We just previewed Madden 10 and it seems like the team has been hard at work scrapping elements that haven’t worked for the series and creating new features in order to produce the most realistic feeling hard-nosed Sunday football game to date.  Let’s blitz through the top ten changes Madden 10 makes to famed Madden formula.

1.  Madden 10 lets players “Feel The Pressure” in the pocket and avoid It.  Since the beginning of time, Madden players have played passing offense the same way:  Running 20 yards or more into the backfield, away from the pocket, and firing a huge bomb to a downfield receiver.  They either complete that miracle pass or they’re sacked for an absurd loss.  Real NFL quarterbacks don’t do this, by the way, they stay protected in the pocket created by the offensive line.  The developers of Madden 10 found that when players were looking downfield for a receiver, the pocket didn’t feel safe because they couldn’t sense when the defense was rushing them, hence the running into the backfield.

One of Madden 10’s goals is to make the pocket feel safe again.  When looking downfield for a receiver to pass to, the controller will rumble when the quarterback is under pressure.  A quick flick of the right stick lets the quarterback execute an avoidance move to shrug away a potential sack and give the player an extra moment to complete a pass.  The avoidance moves will work better with elusive quaterbacks, like Big Ben, but even then they won’t work all the time.

Ben Roethlisberger, one of the larger quarterbacks, eluding a defender with an avoidance move.

2.  Quarterbacks have more guts.  Ok, that’s not a direct quote from Madden 10, but it’s the best way to describe the quarterback’s new ability to complete passes while being sacked.  Last year, Madden 09’s sack animation would overide the quarterback’s passing animation, causing him to tuck the ball instead of releasing it, resulting in some unfair feeling sacks.  “I pressed the throw button!”  Now the top part of a quarterbacks body can still make a pass even though he’s being sacked, which may result in a much needed completion, or a floating pass that could be easily intercepted.  Either way, if you want to make that risky play, now you can.

3.  Nine man gang tackles.  Madden 10’s mantra is “Fight For Every Yard.”  With Madden 10’s new Pro Tak feature you can bring the four on one ownage to some poor running back like the picture below.  The gang tackles generated by Pro Tak can also be used offensively.  If your running back gets some help from some big guys behind him, they may just push him right into the endzone, or help him break out of the tackle animation altogether.  Hopefully Pro Tak’s gang tackles can bring the more organic raw feeling of live football to the game.

3. Fight for the ball at the bottom of the pile.  Players will now experience the lawlessness of the game’s most gritty battle, the wrestling match at the bottom of the pile for the ball after a fumble.  Who knows what happens at the bottom of the pile?  Scratching, finger bending, biting?

Madden 10 handles this tooth and nail battle with an intense quicktime button pressing minigame.  Hit the right button as it flashes on the screen and you’ll tip the possession scale in your favor and probably end up with the ball once the ref’s pulls all the bodies off of the pile.

4. Holding the A button moves your defensive back into position for you to make big plays:  I’ve always had trouble playing defense in Madden, especially in the secondary.  Thankfully, the Madden 10 team found that many players also had the same trouble, and they’ve created Defensive Assist.  Holding down the A button will cause your defender to move into position and play defense, but it will not, however, make big plays like swats and interceptions for you.  It only gets you into position so you can make these big game changing plays yourself.

5. Many of last year’s Iterations have been scrapped, tweaked or downplayed.  The not so successful Madden IQ feature that was so prevalent last year is returning and you’ll still take the test at the beginning of the game, but the Madden 10 team asserts that the feature is going to be changed and be much more in the background.  Weapons, the new feature from a couple Madden’s ago have been completely scrapped and Rewind, Madden’s version of a “do over” is turned off at default.   Chris Collinsworth and Tom Hammond return, but between you and me and what the developers implied, Tom Hammond is going to be more interesting this time around.

7.  Photorealistic Depth of Field.  The reason why the screen shot above looks like it was pulled from the real Superbowl last February is that the Madden 10 engine accurately displays depth of field, blurring that which you’re not focused on.  Look at how the referee in the foreground and the sideline in the background are accurately out of focus.  One of Madden 10’s goals is to make games feel more like a televised broadcast and establishing depth of field is a great step into building that realistic look and feel from a real NFL game.

8.  Passes to the flat are no longer broken.  After catching a pass out to the flat, no longer will receivers fail to slow down and negotiate where the out of bounds line is. No longer will they sprint towards the sideline like Forrest Gump running home to Jenny.  This was a game breaker for many gamers who played Madden 09, so it’s exciting to see that the Madden 10 team is fixing this important play.

