Kill Switch

Description

An innovative third person shooter that makes heavy use of a 'cover system'. This allows the player to 'attach' to objects so that they can fire at the enemy from a safe position. 

Basically you are some sort of enhanced soldier with no memory of who or where you came from. The story unfolds over the course of fifteen missions, spanning 5 levels, and through FMV cinematics. 

At first you'll cause all sorts of mayhem in various global hotspots, but as the past is made clear, the real enemy and their ultimate objective will be revealed.

Tony Hawk's Underground

Description

The fifth game in the series, Tony Hawk's Underground is the first game to have a true career mode.

You begin the game as a local skater whom nobody knows. Your board is wearing thin, and your tired of being a nobody. As your out skating, you see a flyer for a pro who's coming to your city to demo. You go to the skate demo and watch. Afterwards, you try to impress the pro, and he gives you advice on how to go about becoming a star. With your friend, Eric, you're now on your way to becoming a legend.

THUG takes you to various cities to perform different goals. You begin in New Jersey, which acts as a sort of training stage, where goals are simple. Eventually, you'll visit Manhattan, Vancouver, Moscow, Tampa, San Diego and Hawaii. Most cities are split into different chapters, with each chapter opening new goals.

THUG introduces a new system; walking. You can get off your skateboard to run or walk around the level. If there's a high tower you want to jump off of, get off your board, climb to the tower (by climbing a ladder or shuffling across a wire), get back on your board, and jump down. One of the new tricks associated with this is the Acid Drop, which can launch you off an opposing pipe, allowing you to pull off 1080's and up.

Also new to THUG is the ability to drive certain vehicles, like a gardener's truck, a sports car, or a leaf blower. These are used for goals, but can be unlocked to drive whenever and wherever.

Next to the standard Create-a-Park and Create-a-Skater, you can now create your own decks and your own tricks. The biggest feature is Create-a-Goal. You can create custom goals for one of the levels (or your own), and choose what pedestrian will give it to you, his/her dialogue, and what they'll say when you win.

The PlayStation 2 version supports online play.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4

Description

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 is the fourth game in Activision's skateboarding franchise.

The main feature of this game is it's redesigned career mode. When beginning a level, you have all the time in the world to skate around, perform tricks, get a feel for the level, without the hassel of any goals or time limits. When you're ready to attempt a goal, simply find a pro skater, talk to him, then receive the goal, similar to Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX. Goals are similar to the previous games, such as collect SKATE, get a certain amount of points, transfer over this and grind that. There are new goals, however, such as collecting the word COMBO while doing one big combo. Miss a trick, and goal fails. Once all regular goals are accomplished, you can attempt the Pro Goal, which is specific to each skater, and is extremely hard.

All the major skaters are here, including Tony Hawk, Bob Burnquist, Steve Caballero, Kareem Campbell, Rune Gilfberg, Eric Koston, Bucky Lasek, Bam Margera, Rodney Mullen, Chad Muska, Andrew Reynolds, Geoff Rowley, Elissa Steamer and Jamie Thomas.

The levels are been expanded and are huge. Some of the levels include a college campus, a shipyard, and the infamous prison complex Alcatraz.

For multiplayer, all the favorite modes are back, from Graffiti and Trick Attack to Horse and King Of The Hill. New modes include Capture The Flag and Combo Mambo. THPS4 also supports System Link play, but not XBox Live.

The PlayStation 2 version offers everything from the XBox version, but also has online play, utilizing either your own network adaptor or the official one. The PS2 version also features a one level demo of Shaun Murray's Pro Wakeboarder, which is not featured on any other version of the game.

Reservoir Dogs

Description

This game, based on the famous Quentin Tarantino movie Reservoir Dogs, fills in the gaps in the movie that are only briefly mentioned (like the robbery at the jewelry store). Throughout the story you get to play all seven main characters, from Mr. Blonde to Mr. White. 

