games: some sections are insanely difficult, and the plot is linear, so the player is to a degree simply clicking through a story. But, like the previous titles, these facts are easy to ignore when you’re caught up in attempting to get a blind pianist, for example, acquitted.

Anyone with a DS should give the Ace Attorney games a try, and anyone who liked the earlier chapters will find plenty to enjoy here.

Review: Jack Keane

Jonathan Parkyn — 2008-05-02T10:00:00.000Z

Jonathan Parkyn, Computeract!ve, Friday 2 May 2008 at 10:00:00

Head for the high seas in this adventurous nostalgia trip

Jack Keane is a light-hearted adventure game in which you play a cheeky young seafarer who finds himself on a mysterious remote island populated by lots of monkeys.

Sound familiar? If you have fond memories of Monkey Island games you'll find that Jack Keane bears more than a passing similarity to Guybrush Threepwood from that game. It's not a sequel (or, indeed, in any way connected to Lucasarts's Monkey Island series), but the formula is essentially the same.

As Captain Jack, players must point and click their way through a series of increasingly baffling puzzles, gathering items and combing them to solve some enigmas or talking to characters and piecing together clues to solve others. The similarities don't end there, either.

Jack Keane shares its spiritual forbear's cartoony visuals and its tongue-in-cheek humour, as well as its tendency to drop in frequent references to movies and other games. In gameplay terms, the mouse-based controls are very easy to pick up. The game's difficulty level is well pitched, too, making it accessible to casual gamers and seasoned adventurers alike.

Fans of classic 1990s adventure games may, however, find themselves hankering for challenges that require a little more lateral thinking than those offered here. The jokes can be hit and miss and some of the voice acting is uneven in places.

Even then it's a much more palatable experience than many other recent attempts to resurrect the point-and-click genre, many of which seem to make the fatal mistake of taking themselves far too seriously.

In the end, Jack Keane’s major selling point is also its downfall. Taken on its own merit, the game is a lot of fun to play.

But in attempting to plug the hole left by the Monkey Island series the developers have inevitably invited comparisons with those games, not all of which are favourable.

Review: Army of Two Xbox 360 action game

Anthony Dhanendran — 2008-04-19T00:00:00.000Z

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeract!ve, Saturday 19 April 2008 at 00:00:00

Buddy up and get shooting

Unlike most combat games, which pitch the player in on his or her own, Army of Two gives you a buddy with whom to face the terror.

If you have two human players (and two controllers) you can both play in split-screen mode, or if you're on your own the computer will supply an artificial intelligence sidekick. The gameplay takes the two-person model into account: in the decent training section you're instructed how to make best use of it.

There's a clever aggro system for using one of the two to draw enemy fire while the other can sneak around and take pot-shots at the opposing characters. Predictably, the action takes place in the Middle East, with the two main characters, mercenaries Tyson and Elliot trying to put one over various warlords in the region.

It's easy to get into, and while the two-player combat model takes a while to get used to, it works reasonably well once you're into it. The learning curve is helped by the laid-back attitude of the game – there's plenty of (not-so-witty) banter going on between the two soldiers, and it's even possible for you to hand-slap and headbutt your buddy, should you wish.

It's not an easy game, though, and some of the earlier sections take several attempts to get through unscathed – if one of the characters dies, it's game over, so you must both get through each level alive.

Multiplayer mode pitches two-person teams against each other and there's a clever system for customising weapons using the shop that pops up during each level.

The guns can be souped up in several ways and you can swap weapons with your partner if you get bored. This all helps to keep things fresh in the fairly run-of-the-mill combat story, and there's just enough here to keep it interesting for a lengthy gaming session.