For many people Criterion's Burnout Paradise demonstrated for the first time what racing games could, and perhaps should be on this generation of consoles, but a few people were missing out. The PC and its army of fans weren't invited to the next-gen party. A year later, with numerous additions to and improvements over the original, Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box has boosted onto the PC (and consoles too incidentally, including a DLC upgrade for existing owners) and it has well and truly been worth the wait.

Right from the off you literally have the entire city at your disposal, with no load times, no menu screens and no hiccups - it's seamless. To start with you must create a Drivers Licence and add a photo (if you've got a webcam hooked up), but from then on all you'll be seeing is game. You start with a pretty slow (relatively speaking) car or a not so slow bike (part of the released console DLC but included from the start here) and you're off, exploring Paradise City and taking part in the huge number of events scattered about - of which there are even more than when Xbox 360 and PS3 owners were screaming around Paradise city in January 2008. You're free to do as you wish.

The structure of previous Burnout games has been replaced with a pick and choose system where you simply cruise up to some traffic lights to start the associated event, be it a Race, Road Rage, Marked Man, Stunt or Burning Route. Some are familiar, some play very differently and some are brand new. Road Rage events see you taking down a required number of opponent cars, smashing them into walls, into oncoming traffic, into each other or however else you manage to remove their wheels. It's brilliant fun and made all the better thanks to the free-roaming city, with the carnage being taken far from the starting line.

Marked Man requires you to drive from one location to another while a pack of powerful black cars attempt to take you out, relentless in their attack - total your car and you'll be staring at failure. This mode perhaps makes best use of the open city, with your cunning often being the key to survival - shortcuts and small alleys are perfect for staying out of harm's way.

Stunt events ask you to tally up a certain number of stunt points by driving with some style. It works by utilising a combo system, so it's key to link together stunts. Whether you're simply power sliding around a bend, barrel rolling off a ramp or getting big air, your stunt combo will continue. An on-screen clock will indicate how much time you have to perform another stunt and keep the combo going, ramping up the pressure on spotting another stunt opportunity. Luckily a tap of the boost button acts as a stunt so you can use this to move between awkward areas of track.

Of all the event types it's Stunt that seems to have benefited from the city's design the most. After a while you'll be spotting ramps all over the place, getting big air off a side road or power sliding for whole roads at a time. Had we still been racing in closed streets this event type would likely reach a score limit pretty quickly, but in Paradise City you're always discovering new routes and stunt possibilities.

Burning Route events are car specific and ask you to complete a time trial. The problem is that unless you complete each route as you get into a new car, towards the end of the game you're going to have to do a lot of car swapping, which can become quite tedious.

It's the Race events that will polarise opinion on the game though. The only way to complete an event (and in turn get one step closer to increasing your drivers licence rating) is to win it, and this soon becomes pretty tricky. The open nature of the city isn't a problem in the other event types, but in races it's all too easy to miss a turn while you're moving at an insanely high speed.

The game tries to help you out, with the on-screen compass and blinking indicator-like street name image telling you a turning is coming up, but in the heat of the moment these are nowhere near as helpful as giant flashing corner signs seen in previous Burnout games. During races on the more restricted roads, you'll often only have one route to take towards the end, so miss that one vital turn and it's effectively race over.

Thankfully Criterion has listened to fans and realised that a restart event option is needed, so newcomers to the game won't have to contend with the same tedium of driving back to the start point that the rest of us have had to put up with for a year. If you realise you're performing badly during an event you can simply bring up the in-game menu and hit restart, whereas if you've finished you can simply choose to replay the last event you tried.

Don't get us wrong; the open nature of the city is brilliant, but the race events don't suit this set-up and we'd have preferred barriers to be put in place during these events, making for less frustration and more fun. It might have shattered the illusion of street racing in an open city, but considering the benefit to gameplay it's a sacrifice we'd have accepted.

How well you do in each of these events also depends a lot on the car you're driving. You've got three types: speed, aggressor and stunt. They're pretty self explanatory but do handle and use boost very differently. The speed class cars can only boost when you've got a full boost bar, but the benefit is the ability to perform burnout chains, effectively giving you an endless boost reserve - if you're good enough to use an entire boost meter in one go.

Aggressors are the heavy duty vehicles that can take more damage before getting totalled, making them the vehicles of choice during Marked Man events. Boost for these beasts is most easily earned by taking down other drivers. And stunt vehicles can perform the best power slides and barrel rolls, can boost at any time (essential for stunt runs) and can take a bit of damage - making them something of an in-between car class.

As you progress you'll unlock new cars, but only the cars awarded for a licence upgrade (something which requires more and more event wins as your licence improves) and Burning Route victories are added instantly to your junk yard garage. All the rest need to be taken down first, which is both fun and slightly annoying. While you're driving around you'll often notice a car speed past, and it's these cars that are waiting to be fully unlocked. It adds an element of fun to what otherwise would have been another standard unlock system, but after a while it becomes a little tedious.

The same goes for changing your car. This has to be done by driving to a junk yard (there are five to find in the game map) and then picking the car you want. We're all for seamless gameplay, but some things are better when done in the conventional way. The whole process always takes longer than we want it to and a menu would have solved the problem completely.

Burnout Paradise is a thrilling racing game despite this handful of problems, but Criterion has taken a backwards step in a few key areas, most notably Crash mode. In Paradise Crash mode has been replaced by Showtime - probably the most ridiculous game mode we've ever played in a racer, arcade or otherwise. Essentially Showtime makes every road in the game an event, where there's a high score to beat - both on and offline.

Once activated you have one goal: crash into as many cars as possible. Rather than managing your crash like in previous Burnouts (which featured some brilliant multiplier pick-ups and superb crash breakers), here you have a boost meter that determines how many ground stomps you can perform, propelling your car forwards. Hit another vehicle and your boost increases, so you can go on for ages on the busier stretches of road. The score multiplier pick-ups have been replaced by buses, which multiply your score. The problem here is that the number of buses that arrive is down to luck. Showtime is good for a laugh, but not nearly as skilful as Revenge's Crash mode.

