The successor to Faces of War (2006) has some useful innovations on offer, but is mainly about one thing: hard-core battles of WW2. It's exceptionally difficult, but not unfair. Veterans will enjoy using the innumerable amount of tactical options at hand. There's a multi-player mode for LAN and Internet for up to 16 players and a co-op mode for up to 3 players, too.

The first expansion for Red Alert 3 comes without a multiplayer mode. Producer Amer Ajani said there was need to care about game balance in single player missions. But in Uprising, some missions are highly frustrating and unfair, mainly because of the starting conditions and scripted encounters, others are almost boring. EA has gone too far disregarding game balance.

Being in the hands of several developers and publishers is usually bad for a game, but not this time. Codename Panzers is surprisingly good and the missions are designed brilliantly. If you don't need to be in the thick of it and prefer controlling highly specialized units, then this Cold War is for you.

Empire: Total War still has some teething problems, but the latest installment of the Total War series is its best one nonetheless. The game takes place in the 18th century with eleven playable countries. As usual, you govern you country and move your armies on the strategy map, while battles are fought in real-time, including sea battles. If you like strategy games, you need to play Empire: Total War.

The faultlessly working speech recognition of Tom Clancy's Endwar achieves its objective: you really feel like a military leader - at least for one hour, because in terms of speed and precision the human voice is still inferior to controlling the game with a mouse. The game itself resembles World of Conflict, but doesn't come close. Especially the game balance needs to be fixed.

More complexity doesn't automatically create more fun. The successor to Puzzle Quest, the entertaining mix between role-play elements and puzzle game, turns out to be uninspired and boring. It's more complex but confusing, even for experts. There are less rewards to motivate you and the AI doesn't work properly. A candidate for the list of bad sequels.

Quotation forthcoming.

The brute battles, the use of role-playing elements and the fast multi-play mode are exciting, but as far as mission design, story and balance are concerned, Dawn of War 2 doesn't live up to its potential. Relic created a novel strategy game, but the discrepancy between the more technical parts of the game and its mission design and story is obvious. Still, it's not a bad game at all.

The sequel to the controversial Vietnam first person shooter abandoned the use of torture and atrocities to civilians. It also abandoned good graphics, atmosphere and almost everything else needed for a good game. Dumb enemies, exaggerated splatter effects, boring levels and graphics right from the last century - Shellshock 2 has nothing interesting to offer.

FEAR 2 doesn't manage to cause panic like its predecessor because Monolith uses the same well-known techniques again. But it's still fun to follow Alma. This time, it's more uncertainty than fear that keeps you playing.

A scantily clad woman with two blades and lots and lots of monsters, that sounds like an entertaining game, but turns out to be a laborious task. It's fun for one hour or so. But once you realize that there is nothing more to the game than fighting huge amounts of monsters in similar looking areas, it becomes annoyingly repetitive.

What's left if you remove the roleplay elements from an action-based RPG? In this case it's three hours of uninspired action. Everything that made Fallout 3 a good game has been removed, obviously to rip off gamers who already explored the whole wastelands - and for those players it's totally worthless.

It looks like a chartered accountant but it's a real revolutionary, because it starts the online age for manager games. You're not managing an existing club, but one you create from scratch. Then you choose an association that fits your style of play, e.g. the Casual Weekend Association. The games are shown on 2D maps, so all you see is few circles running after the ball. Despite the meager presentation FM Live manages to be an entertaining game, even if you only play a few minutes a day.

The basic idea behind Conquest is cool: play the largest battles from Lord of the Rings from the perspective of a soldier. The out-of-date graphics, bad class balance and stubborn controls would be no problem if this was a mod for Battlefront or Battlefield, but this is a full price game. The only thing worthy of the big license is the soundtrack and that's available for less.

Sure, there are a few quirks, but Mirror's Edge is a well designed and well presented elaborate game. And it's fun, too. It's plays a bit like Tomb Raider, just faster and without ruins. Not a perfect game, but perfectly designed and it stands out from the mass of uniform games like a white skyscraper.

The "little brother" of GTA is loaded with action, variety and over-the-top characters and some mission can even be more fun than GTA IV. But the PC-conversion with all it's faulty controls, graphical errors and other annoying bugs needs to fixed soon.

Quotation forthcoming.

There are some good ideas, the fights look great, but Liquid Entertainment wasted their good concept. The fights turn out to be simple key bashing, there is not enough good dialogue for a RPG and far too much babbling for an action game.

A sweet love story, mixing humour and romance just right to enchant female and male players alike. Like in most new Ubisoft games it's necessary to accomplish the same tasks over and over again, but it's not as annoying as in other games. The unusual graphical style is beautiful.

The time for original concepts and new genres is not over yet. Defense Grid: The Awakening is a highly motivating game, it's not easy, but not unfair and there are always new elements added to the game. There's no story and the controls are not perfect, but the game can still glue you to your chair for days.

The game is stuck between being a dry simulation and an arcade-style game. It’s a weird mix without a lot of long time motivation. Some missions are too hard, the controls are not well done and it can get boring quite fast.

The basics are still the same, but GTA 4 is a masterpiece. The game world created by Rockstar North is simply amazing. The shootings, radio, TV, the story and the characters create more than just a sandbox game. It's almost a parallel world.

It looks like JoWood didn't learn much from releasing a bug-ridden Gothic 3 game. The new add-on is full of bugs, too. But even without them, the game wouldn't be as good as the other recently released RPGs. At least the quest and the story are well done.

The single-player campaign is only eight hours long, but full of spectacular and varied scenes. It's a lot of fun, but too linear, and the use of generic weapons, imprecise controls and inconsistent graphics show a lack of fine-tuning.

Tomb Raider: Underworld is a source of joy as long as everything works as intended and Lara follows the controls, leading the player to beautiful panoramas, seamlessly moving from gameplay to cut-scene. But at the same time, the game can be quite depressing if Lara doesn't reach moving platforms, the camera plays up and it's hard to solve a problem. It's an emotional roller coaster and great entertainment.

Do you have a six year old son who likes to watch CSI? Then this is the game for him. There's a shattered body lying next to the Empire State building, so we start collecting evidence all around it: Pretzels, empty cans, flowering pots and rubber ducks. That doesn't make any sense? That's right, this just a simple game of "find the hidden object" with a thin story and some CSI people. Asking 30 Euros for all that is nothing but a rip-off. Well done, Ubisoft.

It's a playable zombie movie. Would you like to hunt down the infected or rather rip human flesh to shreds? What may look like a simple shooter turns out to be very challenging, scary and a lot of fun. The game may be short, but with great replay value and different ways to play like versus mode or co-op mode.

Sauron is getting closer! The first add-on increases the scale of the game, adds new classes and items and moves the action a bit more to the east. There a few annoyances regarding game balance and small bugs, but they hardly matter because looking for new quests and leveling up is a lot of fun.