The game was not without its flaws of course, and developer Naughty Dog certainly had their work cut out tweaking the mechanics while maintaining the experience that the original provided.

Did they manage to pull it off? Well, you’re about to find out.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves follows the adventures of fortune-hunter, Nathan Drake, as he embarks on an expedition to locate the lost fleet of Marco Polo and the mythical kingdom of Shambhala (also known as Shangri-La). Of course, as a fortune-hunter there has to be some treasure, and that is where the ‘Cintamani Stone’ comes in, which in theory would be worth billions of dollars.

Drake’s travels take him and his associates through various locales, from the lush green swamps of a Tibetan city, to the ice and snow at the peaks of the Himalayas. With Drake’s luck however, the journey is not without obstacles, dodgy characters (character biographies here) and difficult situations.

The combination of top notch writing, excellent voice acting, and fantastic visuals push Among Thieves into a league of its own, the experience is certainly comparable to something you would expect from a motion picture. The plot in the game touches several different areas, from action and drama, to romance and humour; you can find it in Among Thieves.

Uncharted has once again set the bar for visuals on the PlayStation 3; the graphical prowess of the game is mind-blowing. A vivid example of this is while Drake is walking through the snow, it clings onto his boots and snowflakes gently bob around the screen. The musical score complements the visuals perfectly; and as a result the atmosphere created is intense.

The core game play has essentially remained true to that of the original game, but Naughty Dog have tweaked several mechanics in order to improve the experience. A perfect example of this is the changes that have been made to the melee combat. It is now a simpler affair, you no longer have to worry about button combinations during a fire fight. You can also use stealth manoeuvres to take down enemies, sneaking up behind them or grabbing them from cover.

Puzzles do feature in the game, albeit only a few times throughout the game. Drake’s trusty journal is back in his pocket for Among Thieves, and assists in completing the puzzles and making your way through the game. Interactive objects such as pipes and ‘stepping’ stones are normally well placed, but occasionally you may confuse part of the background as one of these objects, which can sometimes cause you to fall to your death.

The AI featured in the game is very competent; you will certainly have to think twice if you plan on ‘run and gunning’ past enemies, especially on the harder difficulties. Thankfully, friendly companions in the game are no push over either. Chloe, Elena and Sully can all work their magic with a gun, and do enough to assist you without getting in the way.

Naughty Dog decided that an incredible campaign was not enough, so they took on the considerable task of adding multiplayer to the game. There are six main multiplayer modes in the game; Deathmatch, Elimination, Chain Reaction, Plunder, Cooperative and Gold Rush. The first four modes are competitive (upto 10 players), while the last two are cooperative (3 players).

Deathmatch is exactly what you expect from the title, both teams kill each other until the timer runs out or one team reaches the pre-set limit. There are a couple of weapon specific rule sets that can be chosen, such as RPGs only for example. Elimination is essentially deathmatch without respawning.

Chain Reaction is similar to the king of the hill mode; there are several areas to ‘capture’ in a specific order. This mode requires a lot of teamwork to win; shoddy teams will find that they have lost within minutes.

Plunder is essentially the infamous capture the flag mode, except you are lugging around a chest of treasure. This one also requires a fair bit of teamwork; a team throwing the booty to each other like a relay race will find that this works better than one person going all the way.

Playing the story cooperatively does not have you replaying the single player campaign. Instead, you play through unique missions where you must achieve an objective to progress to the next level. You can play this mode with two friends, as you take the roles of Chloe, Drake and Sully.

Gold Rush is similar to the competitive plunder mode, except that you face waves of enemy AI instead. To progress to the next wave, you must capture the treasure, which gets progressively harder with tougher enemies as you go along. There are 10 waves in total for each stage; your trio needs to be quick thinkers to get to the end.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a fantastic game, but it certainly isn’t perfect. The few irritating flaws such as dodgy camera angles in certain scenes, or repetitive combat with waves of enemies, can become an annoyance. Considering the experience that the game provides however, these rough edges are not much of a pain.