Each and every road also has a saved fastest time for online and offline, essentially giving you a time trial for every road. It's a nice feature and something to do whenever you're driving to another traffic light triggered event, but really only comes into its own when you're online and getting updates from everyone, including your friends.

It's the online integration that sets Paradise apart from many other racers. It is without doubt the best integration we've seen (even a year after release) and all accessed by a single button press. From this in-game menu you can race against friends or take on some random players. Criterion has included race events and challenges for every permutation of players (up to eight can play together online - although there's no road rage or marked man events) and the way the game uses a connected webcam to take snap shots of victorious and not so victorious moments (smugshots and mugshots) is a stroke of genius.

Burnout Paradise is an excellent game when played alone, but online with friends it reaches another level. Racing from point to point with friends is insane fun, with the carnage making for plenty of frenzied shouting and incredible near misses. And when you're bored of standard races you can tackle the many Freeburn challenges - a mode which somehow manages to make trivial tasks a hell of a lot of fun. Over the past year Criterion added a heap of new content to the original game, so this means you're going to get even more online challenges than there was when we first reviewed the game early in 2008.

Brand new to The Ultimate Box is Party Mode, an offline pass the controller mode for up to eight players. Here you take part in Speed, Stunt and Skill challenges, competing against your friends for the best score or fastest time. It's certainly a more immediate way to enjoy Burnout Paradise, but it's not something we can see dominating your multiplayer gaming sessions. The biggest omission, which is incidentally the most disappointing omission from the whole game, is Crash Mode - something that would have fitted perfectly inside the new Party Mode.

Burnout Paradise on the PC looks great, sporting a great frame rate, superb lighting, incredible car damage, an unrivalled sense of speed and no loading at all once you're in the city - assuming you don't use the restart option, which does result in a fairly brief pause in the action. If you've been hoping your mega PC would run rings around the home console versions of Burnout Paradise, Criterion hasn't let you down. This PC version can be run at ridiculously high resolutions, features improved shadows, ambient occlusion (if your machine is up to it) and performs well on a fairly modest system. The game has lost some of its "wow" factor in the year that's passed, but seeing it run with all the graphical settings maxed is still a rather wonderful thing.

While two of our initial gripes, the fact that the city never becomes dark and that there's no rain, were sorted out through DLC and included hear from the start, visually the game still has a few blemishes. The city is completely devoid of people. Cars are everywhere, but there's not a person in sight. There's no doubt this decision was made to ensure the game received a family-friendly rating, but we wonder if there would have been a way to include pedestrians without the risk of them being mowed down by boost-happy drivers... A few less than spectacular textures also seem to stick out like a sore thumb in the PC version, no doubt because everything else looks so good. Picking holes in the presentation is being harsh on Criterion though, as the variety in the huge city is incredible and the draw distance at certain points has to be seen to be believed.

And we've arrived at the tricky matter of summing up all Burnout Paradise offers. Going back to the standard menu-driven system of older racers is pretty jarring after spending hours and hours cruising from event to event in Paradise. For true next-gen arcade racing thrills Burnout Paradise is most definitely your best option, and on PC your only option. Criterion has delivered a game that every gamer should have in their collection.

source: www.videogamer.com

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Mirror's Edge

If any game was going to win an award for being cool, Mirror's Edge would be it. From the title screen onwards you're treated to a uniquely styled action game that exudes cool from every pore, drips with cutting edge technical brilliance and never tries to deviate from its platforming focus. The big question on its release in Q4 2008 was whether or not all this cool and a remarkably simple control scheme would be enough to make free-running Mirror's Edge the game of the year candidate it always looked like being. In the end it polarised too much to stand much of a chance, but if the gameplay clicks you're going to have a hell of a good time - and the PC version is a teeny bit better.

Mirror's Edge sees you playing as Faith, a female runner in a near future in which security is tight and every move is watched and analysed. While the general public comply, worried for their safety and the penalties for breaking the law, the runners work above the law, delivering sensitive data to people by using highrise rooftops as their road network. The storyline seems more or less created to give a purpose to the parkour inspired action platforming gameplay, but it does that perfectly and creates a convincing totalitarian atmosphere.

Although viewed from a first-person perspective it would be wrong to call Mirror's Edge a first-person shooter. For the most part you're weapon-less, with the first-person perspective giving you the perfect view of the city and the exhilarating moves you're able to pull off. For a game that looks incredibly complicated to control, developer DICE should be commended for managing to map most of what matters onto the four shoulder buttons of the two next-gen console controllers. Of course, the PC game also supports a keyboard and mouse, although unless you've got incredibly dextrous fingers we'd always recommend a 360 controller over the more traditional PC controls - for the platforming gameplay a pad makes for a far better experience.

he key to everything Faith does is really the way all upwards actions are mapped to LB and all downward actions are mapped to LT - space and left shift respectively on the keyboard. You'll need to play through the tutorial level to get a feel for it, but once you do it makes perfect sense and never gets in the way of gameplay.

Faith's movement is essentially controlled like any other FPS, with her running speed increasing as you continue to move unobstructed by obstacles. If a small structure is in your way, tap LB/left shift and Faith will either leap straight over or climb up onto it; if a ramp of sorts is built out of a small object leading to a larger structure, tap the same button and you'll use the first object as a springboard to leap over both. Equally, if you see a gap underneath an object, tap LT/space and Faith will slide underneath. It might sound clunky spelled out here, but in practice it's tremendously fluid and makes for some of the best platforming gameplay available on any platform.

These little movements make up a lot of the game, but Faith is a thrill seeker, so massive leaps of, well, faith, are always just around the corner. Runner vision (not available on the hardest unlocked difficulty mode) highlights key objects in red, so you're always aware of roughly where you need to go, be it off the edge of a ramp or down a zip wire. Faith isn't a super human, so a big fall will hurt her, meaning a good landing is essential. Holding the down button just prior to landing is the key to this, causing Faith to roll when she hits the ground, and letting you continue your run without losing too much momentum.