This ref should really have a “hit me” sign on his back, because that’s what we all want to do…

9.  You can knock over refs and run into the chain gang. Yep, you can knock those pin striped losers onto the ground during a play and doing so will never impede you or slow down your movement in any way.  That means a ref will never get in the way of pass or trip you up so you don’t make it into the end zone.   Also, Madden 10 wants to replicate the suspense of watching live football by having the chain gang run out and measure for the first down.  This may also increase the number of controller throwing moments.

10. Some players stats have been dropped as much as 20 points! The Madden 10 team saw that the stats have been slowly creeping upwards over the years and that average players were only a few points different from the NFL’s future Hall of Famers.  This would effect teams as well.  Playing the Lions didn’t feel like playing the Lions, it felt like playing the Cowboys or any other good team.  In order to distinguish the average players from the superstars, many player’s ratings had to be lowered.  If you rate everybody as great, then no one is.  Maybe some game websites should adopt this mindset in for review scores.  You didn’t hear it here!

Madden looks like its ready for another monster year of sales and hopefully ready to deliver the most true to life football experience thus far.  Even more Madden 10 features are going to to be revealed at E3 so get your Troy Polumalu jersey ready and check back later!

As you most likely know already, the demo for Monolith Productions’ F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin was released recently on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. Obviously, so long as you own a device capable of running the demo, you can download and try it out for yourself. What I’d like to do, though, is share with you what my thoughts were about the demo. Hard drive space is a concern for many of you I’m sure, so perhaps I can help you decide whether or not to use yours up. Hit the jump for my impressions.

You might have guessed already, but primarily, I’m a PC gamer. As such, I downloaded the Steam demo of F.E.A.R. 2; that’s what I’m basing this on. I’m sure the console versions aren’t much different, but if they are, feel free to let everyone know in the comments.

As the demo starts, the player is presented with an introduction. Nothing new about that, and fittingly there was nothing new about the intro movie — a few fast cuts and a voice explaining to me why I should be scared of the girl (Alma). Could just be my cold, cynical heart, but it really wasn’t anything special. When the player is put in control, however, it does begin to step up, so to speak.

So many first person shooters now have decided on keeping the player in control of cut-scenes, letting the player look and walk around while the story plays out. Pioneered in the Half-Life games, and implemented badly in many games since, I find this technique of storytelling has become stale and irritating. That said, the beginning of the F.E.A.R. 2 demo does manage to pull it off.

The player starts off in a street lit by flames and torn by warfare, greeted by Alma. A flash, she’s gone. You begin to walk towards the end of the street. Another flash. Alma reappears, walking away from you. Your only choice is to follow, but she’s gone before you can reach her. At the end of the street, you realise that this can’t be real; your only option left is to jump into a pit of bright light. When you wake, your squad-mate is calling for you over the radio, unable to get a signal. To your right is a crashed helicopter — yours.

To progress, the player’s next path is through an elementary school. Your first encounter is with an armoured guard and his five friends. Slow-motion combat is introduced, which is fun for a while, but becomes tedious (I ended up not using it for the rest of the demo). The combat is made a little difficult by the way the character controls — you move with a heavy foot, stomping around, and your vision bobbing back and forth the whole time. It’s almost as if you’re carrying four huge weapons or something. Oh, actually, you are. The weapons I encountered were as standard as it gets: sub-machine gun, assault rifle, sniper Rifle, and shotgun.

After some more combat, the best part of the demo happened. If you want to avoid spoilers, skip this paragraph. I stumbled out from a classroom and found myself in a corridor. The walls are littered with smiles and rainbows, all drawn in crayon. Suddenly, a table flies from a room on the left of the corridor in front of me into another on the right. My cross-hair flashes red — was that an enemy I saw? The screen flashes; all of the colour drains out of my vision. Something flies at me — a locker? A filing cabinet? Whatever it was, it was followed by a myriad of other things, giving me no choice but to run. I ran as fast as I could go down the corridor, catching glimpses of ghostly figures, all furious at me. Why? It didn’t matter. All that did was getting out of there as fast as I could. Terrifying, and exhilarating.

Escaping the school, and narrowly avoiding a falling train carriage, I enter the subway. My escape route is the fallen carriage, and I walk up through it towards the surface. The door in front of me slams shut, and a shadow is cast upon it. Needless to say I had to turn around, and I caught but the smallest glimpse of a figure at the back. Turning away to run, I see through the open door — just up the street (past more hordes of enemies) is something I really didn’t expect.