There certainly was a lot of hype and anticipation coming up to the release of the game, but it wasn’t baseless, as Naughty Dog has delivered the goods.

10/10

True to the film, you step into the role of Warchief and must fight your way through gang-infested Manhattan to make it back to your home town, Coney Island, alive. If you’re expecting to relive the whole film, it must be made clear that some scenes have been skipped due to the game’s brawler format.

So, does Street Brawl want to make you come out and play-ay?

The game has your standard side-scrolling brawler format, consisting of six missions split into three different acts, providing eighteen arcade style battles to bop your way through. Initially you can select from four playable characters (Swan, Cochise, Vermin and Rembrandt), and unlock two more as you progress through the game (Mercy and Ajax).

You can expect the traditional control layout, with light, heavy, grab and jump attacks. The move set available is not very deep or varied, and there are practically no combo moves. As you defeat enemies or pick items up a ‘rage’ meter fills, once it is full you get more powerful attacks.

Of course, no brawler would be without items to loot, and Street Brawl is no different. The items include first aid kits and items that give the player point bonuses. The real treat is in the arsenal of weapons, straight from the film, including knives, bats, crowbars and Molotov cocktails.

There are three different methods of playing through the main storyline, single player, local multiplayer, or online multiplayer. The multiplayer modes allow up to four players to represent the toughest crew in the city. There are three different difficulties available, and the amount of enemies you face is scaled depending on how many team mates you have with you.

There is also versus mode, where you simply go toe to toe with four other gang members to find out who the real war chief is. Along with versus, there is boss mode, and as the name suggests you fight through waves of bosses, accumulating points as you go along.

The A.I. can become very frustrating in Street Brawl, enemies and friendlies alike will do minor things which soon become annoying. A good example of this is when enemy opponents are knocked down, they will perform a sweeping kick while getting up. This is very frustrating as you will often be fighting multiple enemies, and you will get your ass handed to you with a little bad timing.

The comic book visuals are top notch, and really capture the atmosphere of the movie. Unfortunately, the voice of the original cast has not been licensed for whatever reason. The replacements are definitely sub-par, listening to the classic lines being delivered so poorly is a shame. The original soundtrack is also missing, again we assume due to licensing, even though the replacement isn’t bad it just doesn’t compare to the original.

So, do we dig it?

Well, we can certainly see where the developers have tried to pay homage to the movie, but licensing issues, such as the lack of the original sound track or voices leave a void in that regard.

Fans of the genre or movie should definitely check out the demo on the Xbox LIVE marketplace, but we definitely feel the game falls short of what it could have been.

6/10

In the game, you play as a special agent from the infamous international law enforcement agency, and your job is to try and track down the criminal mastermind, Dr. Chaos. To do so, you must travel around the world to locations such as New York City and Rome and examine them for hidden clues.

You can play through the storyline by yourself in single-player mode, and you can also choose to do it co-operatively with up to three other players, either locally or online. There are 35 levels in the game, and you explore several locations on your hunt for Dr. Chaos, with each city containing several areas themselves to investigate.

The core game-play is scrolling through a static image looking for hidden objects. You are given a time limit, and also the option to use hints should you get stuck. There is a list of items you are looking for in a window at the top of the screen, examples of objects you will be looking for are passports or maps. When you have found one of the objects listed, you click on it and it is ticked off the list, if it isn’t on the list, you get time docked off as a penalty.

With the static images being such a central part of the game, it really is a disappointment how poor the resolution is. The artwork itself isn’t too shabby, and some of the more exotic locations look pretty good. For some reason however, the artwork seems to have been upscaled from a low resolution, and especially when you are using the zoom tool to inspect the scene, it isn’t very easy on the eyes.

Scrolling around the images using your DualShock controller can become quite a frustrating task, especially when time is of the essence and you need to somehow click on that tiny key. Thankfully, the game has the option to use a mouse, and if you have the ability to do so it would be recommended. After plugging a mouse in, it was a lot easier accurately scrolling around the image and clicking on those hidden objects.