We haven't even touched on the more advanced techniques yet, like wall running (and jumping from a wall run), wall jumps by using the quick turn button and tucked jumps by holding the up button while in the air. Although Runner Vision shows suitable objects to use and you can easily point Faith towards her destination with a single press of B/left Alt, there's not a single route through each level - far from it. The levels have been built in a way to make the most of Faith's incredible agility, so the obvious route is rarely, if ever, the best option. Of course, it's still great fun to play through the game using nothing but what's marked out, but by the latter half of the game (which is disappointingly short, we're sad to report) you're more comfortable with Faith's abilities and try more things out.

It's a testament to the gameplay that we even enjoyed opening doors, something that quite rightly barely gets a mention in the majority of games. The way Faith smashes through them never gets dull, and the transition from the sterile indoor environments to the stunning outdoors always impress. Doors are fun, but smashing through glass is even better. It feels strange talking about such mundane things, but when you're Faith, seeing the world with her eyes, even the most simple actions feel good.

f there's a part of the game that's likely to divide opinion it's the combat. Although developed by FPS veterans DICE, gun combat in Mirror's Edge isn't good. On the small number of occasions we felt it necessary to pick up and use a gun, things felt awkward, almost as if Faith herself wasn't comfortable using guns as a way to tackle enemies. Gameplay flaw or deliberate design choice, it works in that it fits in with the rest of the game. You'll focus on either ignoring enemies completely or use Faith's close-quarters combat. Disarms are key to taking out enemies, with a single button press at the correct time snatching a weapon and downing the enemy, but the system isn't perfect.

RT/mouse 1 is used for all combat in the game, with a press while on the floor performing a punch, a flying kick while in the air and a ground kick while sliding. You can even combine a wall run with a flying kick and link moves together, but there's one flaw that will irk some a lot more than others. A successful attack will often stun an enemy for a few seconds, but during this time Faith can't disarm them. Despite the enemy being out of action for that time, it's impossible to disarm until he's back up and starting an attack animation. It's something you can live with, but better combat is a must in the sequel. The best encounters occur when Faith is faced with more agile enemies, able to scale buildings and follow her in ways standard cops can't. Here you'll have to make the most of your newly learnt skills and the chase gameplay is about the best the game has to offer.

While Faith is mainly running about on rooftops and inside office complexes, you get more than enough variety thrown in. One area is set inside a massive underground storm drain, another sees her jumping onto a train before leaping from one to another. It's thrilling stuff, and never lets up. An argument could be put forward that the end is a little cheap (snipers aren't the best enemy to come across when your main form of attack is up close and personal), but every section has a solution, no matter how tricky (or impossible) it may seem for those moments where Faith repeatedly eats dirt. At times you'll moan about her slow bar shuffling and ledge walking speed and the way enemies can spot you from quite a distance, but these are really only slight niggles in an otherwise expertly made game.

The modes that elevate Mirror's Edge from good to great are speed run and time trial. Speed run is, as you'd expect, playing through the main campaign levels as quickly as possible. It's the enemy free time trial levels that have the potential to keep you hooked though. It's here that the game's route variety shines through and your quality is shamed. By the end of the game we felt we were pretty good, but our first time on the initial time trial stage showed just what can be done. Our one star time was a good 45 seconds off what was needed for three stars. With downloadable ghosts and online leaderboards, you could be playing this for a long, long time.

No game we've played in the last year comes close to matching the clinically clean style seen in Mirror's Edge. The outdoor sections are bathed in glorious light and the city stretches far into the distance, whereas the indoor sections are brilliantly designed and capture the tone of the story perfectly. If you've been waiting for the PC release hoping it would better the two console versions released last year, you're in luck, as it does. Numerous PhysX accelerated physics objects and effects add to an already stunning looking game, such as moving sheets of plastic and low-lying fog, making the world that little bit more believable. Of course, the game was designed to be played using a controller's shoulder buttons, so unless you've got a 360 pad (or similar) we'd recommend you pick one up - even customised PC controls don't feel as good as the brilliantly simple pad controls.

There are times in Mirror's Edge when you'll be frustrated, replaying a section for the umpteenth time with no solution in sight, but persevere; Faith always has a way out - you just have to find it. Combine a thoroughly entertaining single-player campaign with a stunning and challenging time trial mode and you'll soon forget that you managed to run through the story in six hours or less. There's depth here that you'll only discover hours into time trialling a single stage, and as we said, no other game in recent memory comes close to being as cool. We can't wait to see what Faith gets up to next.

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Football Manager Live

After years of playing Football Manager, logging into Football Manager Live proved a bit of a shock. While many of the skills picked up from hours trawling through Sports Interactive's hugely addictive database certainly have a place in FM Live, there's now a whole new world to get to grips with. This time every manager in the game is sat somewhere in the world, agonising over every decision and celebrating every goal just as you are. FM Live isn't the real thing, but if you thought the standard Football Manager was addictive, prepare to sacrifice your social life on a completely different level.

After setting up a subscription (the retail game comes with four months access and you can subscribe at a cost of £7.66 to £6.10 per month depending on how many months you commit to), choosing a team name (I'm the Juicy Danglers if anyone is wondering) and joining a game world (each has a maximum of 1000 users), it's time to wave goodbye to your loved ones, stock up on energy drinks, load up FM Live and get started. SI has done a good job of easing players into things with a helpful setup assistant guiding newcomers through the basics and ensuring it's not necessary to spend hours wading through stats before a ball is kicked. It's entirely possible to be playing another online manager within minutes of loading the game, putting you well on the way to legendary status as the next Alex Ferguson.

The first important decision players will need to make is choosing a starting skill. There are six areas to specialise in (coaching, physio, scouting, management, infrastructure, tactics and learning) and your starting skill will give you a head start in that skill tree. Think of skills as FM Live's version of hiring staff in the classic offline FM games, only now you as a manager must learn new skills which can take anything from minutes to a whole month. If you want to bring in talented youth players and transform them into superstars you'll want to concentrate on coaching and scouting, but fancy yourself as a blackboard wizard and you'll definitely want to go down the path of tactics. Personally I went down the coaching skill path, allowing me to bring on promising young players, but that did put me at a early disadvantage compared to those who went straight in with tactical skills. Who made the right choices won't be apparent for some time, but it certainly makes for a great mix of skill sets amongst the managers in each league.

