Call Of Duty
PC, £29.99 Infinity Ward/Activision, ****
Here is a cute example of the rivalry between Electronic Arts, the biggest games publisher, and Activision, the number two. In typical EA fashion, the Medal Of Honour licence rumbles on, but the company kept quiet about the fact that the original development team has long since jumped ship - to its implacable rival, no less.
Call Of Duty is made by that team, and it shows: boot it up and you drop into a terrifyingly authentic battle arena, in which you must listen to your artificial intelligence mates, dodge bullets coming from all angles, make use of whatever weaponry you can find and, above all, use initiative.
You play missions as British, Russian and American soldiers, and this time around, the missions are gloriously varied. You begin the game in a glider, heading for D-Day France. By the time you negotiate the ensuing confusion and danger, you will have engaged hundreds of Nazis, blown up all sorts of things, and tested skills as various as sniping and shooting from a moving vehicle.
You perform missions harking back to films such as the Dirty Dozen and Dambusters and will discover what it must have been like as a Russian conscript during the siege of Stalingrad. Only half-way into the mission do you acquire that most luxurious of items in a war - a weapon.
With Half-Life 2, Doom III and Halo 2 unlikely to arrive until next year, only Ubi Soft's XIII will challenge Call Of Duty for the title of the year's best first-person shooter.
Steve Boxer
Max Payne 2
PC, £29.99 Rockstar, ****
His name may conjure up images of dodgy wrestlers, but Max Payne is the smoothest star to grace a PC game. Think film noir crossed with the Matrix - Bogart meets Keanu.
As before, the main action involves guiding your gravelly-voiced protagonist around a gloomy urban environment, stylishly dispatching all who block the way. The slo-mo bullet-time feature gives graceful beauty to the most violent of shotgun attacks. Diving through a doorway dodging bullets and dispensing baddies didn't get boring in the original and nor does it here, mainly due to the exceptional production values.
The sound effects are impressive, but it is in the visuals that Max 2 really shines. The backdrops are verging on photo-realism. And the interaction with even the most innocuous objects is realistic. The comic book storyboards and cliched settings are an acquired taste, but Max 2 never outstays its welcome.
MP2 packs its action into seven or eight blissful hours, without fillers. Combine this with an adult storyline - love and stuff! - and you have a stylish thriller that will blow you away.
Greg Howson
The Temple of Elemental Evil
PC, £29.99 Troika Games/Atari ***
The world of pen-and-paper Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D) found its spiritual home on the PC with the Baldur's Gate series. Bioware's hit Neverwinter Nights tried to move things on and make the world of statistics more accessible to a wider audience. Troika's The Temple of Elemental Evil, however, has its feet firmly back on hardcore soil.
The basics of this role-playing game are solid, if unremarkable. You assemble the adventuring party from a mixture of self-designed or pre-created characters. Along the way you can pick up others, as long as you're prepared to pay them handsomely. There are quests to solve and villages to explore before a long dungeon crawl through the titular temple.
The combat aspect is one of the best examples of a traditional turn-based fighting system, encouraging you to think strategically about moves rather than just wading in.
Unfortunately, further enjoyment is marred by bugs and a general lack of information. It's a shame, because the engine looks nice and is full of life. However, it feels rather inhospitable to those who aren't AD&D purists.
Rhianna Pratchett
