There’s nothing better than watching a couple of campers blend in with the ruble of a building as you sabotage it, to blitz with an RPG or a charger. There’s never a dull moment in Bad Company 2, with the Frostbite Engine’s Destruction 2.0 whole buildings and objects in the gaming environment can be destroyed realistically. You’ll spend a lot of time in the campaign shooting and blowing up destructible environments just to admire the realism.

This time around the campaign has taken a turn for a more serious but linear storyline. The Russians have set their keen eyes on a mythical WWII weapon of mass destruction, which in the wrong hands will threaten the world. Preston Marlowe (you the player), Haggard, Sweetwater and Sergeant Redford are sent on a mission to hunt for this weapon before the Russian’s gain possession.

The missions you play throughout the campaign are great fun from vehicle shootouts to avoiding freezing death in the snow trail blazing mountains. Your AI team mates are splendid bullet sponges and rarely take a shot penetrating enough to take a life, leaving it to you to pull the plug on your enemies.

At times when you progress through a mission you can see enemies being spawned right in front of you, generally after a while you start to memorize their positions. There is little incentive for exploration apart from finding the collectable guns placed in every level.

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It’s All Coming Apart Nicely

If any first person shooter has what it takes to demolish the throne on which Modern Warfare 2 has sat so smugly these last three months, it’s DICE’s forthcoming Battlefield: Bad Company 2 with its so called ‘Destruction 2.0’. As fans of the original will already know, the BC franchise is predominantly defined by its emphasis on destructible environments in which players - no doubt with the wide-eyed grin of a blissful but demented pyromaniac –  can obliterate the picturesque scenery with an arsenal of heavy weapons and armoured vehicles. Indeed, in terms of gaming catharsis, it really doesn’t get much better. Especially when you find yourself using a grenade launcher to hollow out some urban, three bedroom town house in which your opponent pathetically cowers until all that’s left is a thin, two story façade you could probably knock down with one tap of your finger.

But, according to so many Bad Company reviewers, therein lies the rub. Because whilst it’s all very well to tear great gashes through windows and walls and drown your enemies in clouds of smoke and debris, BC was a game which never quite let you go far enough. Buildings fell apart yes, but never fully imploded no matter how hard you huffed and puffed with every powerful ordinance at your disposal. Instead, pre-determined pieces of debris would fall from structures like jigsaw pieces whilst, in complete defiance of real-world physics, large sections would remain insolently upright and indestructible.

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Visceral Games visionary of the classic poem “The Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri, which foretells the author’s vision of hell is absolutely grotesque and demented. If you think you know what hell looks like then think again. I can assure you this is one of the few video games that will make your skin crawl and leave you feeling squeamish.

Players take the role of the protagonist Dante, who upon returning home finds his beloved Beatrice murdered with a sword plunged into her lower abdomen. With Lucifer in full possession of her soul she is dragged into the depths of hell. Dante descends himself into hell to rescue Beatrice and ultimately redeem himself, as he realizes that he’s paying for his sins and facing his demons.

Visceral Games have played the common factors of the poem and made it into a game which overall sets the basis for levels. As stated in the poem there are nine circles of hell which are named: limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery. Each of them has a distinct environment and demons within them. Sometimes this is not the case as other enemies from distinct circles cross over in levels.

Many see the game as God of War, in more or less every way, shape and form. The reason for this is because the level designer, who worked on the God of War franchise, joined Visceral Games development team for Dante’s Inferno. There’s no denying that Dante’s Inferno uses God of War as a strong foundation, however it makes up for unoriginality in other areas.

Take the cross for instance it’s a great weapon for spamming attacks with and keeping enemies at bay. The cross is great fun to use as there’s no limit on the amount of times it can be used. The upgrades for this weapon are irresistible; they literally make you feel as though the wrath of god is in your hands.

As opposed to the cross the scythe is equally a blast getting to grips with. This is your primary weapon and a dominating one too, depending on how you coinsit it with the cross and magic to devise combos.

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Play it with a friend. Seriously. Army of Two: The 40th Day may allow you to take it on with an AI partner, but to do so would be doing the game a disservice, and result in a poorer experience for yourself.

EA Montreal built the game from the ground up as a two man operation, and whilst it’s serviceable when you’re on your own, it’s only really in co-op that the game begins to shine. Commands can be given to an AI partner, but that can never compare to screaming into a headset, or better yet to the person sitting next to you, to flank the heavy who can only be taken down from behind.

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All your votes are in and counted. So who were the winners of the Game Hub Games of the Year Awards 2009? There are a few surprises amongst the obvious ones.  Fortunately for all the nominees, nobody got zero votes (somebody got one though). So here are the Top 3 for each of the 13 categories:

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Everyone's favourite life simulation game The Sims 3 has a new expansion pack out on February 5th, this time giving you the chance to bling up your sim and their house with the latest in modern design, art, high tech gizmos and even a next-gen gaming system! So now you can play games, in a game!