Once you've decided your starting skill it's time to pick your initial squad. FM Live will automatically pick an 18-player squad for you, which can be ignored entirely if you wish, but most players will likely wish to tinker with the suggested squad rather than start from scratch - picking a team of relative unknowns is much harder than it sounds. All starting players have a transfer budget of £500,000 and a daily wages budget of £100,000. Once you're happy with the squad - more on the transfer system later - you finalise your selection and sign each player on a one season contract (a season lasts 28 days of real time). From here it's a case of joining a Football Association (each has specific times at which matches are expected to be played so you should be able to find one to suit your lifestyle) and you're set to go.

Once in a league (you'll be assigned to one by the organisers of the FA) your fixture list will be created, with each match having an associated date by which a particular game needs to be played. Fixtures can be played in any order, but fail to complete a match by its play date and AI rights will be awarded. Whichever team is awarded the AI rights then has 24 hours to play the match, with the opposition team under the control of AI. The disadvantage here is that an AI manager will only make required changes - such as when a player is injured or fatigued - and won't make any tactical changes. If this match isn't completed in a 24 period then an AI vs AI match will take place.

To encourage 'live' matches penalties are in place for completing too many games with AI. The percentage of AI matches allowed will vary depending on your FA, but exceed the set limit and the money due to you in a competition will be reduced on a sliding scale. In a competition with a 40 per cent AI limit and a 50 per cent penalty you will receive no penalty if your team keeps under the 40 per cent limit. Play all games using AI and you will receive a 50 per cent fine, while 70 per cent AI games will result in a 25 per cent fine. Managers are also allocated a set period of holiday over the course of a year, which when activated prevents AI matches from counting towards the total AI match percentage.

Matches in FM Live are much like the classic overhead view in FM (the new 3D match engine isn't present here), but initially managers don't have FM's wealth of tactical options available, giving the feeling that you're stood in the dugout shouting instructions but no one is listening. As with other aspects of FM Live, you'll need to increase your skills in this area to open up more tactical options. This of course won't stop you from taking all the glory if your team is performing well, even if you've done little more than pick a starting eleven. You're not completely useless as a novice manager, seeing as you're able to make real-time substitutions and formation changes, but your managerial prowess really won't be shown until you've learnt the necessary skills.

As mentioned earlier, a season in FM Live lasts 28 real world days, and consists of a week-long pre-season followed by three weeks of competitive games. Much like the English Football League, FM Live's FAs feature a league system, although the structure varies from FA to FA. Some will feature a single Premier League and a selection of first divisions, with teams in a first division always only one season/promotion away from a place in the top division. Some FAs, however, opt for a more traditional structure. With a fully tiered system of leagues, teams starting in the lowest league will require several promotions in order to make it into the top tier. Each FA also runs a variety of cup competitions.

In addition to the individual FA competitions FM Live features a "Super FA" in the shape of UUFA, a union of all the FAs which brings together the best teams to compete in inter-FA competitions. This is essentially FM Live's version of European football, where all the serious players in the world of FM Live want to be. And on top of this you've also got a world ranking to play for (win and you'll gain some points, lose and you'll drop some, draw and you might gain or lose points depending on the opposition's rank) and the chance to claim the title of Game World Champion - simply the last player to beat the champ, so one victory could earn you a place in the FM Live hall of fame.

All this brings us nicely onto finances. Your club's wealth is a very important part of FM Live: a poor club will have to rely on getting unproven or past-it players on the cheap and won't have the funds to expand their stadium's capacity and income streams, while a wealthy club will be able to go in for the world's best and get even richer through massive ticket sales and increased advertising revenue. Each club is awarded a daily income of up to £300,000, a figure determined by a team's reputation, itself largely determined by a team's performance in FA competitions. Additionally, incoming funds can be generated through media money from the FA, prize money from unofficial competitions and the sale of players.

The transfer system in FM Live is an area which shares very few similarities to the system in place in the offline FM games. It's fair to say that here it's much more akin to an eBay auction than a true representation of real life wheeling and dealing. There are essentially three ways to secure the contract of a new player. A Free Agent wage auction is initiated when an out of contract player is bid on. This then starts a 24 hour auction with the team offering the highest wage winning the auction. In addition the winning bidder must also pay an acquisition fee (a player's set value) to the game world and a signing on fee equal to 10x the player's daily wage.

A similar process occurs for contract end wage auctions. These occur when a player's contract expires and a 24 hour wage auction begins (assuming an auto-rebid is in place). If at the end of the auction the player's current club is not the winner, the winning club will pay the acquisition fee to the player's previous owner and a signing on fee to the player. To stop a member of your squad from entering a contact end wage auction a manager has five locks which should be used to protect five key players. This lock, or auto-extend as it's called in FM Live, ensures your star players cannot be poached. Additionally players aged 19 or under can have their contact auto-extended without taking one of the five locks.

The most eBay-like transfers occurs when a manager chooses to put a player up for auction, specifying the length of the auction, the starting bid and even an instant buy amount. The winner is the manager who places the highest bid. It is also possible to carry out transfers outside of the auction system. Simply find a player you want and make a private bid directly to the club. If accepted the player is then yours for the agreed fee, plus an agent's fee of 10 per cent of the agreed fee. This is really the only situation in which bartering for players can take place. If you have the money to pay a player's wage and any acquisition/signing on fee, he is yours - no negotiations take place.

On top of all this there's the social element that comes from playing against real people, which is what turns a great stat-based strategy game into one of the most addictive games a football fan could play. There are always chats ongoing under various topics, and banter between managers during a match will range from the polite gl (good luck) and gg (good game), to compliments on a particular player's performance, and maybe even some strong words after a particularly close encounter comes to a 94th minute climax. After one particularly dodgy looking loan deal that saw a high quality striker going to a novice team on loan for a whole season the management community was up in arms, with emails flying across the game's messaging system - something which suggests it'll be hard for cheats to operate unnoticed. It's still the very early stages, too. Once leagues start to take shape and you begin to get to know rival managers there's no reason why real rivalries won't develop and disgruntled managers feel the need to lay into a rival, accusing them of man-marking the ref and his assistants. It's here where FM Live has the most potential and the reason we're being asked to pay a subscription.