The game also allows you to use your own custom music, so taking advantage of this feature and the theme of the game the obvious choice to be loaded up was ‘Bad Boys’ by Inner Circle. Having lyrics about ‘bad boys’ and ‘watcha gonna do’ when ‘they come for you’ ringing in my ears surprisingly enough didn’t improve my crime scene scanning skills; but for novelties sake I stuck with it.

Overall, Interpol: The Trail of Dr. Chaos can be a fun and even addictive game at times, provided you stick to short sessions of the game. The clues do change each time you play a puzzle, so in theory there is lots of replayability, but in reality there isn’t. The poor resolution of the artwork is really a problem, considering the amount of time you’re expected to stare at the screen looking for clues.

6/10

It is a risk they decided to take however, the question is of course, did they manage to pull it off?

Well let us start with what I am sure you would agree is an integral part of any game, the menu. Rather than have the standard and rather boring menu layout we are used to, Codemasters have adopted the ‘virtual world’ system that they used in GRID. Navigating through the menus has you walking around your racer’s trailer at first; you can also walk outside your trailer where you can check out your rides and get your event started. While you can certainly see how this is supposed to immerse you in the rally world, it certainly can get annoying having to go through all the above when you just want to get stuck in and race.

There are nine locations featured in the game; Baja, China, Croatia, Japan, London, Los Angeles, Malaysia, Morocco and Utah. To begin with the available locations are limited, but you unlock the others by earning XP from events and ‘levelling’ up. XP can also be earned by completing tasks such as drifting for a certain distance, or performing a certain number of barrel rolls. Customisation items such as liveries and even fuzzy dice can be unlocked for your cars as you progress through the game.

There are over 100 events to beat in DiRT 2, spanning across the globe in the locations mentioned earlier. There is a lot more variety in the racing disciplines, which definitely is welcome. An example of one of the modes is ‘Gate Crasher’, where you must crash into gates to top up a countdown clock. You have a few options to choose when choosing to race in events; there are six different difficulty levels to cater for the casual and hardcore players. You can also tweak your motor’s set-up, from your suspension to your ride height. Finally, you can opt to have damage affect your car purely aesthetically, or have it affect the car’s performance as well.

The cars certainly handle more realistically compared to the last iteration of the series, the cars feel more like the heavy monsters that they are, instead of balloons which defy the laws of physics. You can’t floor it into a bend anymore, as your car will carry its speed and slam into the wall. Instead, you must caress the throttle and brake, taking care to keep to the racing line and avoiding that dreaded wall.

You have to master different racing styles as well, just when you have managed tame the beasts that are the beefed up cars used in the ‘Trailblazer’ events, you are thrown into a ‘Landrush’ event, where you have to take all your previous ideas and thrown them out of the window, as you are now driving a truck.

Venture into the online multiplayer (unfortunately, split screen has been left out) and you can expect to have tremendous fun. The multiplayer mode essentially allows you to take on seven other racers in the same way you would in offline mode, along with team based racing for up to four players. Similar to the offline career mode’s XP, online has ‘Pro Tour’, where you earn fame instead. There is also an unranked mode, ‘Jam Session’, where you can fiddle with several options such as vehicle type and damage to create a custom race. The online seems very stable, and we encountered very little frame rate or lag issues during our review sessions.

So, did Codemasters manage to pull it off?

The overall racing experience is immensely satisfying, it has managed to strike a balance that caters for the most hardcore of racers, who want to tweak their differential to shave a few milliseconds off their best time, and the casual racers, who just want to burn some damn rubber. The game has a lot of depth with variety and number of events, along with the career mode progression.

In short, they managed to pull it off, and then some.

9/10

Just like Jungle Party and RoboJam, Monster Rumble is a remake of its PlayStation 2 counterpart.

The game features updated high definition (720p) visuals, trophy support and also the ability to use the standard DualShock controllers along with the official Buzz! controllers.

If you hadn’t guessed from the title of the game, Buzz! Junior: Monster Rumble is aimed primarily at small children, and it certainly goes all out to appeal to that target demographic. This game sets itself up to be ‘scary’ in a very family friendly way, with brightly coloured goo and monsters, none of those zombies with limbs torn off in here thank you very much.