At first I thought it was another enemy, then a tank of some sort. No, I was wrong. It was in fact a mecha suit — think Gundam, just a little smaller. What follows is an awful sequence where I was sent through the streets in the suit, firing rockets and heavy machine guns at enemies and other mech suits, at which point the demo ends. In a game which had previously made me face my mortality and run away, stomping through the streets in a rocket-laden armour suit was incredibly out of place. Not to mention that I couldn’t actually tell what it was I was shooting, thanks to a cluttered interface and a lot of dark colours blurring together.

Were it not for the pointless and silly ending to the demo, F.E.A.R. 2 would have certainly interested me. The movement is irritating in combat, but certainly adds to the tension in the other sections. This is one of those games, I’d say, that you need to try out before buying. For me, I most likely won’t be buying the game — the horrible mech section at the end, and the repetitive and slow combat, just aren’t worth enduring for the spookier sections. If you decide to try out the demo, let us know what you think in the comments.

After a look at the single player portion of Call of Duty: World at War at the Eurogamer Expo and a lot of time on the multiplayer beta, I thought I’d write up a brief preview of the game. While being dismissed in many places as “another WW2 shooter”, I feel that the game deserves a bit more than that.

As a rule, World War 2 shooters have never been something I enjoy; slow and clunky weapons, drab visuals, and an overly sober tone are characteristics that they tend to share. However, I am enjoying World at War at the moment, for a number of reasons. Hit the jump to hear them.

The first I played of Call of Duty: World at War was a portion of the singleplayer mode. I’m not sure how far into the game it was, but the level was set in a jungle, and I was fighting troops geared up in camouflage and with bigger guns than me. Straight away, I started noticing similarities to Call of Duty 4- examples include the grenade indicator, the aiming mechanic, and the reticule notification of a hit. Perhaps it was because of the weapons (slow and clunky- it is a WW2 shooter, after all), but it was pretty difficult.

There were a lot of explosions, smoke, and plants around, which made it hard to spot where the enemies were coming from. Patrick and I also encountered an irritating spawn glitch- the game had autosaved right before an enemy knife-killed us, meaning that every time we died, the enemy would insta-kill us right as we spawned.

While the single player portion of the game that I played was sub-par and very similar to any other WW2 shooter, the multi-player beta that I have been playing is certainly worth a look. If you could only know one thing about it, it would be this: It’s Call of Duty 4 in WW2. Many of the same perks and challenges have been ripped straight from Call of Duty 4, the engine is identical, and it generally feels like the same game.

It might sound like a criticism, but Call of Duty 4 is a fantastic game, and all of it’s juicy goodness has been gathered up and put into Call of Duty: World at War. The guns may be a little dated, but since everyone has to deal with that, the proverbial playing field has been metaphorically leveled. It’s still fun leveling up and getting better weapons and attachments, and doing so isn’t so difficult as to frustrate.

The maps in the beta are a little small, but some, especially Castle (a Japanese stronghold), are beautiful to behold, and provide a variety of tactics. Hopefully the full game will provide a better selection of maps, as I’ve only played three so far. There is a good selection of weaponry in terms of function, but it seems like some, like the shotguns, need a lot of practice before they become useful- the maps tend to facilitate long rage weapons over short range ones.

I’m actually looking forward to this game now, after a skeptical start (when I heard the setting was back to WW2, and who the developer was). As long as the single-player has some better locations, and the story isn’t too awful, I’m confident that will be decent. Call of Duty: World at War is shaping up to be a great game: it does very little new, but why change something that has shown to be a lot of fun?

Fall is fast approaching, and your bank balance will soon be dropping faster than the leaves on the tree outside your window. Naturally, you may not be able to decide for yourself which of the plethora of games to splurge your life’s savings on, and that’s where I come in.

Think of me as your personal assistant — ready to passively (and aggressively) project my thoughts and opinions onto you. Thank me later.

Dead Space (Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3, Xbox 360) 10/14 – It’s the future. We’ve made significant progressions in the space program. You’re Isaac Clarke, a space engineer, who’s answered a distress call from a ship that is, as far as he knows, only suffering from minor mechanical issue. Since we need antagonists to kill, the ship has been overrun by Necromorphs, a hostile polymorphic alien species dependant on necrotic flesh.

As lame as that sounds, all it does is confirm my suspicions that it is execution rather than conception that makes something intriguing.

EA Redwood has taken what I perceive and now know as the “Resident Evil 4 effect”: over-the-shoulder camera, controls that don’t make you want to burn a puppy, and something freak you out when you turn the corner. Comparisons to other great games continue; much like BioShock’s Rapture, a large portion, if not all, of Dead Space will be taking place in a self-contained location. What BioShock did right was make locations distinct enough to create a feeling of progression and keep things fresh with distinct differentiations in aesthetics.