All that should give you a solid idea of what to expect from FM Live, but should you buy it and sink your money into a monthly sub? After all, you can play FM 2009 for as long as you wish and no sub is required. The answer is a resounding yes. Importantly, FM Live manages to retain all the addictive qualities of the offline FM titles - building a squad, training, transfer dealing - only now you're competing against 999 other mangers all determined to make their team the best. For all its similarities to FM titles that have come before it, the focus on skill learning gives FM Live a fresh feeling that means even the most hardened of FM players will need to consider how they manage. This also means there's a real reward for sinking hours into the game, and will help separate a casual manager from a guy who's been carefully constructing a managerial skill set for many a season.

According to my manager stats, I've spent approximately 35 per cent of my life (since my team was created) logged into FM Live. Either I've got nothing better in my life to be getting on with or FM Live is the greatest football management game ever created.

source : www.videogamer.com

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FEAR 2

Don't fancy reading the review? Would you prefer to sit back in your chair and watch some glorious 720p HD footage of the game in action while listening to us tell you about F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin? If so head over to our video review for a condensed review of Monolith's first-person shooter.

If I ever meet the person who first realised that slow-motion made things more fun, I'll give them a big pat on the back. While its use in F.E.A.R. 2 isn't revolutionary in any way, it is superbly executed and manages to make Monolith's FPS stand out from the majority of other shooters on the market. In a month, perhaps even a year, dominated by one gorgeous looking FPS, it's quite telling that it's F.E.A.R. 2 which provided me with more entertainment.

F.E.A.R. 2's had a somewhat interesting development cycle. Monolith, developer of the original F.E.A.R. (not the two expansions), was acquired by Warner towards the end of development of the original game, so dropped publisher Vivendi to become part of Warner's growing stable of studios. Monolith retained rights to the series' characters, but Vivendi owned the name, so work began on Project Origin, a sequel to F.E.A.R. in all but name. Some time later Vivendi merged with Activision and this allowed Warner to pick up the rights to the F.E.A.R. name, giving us the sequel everyone wanted.

F.E.A.R. 2 picks up 30 minutes before the end of the original game (which ended with a rather large explosion), and doesn't acknowledge expansions Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate. You play as Michael Becket, a member of Delta Force - an elite unit sent to arrest Genevieve Aristide, president of Armacham, whom Point Man found incriminating evidence against during the first game. Things obviously don't go quite to plan, and you're once again thrown into a supernatural horror first-person shooter.

Key to it all is spooky apparition, sometimes girl, sometimes freakish woman, Alma, who is back causing chaos and lots of bloodshed. The story focuses on her incarceration in the Vault, a structure built deep inside the top secret Origin Facility. We won't spoil what is an entertaining and twisting storyline, but it should come as no surprise that Becket suffers from the same visions as Point Man, so expect, well, just about anything really.

Played entirely from a first-person perspective, even during cutscenes, and with just the right amount of head bob and movement, you feel incredibly grounded and in the shoes of Becket. A few people will likely find the bob slightly hard to take (motion sickness sufferers are probably out of luck), but it's brilliantly immersive and one of the reasons why the game's scares work so well.

FEAR 2 is more unnerving and unsettling than it is scary, but don't take that as a negative. You're not going to think Alma is hiding under your bed or in your closet, and you won't need someone to do a clean sweep of the house before entering at night, but while you're playing your heart rate will rise and you'll more than likely need to take regular breaks. Chances are your hands will have turned into claws that need prying away from the controller, having been holding on for dear life.

From start to finish F.E.A.R. 2 is a finely tuned experience that builds tension when needed, before releasing it all in a series of stunning fire fights. I'm not a violent person and rarely even swear in real life, but (and I doubt this is good for the whole 'games don't make people violent' debate) F.E.A.R. 2 got under my skin. It totally sucked me in, grabbed my nerves and shredded them. After a few hours I was a blithering wreck, cursing every time something moved across my vision.

As well as the horror is handled here it's the combat that steals the show, with Monolith giving you the tools to quite spectacularly rip enemies apart. I might be teetering extremely close to hyperbole, but I haven't played an FPS with weapons as satisfying to shoot as those found here. Combat in FEAR 2 feels meaty and downright brutal, downed enemies slump over whatever breaks their fall and the environments are blown to pieces by a stream of bullets.

Throw in what is still the best use of slow-motion I've seen in a video game (it's hard to pinpoint why it's so good, but it just feels right) and you'll find yourself replaying sections for the sheer thrill of it. Whether you've got a standard scoped assault rifle, a one-shot kill head-popping sniper rifle, the stupendous Penetrator bolt gun or the flesh frying laser gun, the simple act of shooting is always fun and satisfying. And because of the fear factor, you'll find yourself pummelling enemies with far more bullets than really necessary, just to make sure they don't get up again. Did I say that F.E.A.R. 2 will turn you into a nervous wreck?

Monolith's original entry in the series impressed in part due to its advanced enemy AI, so similar quality in this area in the sequel shouldn't come as a surprise. Enemies will attempt to take up strong defensive positions in the environment, often tipping over furniture to make better cover, and try to flush you out of hiding with a well placed grenade. There's great enemy variety too, with the expected soldiers being joined by mutated leaping monstrosities (one of the enemies you're guaranteed to waste a load of ammo on), cloaked ninjas able to kill you in seconds (think the Predator, just more nimble and therefore more able to freak you out) and full-on mechs trying to send you to an early grave - mechs you get to pilot at numerous points in the campaign.

After you've settled into F.E.A.R. 2's groove (it does feel somewhat different to the majority of shooters out there), you'll find you won't want to leave. There's a certain blood-stained beauty in storming into a room, clocking four armed guys, activating slow mo, lobbing in a grenade, taking out three of them with stunning shots to the head from a close range shotgun, and then watching as the last is obliterated by the explosion. It's combat that never gets old and is more or less unrivalled. In full flow F.E.A.R. 2 looks and sounds brilliant too, bettering the original in every way, but it is a step below the very best looking games available.