Transform your Sims’ homes into sleek, edgy apartments with the latest expansion pack The Sims 3 Design & High-Tech Stuff. With a host of new items for the most lived-in rooms in your Sims’ homes, including slick gadgets for your high-tech home office, a next-gen gaming system for the killer game room, modern furniture for the most contemporary living room, and more, your Sims can now give their homes an ultra-modern makeover! After you modernise their homes, turn your attention to their wardrobes and give them an overhaul with sophisticated, cutting-edge fashions, if you like that kind of thing. Whether it’s your Sims themselves or their homes that needs a new look, The Sims 3 Design & High-Tech Stuff lets you catapult your Sims into a more modern, stylish lifestyle!

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You are Sean Devlin, an Irish racing car driver who becomes The Saboteur on his road to revenge against the Nazis. While the visuals are painfully average and the open-world gameplay offers nothing new, you might just get find yourself sucked right in anyway with fun gun battles and the optional stealth approach.

A neatly condensed Paris and its nearby countryside make up the landscape of the game. You help out members of the French resistance and British spies to help liberate Paris and send the Germans scurrying back to sausage country.

The early buzz around the game focused on the black and white visuals to signpost areas under heavy Nazi oppression, the idea being you would try and take a neighbourhood back and inspire the Parisians, bringing colour back to the world. Get to a high vantage point and you can see pockets of colour around the city. Oppressed areas appear to be in a permanent ‘rainy night’ condition.

While these elements are present it seems to be merely a gimmick. Once colour does return, it’s just an aesthetic effect, with no impact made upon gameplay and the amount of Nazi’s patrols. Okami and last year’s Prince of Persia are excellent examples of how to do it properly. There was potential for The Saboteur to be visually unique but it ends up looking quite ordinary. The textures of the city are so bland it makes the black and white areas look even worse.

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Some say it’s L4D1 with melee weapons, others claim it should have been DLC. Announced a couple of months after the first installment and released exactly a year later, Left 4 Dead 2 is here. The big question is how this sequel proves to be a purchase when the first one was released 12 moths ago, still being supported by DLC. What does L4D2 bring to the table that L4D1 didn’t? 

One of the biggest criticisms of the first one was the lack of campaigns and modes. In Left 4 Dead 2 there are five campaigns that are more endurable and fascinating compared to what L4D1 offered. With more vibrant audio and voice acting the sound design is ace. 

You choose to play as one of four survivors obliterating zombie hordes to the end of the level, which concludes with all your team mates reaching a safe house. You can either play with bot team mates or choose the more satisfying option of having human team mates.

Each team member has one main weapon and a side arm or newly introduced melee weapons. Cricket bats, chainsaws and katana’s are a few of the quick and accessible melee weapons to beat zombies to a pulp with. By far the melee weapons prove to be the most effectively damaging weapons in the game; it’s so easy to chainsaw swarms of zombies than burst firing a rifle or shotgun.

Variety is not the word here; you’ve got all the weapons from L4D1 and so many newly introduced weapons such as a desert eagle, grenade launcher, AK-47, SCAR-L, sniper rifle, combat shotgun, chrome pump shotgun and a Mack 11 with a suppressor.

The most rewarding experience with these weapons is the upgrades. You’ve got laser sights, incendiary ammo which sets the infected on fire and explosive ammo which dismembers zombies with one shot using any weapon.

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Medal of Honor will return in 2010 and for the first time in it's 10 year history will leave the WWII battleground in favour of a modern theatre of war, Afghanistan.

Trailing behind similar games in it's genre in recent years (especially Call of Duty), the Medal of Honor series is hoping to reinvigorate itself by releasing a “best in class” single player campaign as well as world class multiplayer.

The single player campaign will follow the operations of today's elite forces, referencing the will, mindset and professionalism required by today's highest calibre soldiers.  Known as a Tier 1 Operator, you will take on missions no one else can handle under the direct control of the National Command Authority.  The development team has been working closely with US Special forces at all stages of the game's construction to ensure maximum realism and will be basing as much of the game as possible on real events.

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Brendan Griffiths takes a look at some of the best upcoming games at the Leeds leg of the Eurogamer Expo including: Aliens Vs Predator, Avatar, Bayonetta, Dante’s Inferno, Dark Void, God of War III, Heavy Rain, Saboteur and Split/Second.

It’s not often that UK gamers get to go to an expo; it’s even less often that a show manages to climb its way north of London, so it’s no surprise that the Eurogamer Leeds Expo sold out in advance for its two dates at Saviles Royal Armouries Square for the 27^th/28^th October.