Gameplay mechanics appear solid enough, and rightfully so, since they’re borrowing from the best. And let me be clear, that’s not a knock against it, I like that it borrows from games that I already know I love. Provided that they nail the gameplay, atmosphere has to be top notch, especially since they’re in the survival-horror genre, a genre that lives and dies by its ability to give you the screaming heebie-jeebies.

LittleBigPlanet (Playstation 3) 10/21 – “Play. Create. Share.” is the mantra that Media Molecule, developers of LittleBigPlanet, has lived by since they announced the title two years ago.

LBP is a 2D side-scrolling platformer that combines the Super Mario Bros paradigm of simply getting from one end of the screen to another and takes it to the next level with real-to-life physics calculations. Thow in an endearing star like Sackboy, and a pre-bundled level creator expansive enough to recreate just about anything your mind can think up, and you may begin to understand why people are clammering to reserve their copy.

If creating isn’t really your thing, you can expect a fully featured online catalog of levels created by others. Assuming that its release is met by a highly motivated and creative community focused on providing a constant stream of mind-blowing content, LBP will be surefire success.

Fable 2 (Xbox 360) 10/21 - Over promising and under delivering has very much been the theme of Peter Molyneux, the design mastermind behind Fable. I haven’t followed his hyperbolic propagand much throughout Fable II’s development, but I’m sure he’s spewed his fair share of it. The one thing I did hear is about the Han Solo factor.

The factor that has a player not being equally generous and forthcoming to everyone met, but a greedy, look-out-for-self, inward thinker that’s not exactly pure evil:

“With Han Solo, how good is good? Can you get as good as Luke Skywalker? Even he wasn’t truly good.” Molyneux said. Speaking with MTV Multiplayer blog.

He then went on t o hypothesize a potential situation in Fable II:

“If you saw a family there and had to kill these bandits to save the family, you’d kill the bandits to save the family. If I said to you, ‘okay, to save this family, you give up half your gold.’ Would you give up half your gold to save the family? Maybe you would, don’t know. The most interesting one is if I said ‘to save that family, you must be horribly, grotesquely scarred and there’s no way of ever removing the scar or the aging.’ What we found is that far, far fewer people were willing to sacrifice that.”

Would you sacrifice superficial features in a game to accomplish your good deed for the day? What about in the meatspace; fight or flight? Could an in-game situation make you stop for a second to contemplate the repercussions of your actions? Would you second guess your decision making? That seems to be the goal they are striving for here.

Fallout 3 (Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3, Xbox 360) 10/28 – Post-apocalyptic wastelands haven’t been done right since 1998, or so they say. Having only become a PC gamer recently, I missed out on both Fallout’s, and I’ve neglected to watch any of the Mad Max movies. As such, I’ve never been set in a Mad Max-esque setting – and I’m not quite sure what to expect. In other words, I have little insight into this cultural phenomenon.

I know about the barren stretches of land, the different factions, your dog, the vaults, the open-ended consequence-filled nature of the world, the VAT combat system and the Pip-Boy. All that knowledge taking up real-estate in my head, but even so, I can’t begin to understand the hype machine surrounding this games pending release. Despite my not having any comprehension as to how the game will actually “work”, it’s piqued enough of my interest that I will definitely be playing it on day one.

Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360) 11/4 - “Bigger, better, and more badass.” Was the phrase Lead Designer Cliff Bleszenski chose to introduce the world to Gears of War 2, although it was scrapped shortly thereafter. Setting aside the idiotic catch phrase, my initial fears were that little to no advancement had happened in the two year gap between the first and the second Gears of War’s.

Epic could’ve released what would ostensibly be the original Gears with a new single-player campaign and, by and large, be met with success, both critically and commercially. Marginally upgraded graphics, new enemy types, and new weapons would have likely been sold as more than enough reason to come back for round two.

Thankfully though, they didn’t phone Gears of War 2 in. A new campaign, 5 player co-op, and what seems like a vastly improved multiplayer mode have me at attention and ready for battle. The 5 player co-op has a bit of a twist, as it pits you and your friends in something more analogous to Geometry Wars: Waves. You fight through waves of Locusts with each subsequent wave being more difficult than the previous. It’s chances of being Game of the Forever are slim to none, but what it does have is a great foundation to work from, if taken in the right directions it will prove to be a success in most aspects.