Multiplayer in the original always seemed like a bit of an afterthought, despite Vivendi releasing it for free as a standalone product, and sadly it disappoints in the sequel too. Some effort has definitely been made to give F.E.A.R. 2 fans something to do once the campaign has been clocked, but in a multiplayer competitive environment the combat doesn't really work. It's a shame as there are numerous game types on offer, a good selection of maps and some solid net code, but most FPS fans will soon migrate back to the regulars.

If you haven't already cottoned on to what I'm trying to say; I can't recommend Monolith's sequel highly enough. It might not have the jaw-dropping visuals to rival Killzone 2, but it's a hugely satisfying shooter that'll have you clinging onto that controller or mouse throughout its tension-filled campaign. If you like your combat meaty and with a solid dose of supernatural scares, there's every chance this will rank as one of your favourite games of 2009.

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When we reviewed GTA 4 on Xbox 360 and PS3 earlier this year we made some pretty bold statements. Here's probably the boldest: GTA 4 "has moved video games on to a point that most developers just won't be able to compete with". Looking at it again, a fair few months since we'd driven the streets of Liberty City, that was perhaps overstating things slightly (everyone can get caught up in the moment), but it's still abundantly clear that GTA 4 is a high point in video game history, and just as good on the PC now as it was back in April on console.

We won't explain just why we love the game so much (you can get a full, lengthy run down from our console review), but for those completely in the dark, know that you're going to get open world action that makes you care about the main characters in a way we doubted would be possible - at least in this generation. As an action game it's top class, it's larger and more expansive than practically every other non-RPG released this year, and it's got visuals to die for. Having sunk hours into the PC version it's still a sight to behold.
Instead of re-treading old ground, we'll rundown how the PC version of GTA 4 has been handled, including the performance on modest gaming rigs, and the extras that Rockstar has included. Performance first then, and this is probably our biggest concern with the port. To put it bluntly, you're going to need a very beefy machine to get the game running well. Even the game's suggested settings caused our quad core, 8800 GTX equipped machine to struggle, and this was after we'd lowered the resolution to well below our monitor's native resolution.

To be fair, when we finally managed to get the game running well, it still looked superb, but it seems it's going to be some time before you're going to be able to set all the graphical options to max and enjoy the show. A nice touch is the way the game shows you what the visuals are going to look like as you make changes, removing detail in the distance as you slide the view distance slider down from the hopeful 100 per cent to a more realistic mid twenties number. Texture quality appears to be the real killer, with anything above medium causing big issues with our non-SLI setup. It's hard to say for sure without comparing side by side, but a modest gaming rig should be able to pump out visuals at least on par with the console versions.

Controls next, and here Rockstar has done an excellent job. Mouse and keyboard controls work great for the most part, obviously excelling when it comes to gun-play, but even driving isn't so bad with the WASD keys. It's not completely ideal though, so we'd recommend you have a gamepad plugged in at the same time - preferably the 360 controller that the game recognises automatically. You're able to switch between the two control setups on the fly, so it's perfectly possible to dump the pad when you're done driving, returning to the keyboard and mouse to tackle some goons with your AK-47.

Perhaps more exciting than visual and control tweaks is the brand new video editor. In the PC game you're able to record 30-second clips and then edit them together using the in-built editing suite. We're not experts (at all) when it comes to video editing (apart from Seb), but in 30 minutes or so (including play time) we were able to put together a fairly amusing short video, manually positioning the camera, zooming, panning, and other things that are over our heads. We ended up with a rather dramatic scene showing Niko being shot by a cop's shotgun, before falling to the floor in slow motion. Not Oscar worthy material, clearly, but we can see YouTube being dominated by this stuff in the near future. Once you're done editing the video, inserting music and adding any text you think will improve the film along the way, you can save to a 720p WMV or upload to the Rockstar Social Club - both took a fair amount of time, but the results are worth it.

The final tweak of any real significance is the increase in multiplayer numbers from 16 to 32, at least in the Deathmatch, GTA Race and Free modes. It's one of those things that you assume is going to be great, but it's hard to know how much difference it's going to make until you play it for yourself. We're glad to report that it helps and awful lot. While we really like GTA 4 multiplayer on Xbox 360 and PS3, at times the games felt a little empty. On PC, with up to 32 players running around and driving cars, the game feels more alive. If you're after the best multiplayer version of GTA 4, the PC game wins hands down.

Aside from the aforementioned performance issues (we expect people will be using GTA 4 as a benchmark tool for years to come) there's the issue of all the apps that need to be running in order to play the game. If you want to play online you'll need a Rockstar Social Club account (free) and a Games for Windows LIVE account (also free), and both of these must be running. Add in Steam if you've got the digitally distributed version, and that's three apps all running while you're blasting away gang members. Our experience was quite painless, with our Games for Windows account linking to our Rockstar Social Club account seamlessly, with the only odd thing being how our friends were split between Steam and the GFW service. Still, it's nice to be able to earn Achievements (tied to your gamertag) - something few PC games support.

If you've been waiting for the ultimate version of GTA 4, then this is it, providing you can put up with a fair amount of hassle to get the game running well and all the services you need to sign up to in order to play the game in the first place. The mouse and keyboard controls are great, the video editing suite is a brilliant bonus and the enhanced multiplayer is what the game really needed. There's no doubt about it. GTA 4 is one of the best games of the year and as such one of the best we've ever played.

source :www.videogamer.com

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Google Adds ActiveSync to Accommodate IPhone, Win Mobile

Google Monday announced that it is adding support for Microsoft's ActiveSync to Google Sync, which will give iPhone and Windows Mobile offline access to their Google calendars and Gmail contacts from their mobile applications.

Google already supports calendar and contact synchronization via Google Synch on the BlackBerry and on its own Android mobile platform. The Android sync is a technology developed by Google and built into Google Apps.

The Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync support means users can sync Google Calendars and Gmail Contacts information with the ActiveSync compatible calendar and contact applications they run on their iPhone and Windows Mobile devices. The synchronization happens in real-time so when a contact or calendar entry is added or upgraded in Google Apps it is updated with applications on the mobile device.