The missions are introduced by game engine cutscenes, which often recreate moments from the film. For example, in the first mission you see Mr. Pink holding his famous monologue "I don't think we got set up, I know we got set up!" and then you play Mr. Blue as the police arrives at the jewelry where your goal is to get out alive.

To do so, you have two choices: be a psychopath and shoot your way out, or try the subtle approach without harming anyone. For instance, if you do not want to harm anyone you can take a hostage and then threaten the police to lay their weapons down and order them to face the wall. There are a few missions in which you must drive a car but mostly you walk through them. Like in the Hitman series, the game shows at the end of every mission how well you have done.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

Description

Tony Hawk returns with an all new line-up of skaters, an all new line-up of parks to crash through, and a whole new level of graphics.

The line-up of street and vert riders include Elissa Steamer, Jamie Thomas, Steve Caballero, Rune Glifberg, Geoff Rowley, Andrew Reynolds, Rodney Mullen, Eric Koston, Chad Muska, Bucky Lasek and Bam Margera from MTV's Jackass (and Tony Hawk, of course).

The create a skater mode returns, allowing for even further levels of options for your character, like adding glasses and tatoos to changing the colour of the knee and elbow pads or even the hair.

And the levels themselves that you must skate through are now more interactive, with cars and humans blocking paths and making noise as you race around to make as many points as possible. Use items around the streets or the park to jump from or over to increase your score, and pull of as many wild and wacky tricks as you can.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x

Description

2x includes both Tony Hawk 1 and 2, together with improvements to backgrounds and player models, new Treyarch levels exclusive to the X Box, and the ability to use all your favorite Tony Hawk 2 tricks in the original Tony Hawk. Plus between 4 and 8 players can play simultaneously in the many multiplayer options including Trick Attack, Graffiti, Tag, HORSE and Free Skate.

Run Like Hell

Description

Run Like Hell is a survival horror game.

You are Captain Nicholas Conner, a former pilot who works on a space station, involved in a project funded by the government. You travel between planets on mundane assignments, only to return to your home station to find the place a complete wreck, courtesy of an evil alien race. All crew members have been killed, violently, and it is up to you to stop the alien race, or run like hell.

The game encompasses seven chapters, with multiple areas and missions per chapter. You will be tasked with solving puzzles, killing aliens, and finding out just what the hell happened. Enemies come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from small "grunt" type enemies to huge enemies that tower ten feet above you. Each has it's own health and power, and each will provide a good challenge.

In a departure from previous survival horror games, there isn't much puzzle solving and not much slow times. The entire game is a fast paced, frantic battle for survival, hence the title. When spotted by an enemy, it will chase you until it's either killed or blocked, and running is often the only option. You will use a variety of weapons to defeat the aliens, such as a shotgun, and more futuristic weapons, like a pulse blaster and nerve destroyer.

Armed and Dangerous

Description

In Armed and Dangerous, the player controls Roman, a thief in the Lionheads gang. The evil King Forge is attempting to unlock the Book of Rule, which will grant him magical powers. Aided by a blind seer and his thieving friends - a robot and a mole - Roman decides to intercept the book and banish the king.

The game is a variation of the run-and-gun third-person shooter. Created by Planet Moon, it has the same humour and similar gameplay elements as Giants: Citizen Kabuto. 

The game has several unusual characters and weapons. Included is the shark gun, a device that literally shoots a shark at your enemies. There is a corkscrew device that burrows in to the ground and inverts gravity. You hang on to the device while your enemies fly into the sky and fall hard back to the ground.

Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy

Description

Psi-Ops is an action game with a twist: no longer do you have to rely solely on big weapons and explosions to progress through it - you also have the aid of psychic powers to take down army after army of enemy soldiers.

In the game you take the role of Nick Scryer, a secret agent who had his face reconstructed and mind wiped clean in order to infiltrate a growing psychic organization calling itself The Movement. Nick, however, is captured, but manages to free himself and continue his mission to stop The Movement, regaining his psychic abilities along the way.