Resistance 2 (Playstation 3) 11/7 – Ever since its announcement, you’ve heard about Resistance 2 and it’s scale. In fact, Insomniac Games made sure that one was never mentioned without the other. A prime example being the skyscraping 300 ft. tall Leviathan shown off at the Sony E3 Press Conference months ago. It ravaged through a 1950’s war-torn Chicago and smashed buildings with little remorse.

For those that missed the original, it’s an alternate historical take on World War II, where instead of the war progressing as it should with the Allies vs. Axis, it’s become Humans on Chimeras, a mysterious alien species life form that’s decided to invade Earth.

The first takes places through European cities. With the second, the war comes stateside and it’s up to hero of the European invasion, Nathan Hale, to play his part. Apart from repeating the word “scale” until it ceases to have meaning, they’ve also been playing the numbers game like it’s nobody’s business, unleashing an 8 player class-based co-op campaign, and 64 player squad-based competitive multiplayer.

In addition to the numbers game, they’ve also been building a new website behind-the-scenes. One that’s meant to foster a community. MyResistance.net is slated to be to Resistance 2, as Bungie.net is to Halo 3. Those are big shoes to fill, but Insomniac readily boasts the “scale” to do it.

Mirror’s Edge (Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3, Xbox 360) 11/11 - We got our first taste of the evolved paradigm of platforming courtesy of last year’s release of Assassin’s Creed. The craze is called Parkour, which is a French developed sport involving running, jumping, and otherwise traversing urban areas with complete grace and shocking fluidity. When directly translated from French to English it means “The art of movement”. The definition and translation of Parkour is easily transferable and a perfectly acceptable for Mirror’s Edge, as it takes Parkour, and translates it into a first-person action game.

Mirror’s Edge takes place in a not-so-distant dystopian future, run by a totalitarian government. I don’t know how much you know about totalitarian governments with Orwellian traits, but they like to control things, and one of their favorite things to control is information. That’s where the “Runners” come in. They take information in various forms and get it from point A to point B.

You play Faith, an extremely agile and graceful runner. As such, she can move through her environment with relative ease and fluidity. Much of Mirror’s Edge involves forward movement, you can expect to, more often than not, be in situations where you’re being shot at, chased, or otherwise incentivized to — you guessed it, move forward.

The only downfall I can think of is the game’s lack of interaction with civilians in the dystopian city. There’s just a picture perfect scene in my mind’s eye, where Faith is going from a rooftop, through a door, down a stairwell, and finally arriving in an office, ultimately interrupting a regular work-day, turning workers into obstacles that become part of the stage.

Those are the games that will keep your wallet (or purse, if you’re into that sort of thing) lighter than it has been all year.

Make sure you come back within the next few days, as I’ll be pushing the games of Fall that may slip under your radar, but shouldn’t. Save your pocket change — you’re going to need it.

We were lucky enough to be invited by Free Radical and Ubisoft to a Haze event in London where, along with playing through a considerable chunk of the campaign in four player co-op, we got to know the ins and outs of this not too distant future world. Follow the link for new details on the game’s characters, vehicles and weapons.

Set in the year 2048, governments of the world have dissolved their national armies and outsourced to fulfil their militaristic needs.  It’s too expensive and politically complicated to employ your own army, so why not rent one?  Mantel Global Industries takes on this mantel; responsible for the peacekeeping efforts of the UN, NATO and dozens of national armies.

You play as Shane Carpenter, a newly enlisted soldier seeking fulfilment and thrills by fighting for a good cause. He’s a sound guy that’s looking to help make changes to the world and bring suffering to an end.  Until he joined Mantel he didn’t know what to do with all his good will. Now, Mantel has provided him with a gun and the opportunity to “help others through affirmative armed action”.

Yes, Mantel offers its soldiers everything they want, from a high-tech arsenal of vehicles, deadly weaponry, to the performance-enhancing drug Nectar.  You see, Mantel are a smart media savy company.  They don’t want bad press or low morale, so they make their army invincible and the war invisble to its soldiers. To perform this impossible task Mantel developed a “nutritional supplement” called Nectar.

Nectar improves a soldier’s sight, aim, speed, and strength. It also enables them to endure – and even enjoy – any personal injuries. Perhaps most famously of all, Nectar increases each soldier’s awareness of their surroundings in combat, allowing them to “predict” impending danger.

What Mantel doesn’t tell its soldiers is that Nectar also filters their world.  War is like a game to them.  There’s no blood, no screaming, no death and no bodies.  As a Mantel trooper, you’ll just be shooting targets while on a massive high.  This experience is so vivid, that the soldiers describe it as a “sixth sense.” Of course there’s nothing supernatural about it, it’s simply a case of stimulating the right parts of the brain.