As part of the announcement Google said it also has added contact sync for mobile devices that support SyncML, a platform independent synchronization standard.

"This enables people to use native applications they have on their devices to connect to Google," says Raju Gulabani, product management director for Google Enterprise. "The key here is that when users of Google Apps store their information online with us they have access anywhere from any device."

The capability gives users offline access to the information stored in their Google accounts. Previously, users had to open a Web browser and sign on to their Google accounts to access the information. That access method is still available.

The ActiveSync announcement follows the offline capabilities that Google has been adding to its platform to match features that have been in leading messaging platforms for years.

Two weeks ago, Google released a beta of an offline capability for Gmail, which lets business and consumer users work with e-mail and eventually calendar items while disconnected from the network.

And it follows momentum building behind ActiveSync. Last month, IBM said that it would add ActiveSync technology later this year to Lotus Notes Traveler, which provides real-time replication between mobile devices and Notes.

IBM's Ed Brill, director of product management for Lotus, said on his blog that the Google move reassures IBM that "our strategy around mobility for Notes/Domino is on the right track -- Web and protocol-based approaches, support for a variety of devices through their native interfaces, and a strong partner ecosystem to add value and innovate."

The Google news came the same day a Microsoft-hosted Smartphone synchronization service was accidentally activated, giving users a preview of the company's new Microsoft My Phone service.

"Google's licensing of these Microsoft patents relating to the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol is a clear acknowledgement of the innovation taking place at Microsoft," said Horacio Gutierrez, deputy general counsel and vice president for intellectual property and licensing for Microsoft.

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Google's PowerMeter

Google is testing software that will let consumers get detailed information on how much electricity they're using, which could help households reduce consumption by as much as 15 percent, the company said Monday.

The software, Google PowerMeter, integrates into the company's iGoogle platform, where users create a customized page with lightweight Web-based applications. The PowerMeter is designed to show a granular, real-time view of electricity-consuming devices.

Although just a prototype now, consumers will eventually be able to opt in to use it, and no personal information will be shared between Google and utilities, the company said. The electricity data will be stored securely, and users will be able to tell their utility to stop sending data to the PowerMeter, Google said.

Most consumers don't have much data or context regarding their electricity consumption, according to Ed Lu of Google's engineering team.

Google's PowerMeter takes data from so-called "smart meters," or advanced electricity meters and other electricity management devices. About 40 million smart meters are in use worldwide, with that number expected to rise to 100 million in the next few years, Lu said.

U.S. President Barack Obama's economy stimulus plan includes investments to put up to 40 million smart meters in U.S. homes.

Google takes data from a home's smart meter and displays it in a graph. It can show the current day's electricity consumption compared to the day before, but the graph can be expanded to get a historical view of peaks and troughs in electricity usage, Google said.

Google also plans to release APIs (application programming interfaces) for PowerMeter that would let other software developers build applications around it.

Google is making a strong push for agreements with utilities on how to standardize the data that's available from smart meters. In a position paper dated Monday sent to California's Public Utility Commission, Google said that "the data from the smart meter needs to be available to the consumer in real-time and in a non-proprietary format."

California has been pushing ahead with Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) plans, which call for new meters that show real-time data well as pricing information to consumers.

So far, Google is letting its own employees test PowerMeter. The insights gained include at least two revelations about the electricity used to make toast and the inefficiency of 20-year-old refrigerators.

"One morning I noticed that my energy consumption was higher than normal," wrote Kirsten, a Google program manager, who didn't give her last name. "I went into the kitchen and found that the dial on our toaster oven was stuck and had been on all night.

"It was already burning and the once white exterior was now brown. If I hadn't seen my energy consumption and known where to look, my apartment could have been toast," she wrote.

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The BlackBerry Bold

The BlackBerry Bold 9000, Research in Motion's formidable contender in the 3G market, has finally arrived. And though the Bold boasts a sleek design, a sharp display, and high-speed connectivity, it fails to impress in other areas--particularly, its call quality and its camera's image quality.

The most stylish BlackBerry yet, the Bold comes with a removable black leatherette cover that gives the phone a classy, sophisticated look and makes the handset comfortable to hold. (You can personalize the back cover with an optional blue, brown, green, gray, or red back.) At 4.5 inches by 2.6 inches by 0.55 inch, the Bold has roughly the same dimensions as its predecessor, the BlackBerry Curve 8300; it also has curved corners and a glossy face. The phone weighs 4.8 ounces, making it heavier than the the BlackBerry Curve 8320 (which weighs about 4 ounces) but equal in weight to Apple's iPhone 3G.

The Bold lacks the iPhone's touch screen, though that feature will appear on RIM's forthcoming BlackBerry Storm. But the Bold does have a terrific keyboard and the various corporate e-mail and infrastructure-friendly characteristics that the BlackBerry platform is known for.

The Bold also has superior battery life. In our lab tests, its battery provided 7 hours, 56 minutes of talk time. That's longer than any other 3G phone we've tested; the iPhone 3G's battery only provided five hours, 38 minutes of talk time.

Unfortunately, the Bold's call quality disappointed me. For some reason, while calls to landline phones sounded clear, calls to other cell phones (on various carriers) consistently suffered from background hiss. And though voices had ample volume, they sounded somewhat tinny. Meanwhile, the people I called on the Bold reported hearing a lot of background noise, as well as some distortion in my voice; one of my contacts said that I sounded robotic.

Though it takes a lot for a handset's QWERTY keyboard to impress me, the Bold succeeded. For this model, RIM revamped its keyboard with sculpted keys designed to minimize finger slippage. Thin metal dividers akin to a guitar frets separate the keys and enhance the keyboard's usability. The result is a roomy, ergonomic typing area that makes texting and e-mailing a breeze.

The BlackBerry operating system gets a makeover as well. Now in version 4.6, the interface looks cleaner and more attractive than it did in previous iterations. The home screen features background wallpaper, and a customizable application-shortcut view, also known as the Ribbon. Pushing the dedicated menu key takes you to the main application screen, which is populated with spruced-up new app icons. Sometimes it's a bit hard to tell what a particular icon symbolizes; many of them look pretty similar. But when you roll over an icon with the Bold's handy trackball, a label appears in a text line beneath, clearly identifying the icon's function.