In terms of gameplay, the focus is purely on mini-games, there are no quizzes that you may be expecting from the other Buzz! titles. As expected from the price, the PSN version has only five out of the original twenty five mini-games available. The mini-games that made it through to the PS3 are; All Wrapped Up, Boo, Ghoulish Golf, Musical Chairs and Treasure Hunt.

The games normally rely on reactions and timing, a very popular mode is ‘Treasure Hunt’. In this mode the screen is split up into islands, with treasure chests popping up randomly on the islands. Players must hop between the islands using their controller, making sure the timing is right or they tumble into the water. Fun can certainly be had with the mini-games available, but with only a small selection you will notice the lack in variety all too soon.

You need four players in order to play the games, and although the best times are to be had playing against friends, you can choose to fill the other three spots up with the computer if needed. You can set the computer difficulty, and also customise the monsters if you want.

To wrap this up, Buzz! Junior: Monster Rumble is a cheap and cheerful collection of mini-games that can be picked up and played by all ages. While the game will hardly challenge you too much, it is fun in short bouts. If you have kids, or are just a kid at heart, you can’t really go wrong for only £3.99.

7/10

You would think then, that Tripwire Interactive were capitalising on this too, and although there is some truth to that, Killing Floor was actually released as a Unreal Tournament 2004 mod four years ago.

The game has a typical zombie apocalypse storyline, revolving around a British biotech corporation called ‘Horzine’. The company was running a secret government program to clone ‘specimens’, a mix between solider and monster. A bunch of protesters turn up outside the offices in London, and naturally the riot police are called in. All hell breaks loose as the specimens have managed to escape, and it is your job to cleanse the chaotic streets of London.

When starting up the game, you can select from several different player models, a little bit of background information is provided about each one. The game also includes a ‘perks’ system, where you can choose to specialise in one of six different perks (field medic, support specialist, sharpshooter, commando, berserker and firebug). Each perk provides the player with bonuses, the ‘field medic’ for example, gets a faster syringe recharge, more potent injections, less damage from enemy bile and a discount on body armour.

There are four different difficulties (easy, normal, hard and suicidal) and also three different game lengths to choose from (short, medium and long). The main bulk of the game (and certainly where the most is to be had) is in the online multiplayer mode, but there are also two offline modes available to play. Solo mode, is the offline version of the game, and as the name suggests you are on your own. The difficulty is increased quite dramatically here as there is no-one to watch your back. You can also level up your perks offline in solo mode, so for those that fancy grinding it out there is that option. That brings us to sandbox mode, which is similar to the above except you can change certain variables, such as start-up money.

The specimens in the game attack in waves, the number in a wave depends on the difficulty setting you’re playing on. To advance to the next wave, at least one member of your team must be alive and kicking, any dead team members rejoin the game between waves. It is also between waves when the weapon trader opens up her store. Here you can buy weapons, ammo and armour, using the British pounds that you earn for killing the specimens. Once the new wave is imminent she shuts up shop, so you must make sure your well equipped or face an untimely demise.

On the subject of weapons, Tripwire must be applauded at the job they have done with them in Killing Floor. There are over a dozen weapons, ranging from pistols and knifes, to axes and rocket launchers. The weapon sounds and animations are very well done, you can certainly notice this when ‘ZED time’ kicks in, which allows you to relish your last kill in slow motion while also lining up your next one.

One thing that will certainly tear a big divide between players is the voice acting in the game. The soldiers sport very over-the-top and comical British accents, spouting one liners such as ‘Money, money, money!’ when a player gives cash to another. Some may find this hilarious, while others will seriously be put off by it.

Killing Floor is certainly a fun game, the core game play is solid and it has a lot of re-playability thanks to the user made content that is available. It isn’t the prettiest game thanks to the old engine, but the audio is certainly top notch. Killing Floor certainly has flaws, but it is definitely worth a go if you’re after another survival horror title.

7/10

Killing Floor is available to download on Steam, and also at retail stores.