Now, in the year 2048, a problem has arisen in the Boa region of South America. A dangerous guerilla faction called The Promise Hand, led by a vicious maniac known as ‘Skin Coat’, are on the rampage, trying to overthrow governments.  These rebels are scum, especially ‘Skin Coat’, who earned his alias by skinning those who opposed him and using their skin as a makeshift leather  ‘coat’.  Thankfully, in typical fashion, Mantel has sent in a sizeable force to send the Promise Hand to their graves.

You must fight this vicious rebel faction, the Promise Hand, with the following Mantel team by your side, whether as computer AI or joining you via your online/offline friends:

- Sergeant Morgan Duvall; Carpenter’s equal in rank and age, Duvall is known for partying hard, and fighting harder. Better educated than most of his contemporaries, Duvall is respected by his fellow soldiers and hence they look to him for guidance not only in the field, but in their day-to-day lives.

- Lietenant Corporal Adrian Teare; A little bookish, Teare has been known to let his intellectual inspirations get between him and his fellow soldiers. However, he is an adept soldier with award-winning combat skills.

- Corporal Francis Peshy; A star quarterback in Highschool, but a less than stellar student, Peshy graduated by the skin of his teeth. With his parents’ blessing, he joined Mantel Corps and found his niche. He wakes every morning with a smile on his face – knowing he’s doing what he does best.

- Corporal Bobby ‘Watchstrap’ Daily; A Good Ol’ Boy, born and bred, his skinny physique earned him his odd nickname. Happy to follow orders, what Watchstrap lacks in brain power, he makes up for with enthusiasm.

As you fight your way through a war-torn country, the vicious Promise Hand rebels will challenge you in a number of guises:

- Infantry; Carrying the ‘Lobo’ Assault rifle, these soldiers are all-rounders, which makes them unpredictable and extremely dangerous.

- Shockers; Favoring the ‘Oso’ shotgun, the Shockers are fast and agile, allowing them to get up close to use their weapons to deadly effect.

- Suppressor; Armed with the ‘Hand of God’ minigun, these trigger-happy maniacs are not the kind of guys you want to get into a firefight with. With a massive capacity for damage, they are high effective both and short and long range.

- Incinerators; ‘The People’s Dragon’ flamethrower has long been a favourite of this elite unit. Tactically, they tend to lie in wait until their target is within striking distance – then unleash the fury of the Dragon.

At first you’re embedded in your Mantel mission to destroy the rebels and bring order to the world, but quickly things begin to change.  Everything is not as it seems. In uncovering the truth you’re going to have to break away from Mantel’s manipulative grip and join your former enemies, the Promise Hand.

Naturally, since your enemies are now your friends, your former friends are now your enemies.  You’re going to have to make some tough decisions when you switch sides, and letting go of Nectar is going to make it ever harder to join the rebel life.  You will also be pitted against the craze Mantel soldiers who find war as fun and joyous as a roller coaster ride:

- Regulars; Regulars carry the world famous BlackSaw, and boy do they know how to use it. Their highly aggressive tactics are enough to get any local tough guy sh*tting his pants. In short: don’t mess.

- Assault Troopers; These heavily armoured guys travel in packs, and are rather partial to using the Donkey Puncher. What’s more, with all that body armour to protect them, they like to get in close for some serious Nectar-powered face mashing with the butt of their shotguns.

- Fire Support; They say some guys have all the fun – and these guys might just be them. Sporting a combination of heavy armour and a Hard Candy, these folks like to keep their distance and pepper the bad guys with rockets until they look like cheap pâté. If they’re in the mood to get closer, they’re also packing a Diplomat, and they ain’t afraid to use it.

- Scouts; Armed with the B72 Sniper rifle, the Scouts use plenty of Nectar to ensure the perfect headshot on any stragglers. Their standard armour is more than enough to keep them snug as a bug in a rug.

In the heat of the battle all that will matter to you are the weapons at your disposal.  So what exactly will you be yielding as a drugged up trooper, on an agile rebel?  As a Mantel trooper you’ll get your hands on a this collection::

- The ‘Diplomat’ (D6 Pistol); The ‘Diplomat’ is the side-arm of choice for the smart Mantel trooper. It’s got the kind of stopping power that makes the bad guys feel like they were hit by a steam train full of anvils. It’s especially good at close range “when negotiations fail” – hence its nickname.