The phone supports 3G, tri-band HSDPA and quad-band EDGE data connectivity. Accessed over AT&T's 3G network, Web pages loaded quickly on the Bold's browser. NBC.com's home page loaded in 21 seconds, as did PCWorld.com; and Amazon.com loaded in 31 seconds. Wi-Fi performance impressed, too, with NBC.com loading in 18 seconds, PCWorld.com loading in 14 seconds, and Amazon.com loading in 21 seconds.

The phone's display wowed me: Images and video looked spectacular on the Bold's 480-by-320-pixel VGA display (with support for over 65,000 colors). That's twice the resolution of the BlackBerry Curve, and it matches the iPhone's resolution (though not its screen size). Video playback looked great, and ran smoothly with little pixelation or blurring.

Unlike the T-Mobile G1 and the iPhone 3G--which display large album art and are highly visual--the Bold incorporates a fairly plain native music app that leaves much to be desired. You can view your library by song, artist, or genre. During playback, a miniature album thumbnail appears. The app also has playlist and shuffle features and a headphone equalizer.

The Bold comes with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack (the T-Mobile G1 does not), which boosts its potential as a media player.

The 2.0-megapixel camera includes some advanced features, including a flash and 5X digital zoom. But in my hands-on tests, the flash was blindingly bright, causing indoor pictures to look grainy and overexposed. For such an expensive smart phone, the Bold seems weak on megapixels (3.0 would have been a more suitable number) and extras (such as white-balance controls and a self-timer, both absent here).

The BlackBerry comes preloaded with Mobi4Biz (a subscription-based on-demand video service), as well as a few games. RIM's BlackBerry Storefront, due to launch in March 2009, will provide a centralized online market for BlackBerry apps, to compete with Apple's iPhone 3G App Store and the T-Mobile G1's Android Market.

The BlackBerry Bold delivers high-speed browsing and powerful messaging capabilities, and it represents a major step up in form and function over existing BlackBerry models. But faults such as mediocre call quality and an unimpressive camera impede its potential to compete with the iPhone and the Android-based T-Mobile G1. In addition, its high price will make competing for consumers' attention even harder for the Bold.

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a-Squared HiJackFree

Version: 3.1.0.19

License Type: Free

Price: Free

Operating Systems: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008

File Size: 1719 KB

Author: Emisoft Software

You can download here
No matter how much anti-spyware protection you've got on your PC, it's not enough. Spyware is notorious for being able to slip through the cracks of anti-malware software, and you're best off if you have more than one anti-malware tool on your PC. That's where this freebie comes in. Use it as a backup to your main anti-spyware program for extra protection.

It doesn't offer "live" protection like some other programs. Instead, use it to examine your system, to see if it's been infected, then kill the malware. It's a surprisingly powerful tool, and with far more features than we can cover here.

But here are the basics: Run it and click the Online Analysis button, and it will check your system for malware, and issue a report online. If it finds any nasties, it will tell you. You can then use the program to delete the malware.

There's plenty more here as well, including tools for viewing what programs are using your TCP ports, and examining programs that run on startup. For a free program, it's surprisingly powerful.

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Taiwan Revamps WiMax Plans

The global economic crisis has taken a bite out of plans to roll out WiMax, the speedy new wireless broadband technology. But despite setbacks, Taiwanese companies are forging ahead.

"We're still very optimistic about WiMax," said Chen Chao-yi, director general of Taiwan's Industrial Development Bureau, at a meeting on Friday.

His optimism appears misplaced amid a load of bad news for the WiMax industry over the past few months.

Nortel Networks, a major WiMax player, filed for bankruptcy protection last month and said it would stop developing mobile WiMax. Major WiMax vendor, Motorola, reported a massive 2008 net loss of US$4.2 billion and said it will lay off 4,000 workers. At the same time, several big WiMax backers, including chip giant Intel, Time Warner Cable, and Google, reduced by hundreds of millions of dollars the value of their investments in Clearwire, a company building a WiMax network across the U.S.

Financial troubles have hit WiMax in Taiwan as well.

Late last year, money problems at First International Telecom (Fitel), forced the company to dump plans to roll out a WiMax network in the capital city, Taipei. The network would have been the biggest so far on the island. Now government officials say Fitel may have to sell its WiMax license and offload its network.

A Fitel spokesman said the company still plans to launch WiMax services in Taiwan.

Other WiMax license holders in Taiwan have delayed their launch plans.

Tatung Infocomm was supposed to launch its first WiMax network on the outlying island of Penghu by the end of last year. Now, the company says it will be ready in March or April.

Despite the delays, Taiwanese government officials and companies remain focused on the future.

"WiMax is a form of broadband wireless and broadband wireless will always be around," said Ho Kuan-chung, another official from the Industrial Development Bureau. "There will be some companies delaying, but WiMax is still a good technology."

Government backing for WiMax in Taiwan has been key to its development on the island so far.

Taiwan launched the M-Taiwan (Mobile-Taiwan) program a few years ago to ensure that people in all locations, including remote mountain villages and offshore islands, will be able to access the Internet wirelessly. WiMax is a major part of that program.

As part of M-Taiwan, the government has offered generous research grants and co-investment to companies on the island to help jump start WiMax services. The hope is that by being an early adopter and producer of WiMax products, Taiwanese manufacturers will benefit from the global deployment of WiMax.

"We haven't seen any impact [from the global downturn] on WiMax production. Production is still on track," said Liu Ming-shou, president of Accton Wireless Broadband (AWB) in Taiwan.

"There will be some impact on orders from Nortel," he added. "So far, we have not seen any impact, but I believe we will."

Other manufacturers hope that big government stimulus programs that include investments in broadband Internet technology, such as from the U.S. and China, will keep WiMax sales healthy. They also believe WiMax will make big waves in emerging markets, where wireless technology costs less than laying cables across thousands of miles of territory.

"The future of WiMax is clear. D-Link will continue to invest in this technology," said Anny Wei, president of D-Link.

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