Meanwhile, outside the red team’s Castle… “Behold: paper thin walls…”.

Like the adorably ruthless art- style, the gameplay in Fat princess is simplistic on the surface, but increasingly mental the more you look at the detail. Choose a hat from one of the choices – hats that are manufactured from disturbingly busy pre- industrial looking machines – and take on the mantle of the Warrior, the Archer, the Mage, the Priest. Or choose the worker’s cap. And then slaughter your enemies in adjustable degrees of cartoony gore, get the princess over to your castle before the enemy force captures yours, and win the game.

Sounds simple enough, but my team and I failed our first attempt. The other team had been busy reinforcing their walls, and had upgraded their Warrior helmet machine before our attack. So a few of their warriors could rush out once in a while with their charged attacks, and hold off the entire army. While the rest of them broke down our front door on the other side of the map, and walked out with our Princess.

Fortunately, we had been foreseeing a cowardly attack like this, and instructed our commoners and workers to force- feed the Princess with cake, making the enemy’s retreat to their own castle a long and heavy haul. We catch them about four meters outside the walls, vainly trying to escape to higher ground, over the unnaturally rising and ebbing tide, and into one of the many side- paths and shortcuts throughout the level. After some heavy lifting, the Princess is safely back in the castle, and the doors have been repaired again. Stalemate!

Then suddenly, the enemy (who had been busy gathering resources, rather than fighting like men on the battlefield) start launching soldiers into our castle from above with their freshly manufactured catapult, making us struggle hard to keep everyone off the Princess. Struggle hard, because at the same time, part of our force sneaks up to the enemy castle. And in a good moment, we blow a hole in the wall and rush in to take their Princess. But look at her, she’s bulging huge! And screaming for more cake! What can we do! We can’t carry her like this!

Aha, the enemy’s catapult! And we launch the Princess back to our own castle. Where, sadly, the enemy had finally broken through, and brought the other Princess out. Into the swarm of awaiting unarmed commoners – the swiftest carriers – who then run the huge Princess back to their castle, no doubt in triumphant song and cheer. Stalemate!

The battle went on for a while.

But in some ways the most interesting part of the online play is difficult to get into. If people are not working together, the matches can drag on for a long time without anyone winning or losing, or even gaining an advantage. Skirmishes that would’ve been won satisfyingly if even two players used the strenghts of their professions together, will turn into pointless back and forths. Which the lack of a clan- system, or possibility of forming squads with friends – or perhaps text- chat, or a more contextual command menu – doesn’t help with either. In other words, it’s easy to join a game where no one uses their mike, and won’t try to work together. Something that can quickly make the online play very chaotic, and not necessarily very fun, in spite of the endearing gameplay and graphics. You simply don’t know what to do that could help the team win.

The mysterious match- making process (with impossible to understand user preferences), that sometimes also will fail after long waits – certainly also makes you less patient with the game.

So it’s not difficult to see where Fat Princess failed, in a sense. But given it’s art- style and fairly complex gameplay, it’s an achievement to end up with identifiable online issues as the only shear in the vicious happiness. Meanwhile, Titan Studios have woved to listen closely to the community when it comes to online issues and suggestions for improvements.

Fat Princess is an arcade- like online game that is good enough and artistically well made enough – to have complex and dynamic gameplay and graphics, without also becoming difficult to grasp. But online problems, some programmatical and some not, makes the game a little hard to enjoy all the time.

At only $15 USD (£10 GBP), and weighing in at a little over 500MB, we can’t expect the full Battlefield experience, but has the game managed to capture the core gameplay which makes the series so popular?

In Battlefield 1943, you fight as either the Japanese Imperial Army, or the US Marine Corps. There are three different classes for you to pick, Infantry, Rifleman and Scout, each bringing something to the table to suit different playing styles. The classes are well balanced, and you will often find yourself switching between the various classes depending on what the situation requires.

The main mode of the game is the BF classic, Conquest, where the objective is to capture and defend the five control points dotted around the map. 1943 manages to capture the essence of the Battlefield series very well, and it is a great feeling when you’re riding in a boat with your squad to capture control points for your team.