- The ‘BlackSaw’ (B72 Assault Rifle); The ‘BlackSaw’ is the standard issue rifle, but there ain’t nothing standard about it. This baby fires rounds made from depleted uranium, meaning that not only do you kill your opponent, you give them radiation poisoning too. Yee-ha!

- The ‘Donkey Puncher’ (D118 Combat Shotgun); As painful as it sounds, this high-end shotgun is more than enough to kick any ass presented to you. At close range, it’s a one shot kill affair.

- The ‘Hard Candy’ 387L (Rocket Launcher); The Hard Candy is a state of the art rocket launcher, capable of blowing the living sh*t out of any armoured or unarmoured target.

- B72 Sniper; This classic sniper rifle couples the ultimate in armour-piercing rounds with a projectile velocity powerful enough to rip right through the sternum of any Promise Hand soldier. Tasty.

- ‘Spring Cleaner’ SK3 (Fragmentation Grenades); Despite their sweety-pie nickname, these grenades are as tough as they come. Based on the classic dead man’s switch design, these time-operated babies are perfect for crowd clearance.

A life without Nectar means the Promise Hand need to use their wits and skills to create the perfect weapon against Mantel troopers.  This results in ingenius modifications to items as simple as grenades – tie Nectar to them and watch as your enemies become their own worst enemy:

- The ‘Razor Tongue’; This classic hunting knife can be used to slash or throw. The rebels will smear the blade in Nectar while making a Nectar Grenade. With Nectar on the blade, the Razor Tongue will cause any Mantel trooper to overdose.

- The ‘Lobo’ (Wolf); The Lobo is the standard rifle for most militia groups across the world, and with good cause. With a quick-load double-ended magazine and a large clip size, it’s the ideal weapon for both attack and suppression.

- The ‘Oso’ (Bear); This shotgun may be a little rough round the edges, but it still packs a punch. With a slightly larger clip size than its mantel counterpart, the Oso’s extra cartridges can make all the difference in a close-quarters firefight.

- The ‘Mano del Dios’ (Hand of God); A massive bullet capacity and surprisingly light weight makes this minigun the stuff of nightmares for anyone up against it. Not to be messed with.

- The ‘Dragón de la Gente’ (The People’s Dragon); A practical, portable flamethrower with a comparatively long reach, a few sweeps with this fiery weapon can be enough to clear a room in a matter of seconds.

- The ‘Pinpointer’; This sniper rifle carries fewer rounds than the Mantel equivalent, but what it lacks in number it makes up for in power. A deadly piece of hardware.

- ‘MalFruta’ (BadFruit); Old school, but that doesn’t mean they don’t hurt. Filled with a combination of steel chippings and high explosives, these grenades are just as dangerous as Mantel’s own.

- ‘Nectar Grenades’; Made on-the-fly by strapping a Nectar Administrator onto a standard grenade, this explosive spreads a thick cloud of yellow Nectar gas across the area. Any Mantel soldier caught in the cloud will overdose.

You’ll need a ride if you’re going to get around the vast environments that will stage this war.  Both sides have a bunch of vehicles, though you won’t necessarily get behind the wheel of all of them:

- The ‘Boxcart’; Fast, manoeuvrable and all-terrain: a combination that has made the ‘Boxcart’ invaluable to Mantel troops in the difficult jungle landscape. Its lightweight frame is thanks to a notable absence of armour. So, whilst it can transport quickly, in combat it certainly can’t guarantee a safe arrival – hence its fragile namesake. Still, the fixed JM90 HeavyGun turret is a good reason to get out of its way.

- ‘Mrs. Mantel’;  Earning its alias by carrying soldiers in its ample belly and ‘birthing’ them on the battlefield, this dropship uses a combination of movable rotary engines and miniature kerosene afterburners, making it a true vertical take-off and landing craft. This motion arrangement gives the craft the means to both fly at high-speeds like a jet, but also to manoeuvre like a helicopter when at low speeds – as such, it is the perfect machine for rapid combat insertions.

- The Dumpster; This chunky Mantel truck is fuelled by a diesel-electric hybrid power train and is used to transport troops and supplies. Its dense plate armour will stop most ballistic fire in its tracks.

- The ‘BigBoy’; At a mere 35 Tonnes, the ‘BigBoy’ tank is light in comparison to its ancestors even when fully loaded. This new low-weight version allows for fast-response tactical deployment and a reliably swift track speed. Its primary weapon – an electromagnetic coil cannon – functions like a rail gun, using magnetic forces along the barrel to propel its shells at a dangerously high velocity.