The game mixes regular weapons with the weapons of the mind. You'll have access to a series of mind powers, such as Telekinesis (the ability to fling object and soldiers around), Pyrokineses (the ability to set things on fire), Mind Drain (for draining Psi power out of foes' minds) and Remote Viewing (leaving your body behind and exploring the level).

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Critical Hour

Description

Critical Hour is the fourth Rainbow Six game to appear on the consoles. You play as Ding Chavez, leading a small commando team on black-ops missions. The main single player revisits seven of the most popular missions from the original Rainbow Six and Rogue Spear game, recreated with modern technology. The game returns to the roots of the franchise with tactical gameplay and "one-shot kills".

There is a split-screen mode available and full online multiplayer featuring modes like Practice Mission, Terrorist Hunt, Team Survival, Total Conquest, Retrieval, Team Sharpshooter, Free-for-All Survival (new), Free-for-All Sharpshooter (New) and Assassin (new). Up to 16 players can compete over Xbox Live.

The persistent elite creation mode from Rainbow Six: Lockdown is also available.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow

Description

Black Arrow is the Xbox sequel to the acclaimed Rainbow Six 3. Based on an improved version of the same engine, the game features a new single player campaign, new multiplayer maps and game modes, and new Xbox Live! clan support features. Follow team Rainbow through missions set in the Europe and the Mediterranean: the UK, France, Italy, Tunisia, Croatia, Greece and more. Like other Rainbow Six games, Black Arrow also supports cooperative campaign and game modes, and introduces two-player split screen.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3

Description

In 2007, an unidentified group of terrorists attack a number of high-profile targets, beginning with the G8 summit in Switzerland and continuing with a Venezuelan oil refinery in the Caribbean. Their demands are obviously targeted at disrupting the oil trade between the United States and Venezuela. Enter veteran international anti-terrorism unit Team Rainbow, who must stop the terrorists and discover who is behind the attacks.

Rainbow Six 3 is an entry in the long-running series designed especially for consoles. It does away with the heavy strategy and planning elements the series was known for on the PC and offers an experience more focused on the first-person action. The game features 14 single-player levels (15 in the PS2 and GameCube versions). In each, the player controls Domingo 'Ding' Chavez, who leads a team of three other Rainbow operatives. Goals in each mission include taking out terrorists, defusing bombs and protecting hostages. Ding's squad mates will act on their own in supporting the mission, but they can also be given specific orders through a context-sensitive menu: holding position, advancing, clearing a room or defusing a bomb. It's also possible to give delayed orders which are only carried out once a special signal is given. The Xbox version features voice recognition: team orders can be given through a headset.

Before each mission, each squad member must be equipped with a primary and secondary weapon plus further equipment. More than two dozen realistic firearms are available, and there are also different types of grenades (hand-thrown or fired through a launcher), charges and mines, as well as a gas mask. Thermal and night vision are always available and don't require special equipment.

Despite the action focus, the game still opts for a certain amount of realism: there is no running or jumping, more than a few hits are fatal and there is no way to regain lost health.

Besides the single player campaign, there is also the custom mission mode, which allows the player to hunt terrorists on unlocked maps from the campaign.

The multiplayer modes include:

Cooperative campaign mode

Cooperative custom mission mode

Sharpshooter mode: a timed deathmatch with respawning, the player with the most kills wins.

Survival mode: no respawns, the last player standing wins.

Team Survival mode: no respawns, the last team standing wins.

Multiplayer features vary between platforms: The GameCube doesn't have the competitive modes, PS2 only supports six players online instead of the Xbox' sixteen, and both coop modes are only available via split screen on PS2 and GameCube.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War

Description

Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War is an updated re-release for the Xbox based on the original PC version Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Next to the full, original singleplayer campaign, there are 7 new prologue levels that show how B.J. and Agent One first met and how they got captured and imprisoned at Wolfenstein Castle. There is also a secret bonus awarded at the end of every level when every secret area has been found.