There are three maps for this mode, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal and Wake Island. They are well designed, and each map offers players different tactical opportunities to explore. All of the maps are pretty large, so you will often need to get yourself in one of the several vehicles such as a jeep or plane to navigate around the maps.

1943 also contains another mode titled Air Superiority, along with a fourth map named Coral Sea. They were not available at launch, requiring users to rack up 43 million kills before they were unlocked, which both consoles have now surpassed. This mode, as the name suggests, is purely dog fighting. It certainly mixes up the gameplay, but unfortunately you often find yourself waiting for a plane to spawn on the deck of your team’s aircraft carrier.

The servers were initially overwhelmed at launch, but thankfully the issues were soon resolved with a major increase in capacity, and the game runs smoothly thanks to the dedicated servers. The matchmaking system seems to work relatively well, but it appears that squads are sometimes split up after a couple of games, which is obviously an irritating flaw. Some users are also experiencing issues with the voice chat, the problem has been acknowledged and we are told to expect a fix shortly.

On the surface, Battlefield 1943 does seem to lack in depth, but you certainly can find variety if you dig a little. The well designed maps, balanced classes, various vehicles and emphasis on teamwork provide a platform for a solid FPS experience. Don’t forget that this is a downloadable title, at a fraction of the cost of normal retail games, so you definitely get great value for your money.

9/10

Did their spin of the wheel land on the ‘Jackpot’ or ‘Bankrupt’ wedge though? You’re about to find out.

Graphics

The graphics for the game are good, but nothing special. The several sets add a bit of variety to the backdrop, and stay true to the ‘extravagant’ theme of the show. The character models look decent enough, but there are several issues with the animation, such as the player’s hand cutting into the wheel as they spin it. On the subject on animation, there is not much variety in them at all, and you will soon grow tired of seeing your character ‘raising the roof’.

Gameplay

The game portrays the core gameplay of the show pretty well, when spinning the wheel you are shown a ‘power’ meter, which sets how hard your character spins the wheel. The wheel has cash amounts and also other wedges such as the million dollar and mystery wedges from the show. You then pick a consonant or can purchase a vowel and try to guess the letters in the puzzle, once you know what it is you can try and solve the puzzle.

There are two other contestants at all times; they can be controlled by either the AI or by players in local or online multiplayer. You can choose to play a single round, which is pretty self explanatory, or a travelling tour. In travelling tour, you play three games against the same opponents in different locations. There are 11 cities featured in the game from across America each one with a differently themed set.

The game does have some customization options for your avatars, albeit on a very limited level. There a few facial, hair and clothing options for both male and female avatars, along with naming your character the customization ends there.

For some reason, I will have to assume licensing issues, the current hosts (Pat Sajack and Vanna White) are missing from the game, which certainly does take away from a game based on the show.

Conclusion

Wheel of Fortune certainly is not a game without issues, several of them infact, that could have been avoided and make the game feel incomplete; $14.99 does definitely seem a bit steep for what is on offer. Puzzle lovers will find something here for them though, with over 9,000 of them to solve, but you will have to deal with the poor animations, limited customization, and complete lack of hosts.

Answering the question at the very beginning of this review, SOE did not land on ‘Jackpot’ or ‘Bankrupt’; I would have to put this game on the ‘Mystery’ wedge.

6/10

Resident Evil 5 sees the return of Chris Redfield, one of the protagonists from the original game, partnered alongside the fresh new face of Sheva Alomar. The Las Plagas virus from the fourth game has been brought to Africa, the setting for Resident Evil 5. Chris and Sheva are given the task of tracking down a man named Irving who may be able to shed some light on the people behind the deadly virus so that Chris can finally bring an end to the virus and destroy its creators.

Players will travel through African villages and tribal marshlands fighting off hordes of infected Majini and terrifying new beasts twisted by the virus. But when old acquaintances return will Chris and Sheva be able to complete their task?

Graphics

The graphics and detail of the game are of very high standard. Environments, player and enemy models are all extremely well detailed offering some of the best graphics that this generation of games has seen so far.