While the queue went around the building it didn’t take long to get in once the doors opened and despite the event being sold out it never seemed overcrowded in the two halls used. The gaming areas were made up of stools in front of TVs or playing stands like you might see in shops like Game and HMV. There was a mix of HD screens for each game. Some medium sized, others 50 inch monsters. Although, sitting on a stool two feet in front of 50 inches of brightly coloured Ratchet & Clank was a bit overkill, I had to lean back to avoid my face melting.

But on to the games I managed to get a bit of extensive time with.

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Eddie Riggs (voiced by Jack Black) is the best roadie in the business, but modern times have seen him forced to work with some awful bands as he's seen his beloved heavy metal get watered down to suit a 'tween demographic'. After saving one of the dipshit band members from certain death onstage, Rigg's huge stage set collapses on him. As his blood drips into his Motorhead-esque belt buckle a metal monster erupts from the stage wasting the band, and Riggs is transported to a whole new dimension. It's got the crazy turned up to 11 all the way from here on in.

The recent demo was a bit misleading as it made the game out to be a hack n' slash style game and made no mention of the Overlord-like RTS segments. At regular intervals you assume command over troops and order them to defend your 'stage' or assault the enemy's stage. You buy extra troops by earning 'fans' from pyres that you need to convert. Unfortunately this is the game's weakest area with the controls often being imprecise and troops often ignoring commands and showing no common sense. These battles can go on for a bit too long as well. You are able to do some fighting yourself (much better), with a combination of melee axe swings and using your guitar to electrocute or burn enemies, or you can go for a spectacular Riff attack, the best of which being the ability to call in a huge flaming Zeppelin to crash down at your feet. It looks absolutely awesome.

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Last years quality game firmly put FIFA back on top over their Konami rival, so what next? A tougher challenge and enough off the pitch enhancements to last you till well after the end of the season and beyond is what.

The tougher challenge is made evident by smarter AI that closes you down mercilessly and some questionable refereeing. Last year’s problem of players constantly wondering offside has been fixed. Unfortunately it has been replaced with them constantly giving free kicks. While getting flagged offside was annoying the replays always proved that you were. It was never wrong and EA explained they couldn’t show officials to be making mistakes because of the official FIFA branding, fair enough. Shame they couldn’t extend the courtesy to fouling as the replays will leave you baffled as to why you’ve given away yet another free kick as the slightest nudge is penalised.

Those crazy dribbling skills are back again using the L2 button and the right stick to try and dazzle your way out of trouble. The extensive list of them can be a little daunting at first, but ignoring them would be like playing Street fighter 4 without ever looking at the moves list. It’s important to remember that not all footballers can do these tricks, but they can be useful with decent players if you want to take on defenders.

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It was a bit of a surprise to all of us finding out that the next game to follow the excellent Dead Space would be on the Wii. It might be an ‘on-rails shooter’ but fans will enjoy this prequel to the original game, especially the first level which has a neat twist that they or anyone that’s seen the anime might appreciate.

The game starts before the Ishimura planet cracker mining ship was overrun by an alien plague causing severe psychosis and mutation in their human hosts. Haven’t played the first game? Don’t worry, the prequel nature of the game welcomes newcomers by letting them play through preceding events. Veterans will enjoy some familiar locations and characters and being a part of earlier events from a different perspective on how the shit hit the fan in the first place, as the first game had you starting well after the infection had already spread.

The biggest changes to the game are the transition to an on-rails FPS and the inclusion of constant companions. You are part of a group of four and despite one of them being a soldier, you are the only one that seems to know how to shoot anything. Sure you might see the odd bullet from the other guy but it never does any damage. And naturally, as is the rule in on-rails shooters, the enemy will always go for you instead. The on-rails aspect makes this feel like a seriously twisted ghost train ride. You do get to choose from multiple paths though sometimes.

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EA has decided to reinvent their own wheels as the Need for Speed brand disowns its street racing vibe in a much cleaner break than 2007’s NFS: Pro. Shift is the full transition to track racing to try and compete with the likes of Gran Turismo and Race Driver: Grid. They’ve managed to successfully re-invent FIFA over the last couple of years, so maybe they’ve got a shot.

It’s clear that a lot of time, effort and money have been thrown at the game with a Top Gear style dream collection of ludicrously expensive, top name cars such as the Zonda and Bugatti Veyron all fighting for dominance on dozens of familiar tracks from the USA, Europe and Japan.

So how does it handle on the track? Well how brave do you feel? The first task is a lap to find out what driving aids and difficulty setting suit you best at that time. Thankfully you can alter these at any point depending on whether your skills get better or you spend most of your time spinning out into sand traps. There’s even an optional racing line with braking zones highlighted (like in GT5: Prologue).

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The following story is based on real events. That’s the kind of quiet claim that might make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Mostly it’s something reserved for films, but here it applies to a game, or rather, a real-world event that involved one.

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