Next to the original features this port introduces a new shotgun weapon (singleplayer as well as for the Soldier and Engineer in multiplayer games), new equipment (Holy Cross, EMP Device and X-Shield), and new enemies (Occult Priest and X-Shepard). Multiplayer games support a split-screen two-player co-op mode, and matches with up to sixteen players through a system link or over Xbox Live. Downloadable content is also available. As a bonus, a fully playable version of the original Wolfenstein 3D can be played.

Robotech Invasion

Description

In the 21st century, humankind was freed from the confines of the solar system through the discovery of an alien technology known as Robotech. Contact with the stars also brought war with the Invid, a race of parasitic aliens bent on conquering and transforming the Earth into their new home world. Now it is up to the battlehardened survivors of the Robotech Expedition to lead the way for one final attempt to liberate the Earth from the Invid Invaders.

Urban Chaos: Riot Response

Description

In Urban Chaos: Riot Response, you play as Nick Mason, a member of a new anti-terrorist team named T-Zero. Terrorists and gang members have destroyed your city, and your goal is to bring order back to the city while destroying any terrorists and gang members you encounter. Since your enemies are armed to the teeth (usually with meat cleavers, Molotov cocktails, and sawed-off shotguns), you're equipped with a riot shield that can be used by holding the left trigger. It can absorb an infinite amount of projectiles, but you cannot shoot while you are using it. You can get the assistance of firefighters to put out fires, and medics to replenish your health.

Your weapons can be upgraded by earning medals during your missions. You can earn these medals by scoring headshots, arresting enemies with your taser (as opposed to killing them), collecting gang masks, etc. You can even unlock extra missions and weapons by arresting gang leaders at the end of each level, so that the police can interrogate him and find out the gang's next move.

Unreal II: The Awakening

Description

Some years after the Strider Wars, humanity has resumed its expansion into space. On the rough frontier, it falls to the Terran Colonial Authority to maintain peace and order among the outlying colonies and outposts. TCA Marshal John Dalton and the crew of his ship, the Atlantis, patrol this dangerous sector of space when several distress calls lead to the discovery of alien artifacts with unique properties. Soon, the hunt for these artifacts is on between several alien factions as well as human corporations and their mercenary forces, with the TCA and their allies caught in the middle.

The first-person shooter Unreal II, while a sequel to Unreal, has no direct connection to the first game except being set in the same universe (with the Skaarj from Unreal and the Liandri Corporation from Unreal Tournament being major enemy factions). The player controls John Dalton through a dozen missions, taking place in such locations as the dense jungle of a tropical planet, a research facility on a frozen moon, the insides of a planet-sized living organism, the home world of an insectoid machine civilization, as well as a huge starship.

The weapon arsenal consists of more than a dozen guns. Standard types include pistols, an assault rifle, shotgun, and sniper rifle. Some heavier ones are a flame thrower, as well as rocket and grenade launchers, with the grenade launcher being able to use six different ammunition types, including fragmentation, EMP and smoke grenades. Available in later missions are weapons adapted from alien technologies. These include various energy guns, a biological weapon that creates living spiders that attack enemies, and an autonomous floating orb that either seeks out and attacks enemies or circles around the player in point defense. As in other Unreal titles, each weapon has two different firing modes.

Missions are usually of the run-and-gun type, but there are exceptions. Several levels include defense assignments where either a position must be held for a certain time or a character be kept alive. These levels usually include additional tools such as energy barriers and automated turrets that can be placed by the player in any location. Sometimes, AI-controlled characters will be there to help out the player as well. In that case they can be given orders on which sector to defend or patrol, for example.

The story of the game is told through a variety of means: besides in-engine cutscenes, there is a lot of radio chatter during a mission; in fact, it's not unusual for mission objectives to completely change due to story developments. Between missions, Dalton can wander freely about the Atlantis and chat with his crew, going into their personal backstories as well as more details about the main plot.

Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict

Description

Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict is the sequel to the Xbox Live game Unreal Championship, and was designed from the ground up for Xbox, and the Xbox Live service.

The game features 14 different characters and includes an expanded single player mode, enhanced mobility, and expanded upon combo system. The game also adds melee combat, by giving each character the possibility to switch to their respective weapon (e.g. blade, staff).

Unreal Championship

Description

Unreal Championship is a first-person-shooter game, that has similarities to the PC game Unreal Tournament.

UC can be played as a single player campaign or a multiplayer game. In single player, you can fight solo against different and varying enemies, or you can lead a team in team-based games, like Capture the Flag and Bombing Run. In multiplayer mode, you can play with up to four players on a single Xbox, or go online via Xbox Live to play with up to fifteen other people.

There are five game modes; Deathmatch, which is your standard free for all, kill everyone; Capture The Flag, in which two teams fight to capture their enemies flag, then return it to theirs to score; Bombing Run, which is somewhat like soccer, where two teams have to take a ball and shoot it through a ring to score; Domination, where you must capture and hold three separate control points for a set time to score; and Survival, which is a last man standing kind of game, where the last person alive wins.

Weapons include the pulse rifle, rocket launcher, telefragger, and lightning gun, which can zap and hurt multiple enemies with one chain attack.

On Live, you can talk trash or compliment others, download additional content, join an online clan, and view an interactive, constantly updating scoreboard.

TimeSplitters 2

Description

TimeSplitters 2, the sequel to Free Radical Design's PlayStation 2 launch title, once again sends players hurtling through time, as they battle the malevolent TimeSplitters in ten unique time periods, from the Wild West to a futuristic space station, and everything in between.

The game's story finds Cortez, the series' hero, on a quest to discover the origins of the TimeSplitters, an enigmatic group that travels through time causing trouble for the good people of Earth. Using the paradoxes of time travel to his advantage, the hero can regularly join up with past and future versions of himself, to fight the enemy as a team. A wide selection of historical, modern, and futuristic weapons is available, and environments feature destructible elements.

Depending on the difficulty level chosen, players will find themselves with rudimentary objectives to complete or, on the harder settings, new areas and substantially more involved objectives to fulfill. Two players can also play the Story mode cooperatively and simultaneously.

Like its predecessor, TimeSplitters 2 features a Challenge mode, which presents the player with a selection of time- and skill-based events. Completing these within the predetermined constraints awards the player with bronze, silver, or gold medals, which in turn aid in unlocking additional game options, levels, and playable characters (of which there are more than 120).

The Arcade mode offers League, Custom, and Network sub-modes. League events feature pre-configured maps, game types, and objectives for the player to compete in, while the other Arcade modes make up the bulk of the multiplayer portion of the title. In the Custom mode, up to four players and numerous AI "bots" can compete in 16 different customizable disciplines including Deathmatch, Regeneration, Virus, Thief, Shrink, Monkey Assistant, and Flame Tag -- each offering an altered form of gameplay. Thief, for example, tasks players with collecting tokens left behind by fallen combatants. Here, the tokens determine the winner, not the number of kills. 

TimeSplitters: Future Perfect

Description

In the year 2401 the space marine Sergeant Cortez is leaving the space station that he visited in the end of his previous journey. He soon discovers that the crystals he has found can power up a time machine. After having located traces of TimeSplitter activities in various time periods on the Earth, Cortez boards the time machine and travels to these periods, hoping to aid various characters in their battles against evil.

TimeSplitters: Future Perfect is a first-person shooter in which players battle their way through thirteen story missions spread across six time periods, either alone or cooperatively. The protagonist's arsenal varies depending on the time period he travels to: for example, traveling to 1924 will allow Cortez to wield World War I weapons; a Soviet setting in the 1960's contains various local firearms of that time period; stages that take place in the future feature corresponding futuristic weaponry, etc. In addition to fast-paced shooting gameplay there are also some stealth and vehicle-driving segments.