Gameplay

One of the main things I noticed with Resident Evil 5 which cannot be overlooked is the lack of zombies, similarly to the previous game. No longer are there slow moving humanoid creatures harassing the main characters in attempts to eat their brains, the infected Majini of Resident Evil 5 are capable of moving at normal speed and even wielding weapons. Although some may say this makes the game more challenging there are various downsides to this.

At the beginning of the game the effects are not as potent because the Majini mainly use one handed melee weapons which does seem understandable. However I became slightly bemused when I saw infected wielding AK-47’s, Gatling guns and even RPG’s. This all helps to make the game feel like any other 3rd person shooter.

However if you are capable of overlooking this drastic change to the series, Resident Evil 5 is a possible contender for game of the year. The games’ narrative is compelling with a storyline that will prove interesting to both fanatics and newcomers to the series alike.

The single player handles very well with the control scheme working correctly once you get used to not being able to move and shoot at the same time and provides a high amount of action to compliment its rich storyline.

The inventory of the game is now available whilst the game carries on playing which means that players will need to find a quiet spot to use those all important herbs to heal damage from an onslaught by the horde. Often inventory systems can be confusing to navigate and need some time to work your way around them, but Resident Evil does not suffer from this ailment and makes changing weapon very simple, ready for another fire fight with the Majini.

As you traverse across the different environments you will encounter multiple different enemies ranging from the humble Majini, to vicious dogs and crazy infected with chainsaws. Bosses also see players needing to play strategically, working together to finally bring them to their knees. Not only will you need to fight enemies but also the environment itself, spike traps and alligators wait to defeat you whilst parts of the environment can also be turned on the enemy. Exploding barrels and electricity can be used to turn the tides on a wave of enemies whilst more mundane objects such as bookcases can be used as a barricade.

Another one of the stronger points of Resident Evil 5 is the intelligent AI. Often computer AI can be very traumatic to work with as they fail to follow orders and run off in the wrong direction, only to get themselves killed. Fortunately the AI works extremely well following orders completely and competently killing enemies and saving the players life.

Replay Value

Resident Evil is also a game you will not be able to put down and provides a lot of replay value. All of your weapons can be upgraded to bring a swift death to the enemy. Upgrading different weapons will allow you to play the game in different ways, from getting up close and personal with a shotgun to taking your enemies down one by one with a sniper from the distance. As well as just different tactics, upgrading your weapons will allow you to purchase unlimited ammo for that weapon and even more weapons to add to your arsenal.

This requires some time to amass enough gold and points to earn the weapons of destruction but brings a high level of fun once you are able to run through levels with a mighty Gatling gun or even a triple barrelled shotgun. As an added bonus, completing the game in under 5 hours will allow you access to an RPG with unlimited ammo, enough to destroy all enemies and most bosses with a single shot.

Figurines, treasures, game filters and different costumes can also be unlocked helping to boost the replay ability of this game.

Once you complete the campaign you will also gain access to the mercenary mode. This allows you on your own or with a partner to compete against a time limit to amass a high score by defeating infected to rack up a combo. In this mode you are stuck with particular weapons for each character and can amass new characters and levels by gaining high ranks in each level.

Multiplayer

If you are not fond of the brilliant AI you can have a second person drop in at any time to aid you in your quest on both campaign and mercenaries mode. Having a second person join is as simple as pressing the start button on a second controller or inviting somebody from online to come and join you. As well as inviting people to your game you can also search for games online or start your own campaign leaving the option to join open, meaning you can have a new partner every time or have a friend join you in your quest.

As well as co-operative play there is soon to be competitive play allowing you to turn the tables on your partner and fight against them as well as the zombie horde. This mode is currently unavailable but should be arriving on the Xbox Live Market place and the Playstation Network Store in the future.

Conclusion

The game provides great graphics and game play that has kept me playing for a lot longer than most games tend to.  My only complaints about this game relate to the story which seems to have become rather complex and strayed too far away from the original survival horror game. This game could quite feasibly be a strong contender for game of the year; I would highly recommend it.

9/10