The Promise Hand aren’t ones to be stationary either – they’re always on the move in their nippy vehicles, trying to stay ahead of those duped up mad men:

- The ‘Macho’ (Stag); Like most rebel equipment, the ‘Stag’ (pictured below) is cleverly salvaged, constructed and repaired on-the-fly – resulting in a patchwork appearance. Subsequently, it is well modified for the harsh jungle environment.

- The ‘Mula’ (Mule); The ‘Mule’ (as seen in the title image) is nothing if not ideal for jungle warfare – able to go where bulkier Mantel vehicles cannot reach, it is fast and versatile. The driver is virtually guaranteed a bumpy ride (hence its alias), but with the room for an additional passenger to fire in their defence, this vehicle is perfect for two-man smash ‘n’ grab missions.

- The ‘Palo Hueco’ (The Hollow Bat); This helicopter has a small advantage in manoeuvrability over Mantel’s ‘Mama’, thanks to its marginally smaller size and weight. Naturally, its armour is a pale comparison to its Mantel counterpart, but its mounted miniguns ensure it is deadly to ground forces.

- The ‘Diente de la Serpiente’ (The Serpent’s Tooth);  This mobile missile launcher carries a rare second-generation nuclear missile, modified for a direct attack on the Mantel ‘Land Carrier’. The launcher itself is over 26 metres long, and is driven by two 1,800hp diesel engines with a maximum speed of just 40km/h.

- The ‘Pecho del Rhino’ (Chest of the Rhino); The ‘Rhino’ is a heavily modified civilian truck. To ensure a functional speed, every conceivable extremity has been stripped off, save for the heavy armour around the driver’s carriage. Whilst this means that it is ideal for transporting non-explosive cargo, like food and medical provisions, on the frequent occasions it is used to move troops, the unfortunate soldiers in the rear find themselves without any protection.

And with that your initiation is complete.  You have all the information you need, apart from images of the battlefield you will be fighting on, and the wise words of somebody who’s been there before.  Don’t worry though, my review of the game will be revealed very soon.

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In a world seemingly overrun with MMOs, Jumpgate Evolution is going to have a tough time carving its place among the big players. Developed by NetDevil and published by Codemasters Online (who also own D&D Online and LOTR Online), there is no shortage of experience behind the game, but does it deliver the loot? Or does it leave the player grinding away in the endless darkness of space? Read the full story for my impressions.

I should probably preface this report with the fact that I do not typically play MMOs. Not because I don’t like them– far from it. I don’t play them because I know that I would be uncontrollably pulled into the game, only to emerge some six months later with a beard, poor hygiene routines, and my family assuming I am dead.

After spending some time with Jumpgate Evolution at Codemasters Connect08 in Birmingham last Friday, I have a horrible feeling this may soon be unavoidable.

Jumpgate Evolution is, put simply, a space-flight based MMO. The developers have said there will be a deep story built in from the start, with the understanding that the game will be expanded upon in future. You can play as one of three races, with two other races taking the form of NPCs, each having their own distinct style and history.

You will pilot a customisable ship and, as with most MMOs, go on quests, gain experience, find loot, and customise your ship to suit your style. Where Jumpgate Evoluion begins to stray away from your typical MMO comes in its execution. All flying and combat is done in real time and manually. The developers said they were looking for an X-Wing type experience and they have definitely found one.

The controls they have created for flying your ship around are simply stunning. I sat down and instantly began flying around, without realising I hadn’t even thought about what the controls were. They are tight, intuitive and, dare I say it, perfect for this game. When they say they spent 3 months on the controls, it shows.

Which brings me to the combat. No more standing still whilst your auto attack slowly grinds down the enemies, Jumpgate Evolution throws real-time space combat at you. You will find yourself taking part in some epic feeling dogfights.

This is where the instinctive and effortless controls really come into their own. Using the mouse to point where you want to go or shoot, and the keyboard to adjust speed, roll and to strafe allows you to easily pull of some impressive looking, and satisfying manoeuvres.

Another aspect the developers were keen to stress was that you wont be seeing very many open areas. Even though it’s space and space is rather large, you will still find all the areas sufficiently full of moons, space stations and asteroids to not only keep your interest, but also to force you to think tactically.

With a graphical engine designed to work on any standard PC, the game pulls off some very hot looking graphics. The computers at the Omega Sektor in Birmingham (where the event took place) are top of the range, but it was pointed out that the game will still look stunning on your standard rig.

A public beta for Jumpgate Evolution is due to start in just a couple of months so make sure to keep an eye on Ripten for all the latest information. Also, can somebody tell my parents where I am and feed my cat? Thanks.