Like in the previous installments of the series, various multiplayer modes are included. Players can take on computer-controlled opponents on any of the fifteen arcade maps, or make their own ones. Players can also compete for awards in dozens of arcade league matches and challenges. It is possible to choose from between 150 characters and challenge other players to a head-to-head battle, either with up to four-player split screen or online and LAN play.

Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII

Description

Blazing Angels is an air combat arcade game putting the player at the command of a fighter squadron in the Second World War. It's a pick-up-and-play type of game, with easy-to-grasp controls and an almost non existent learning curve.

The action covers the most important moments of the WWII, from the Battle for England to the bombing raids over Berlin, but also warps a bit the history to make for some entertaining if fictitious moments (i.e. you get to fly over Normandy on D-Day, save the day at Pearl Harbor, etc). The gameplay is quite varied, with about 18 flyable planes during the SP campaign (fighters, recon planes, dive, torpedo and level bombers) and diverse tasks and locations that prevent the game from being overly repetitive, despite a general dogfighting approach. The basic squadron command system and the specific abilities of the wingmen lend a bit of a tactical flavor to the game.

There are a dozen multiplayer game modes available: solo (Dogfight, Seek and Destroy & Aces High), co-op (Dogfight, Onslaught, Bombing Run, Kamikaze and Historical Missions) and squad-based (Dogfight, Capture the Base, Bombing Run and Kamikaze).

Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30

Description

Brothers in Arms, one of the few games to truly be based on actual events, places you in the shoes of real-life World War II Sergeant Matt Baker, tasked with commanding your squad through a week's worth of actual battles that Baker's 101st Airborne platoon faced. Combining the cinematic action of games such as Medal of Honor and Call of Duty with the strategic command of Full Spectrum Warrior, you must command your troops to use actual army doctrine to find, fix, flank, and finish the enemy while actually participating in the battle yourself.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood (a.k.a. Brothers in Arms 2)

Description

Barely seven months after the release of Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, Gearbox brings us the sequel.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood tells the story of Corporal Joe "Red" Hartsock as one of the thousands of paratroopers who landed in Normandy, France, on the eve of D-Day. Hartsock made an appearance in the previous game and now we get to see the events from his point of view, based on actual events and persons.

Though the game engine remains largely unchanged, the A.I. has been significantly improved to offer a more challenging experience as the player tries to advance through the treacherous area known as the Bocage. The player fights in first person as Hartsock but also commands either two fireteams or a fireteam and a tank as using cover and suppression fire is critical to success.

The game also offers an interesting multiplayer mode with the rare single-mission co-op option available for the PC, as well as skirmish maps and other mods such as "Defense".

Carve

Description

Carve is a watercraft racing game, taking the player through many different environments and rough waters. The ultimate goal is to cross the finish line before the competition, but success depends on your ability to pull of stunts and take gambles as well. Featuring a simple trick system, success depends on correct timing of trick use to boost your speed. A buoy miss system allows you to bypass a limited number of buoys as well, adding in another strategic element.

Gameplay modes include quick race, tournament, trick tutorial and multiplayer via system link and Xbox Live.

Mob Enforcer (a.k.a. Chicago Enforcer)

Description

The player assumes the role of Jimmy "Machine Gun" DeMora who is an up and coming thug in the Al Capone family. Set in Chicago at the height of the prohibition era, the player shoots his way through the mean streets on various missions for Al Capone. Chicago Enforcer is mulitplayer with system link (2-8) or Xbox Live. As a first person shooter, there are several different weapons to use, including a Tommy Gun, Firework Rocket Launcher, pistol, shotgun, lead pipe, sniper rifle and more. The title has several different missions, ranging from roughing up store owners by destroying their stores, to killing snitches who talk to much, to saving Al Capone from certain death.