Battlefield Vietnam is one of the most anticipated games of the year. But the question is, can it emerge from beneath the shadow of its illustrious predecessor, Battlefield 1942, as well as megapopular user-made mods such as Desert Combat? While a jaded gamer might label Battlefield Vietnam nothing more than an elaborate update, that's taking a very cynical and shortsighted view. The truth is that Battlefield Vietnam is more than just a new collection of maps and weapons; it's a superbly designed multiplayer action game that incorporates the lessons learned from 1942 and mates them with better technology. And yet, it must be said that Battlefield Vietnam just doesn't feel as groundbreaking as Battlefield 1942 did for its time, when it successfully combined first-person shooting action with vehicular combat on a relatively large scale.

Breed makes a horrible first impression. This single-player sci-fi shooter takes so outrageously long to load that it should ship with an alarm clock to wake you up when it's finally ready. Breed then makes many more bad impressions once you actually get to play it. You quickly see that it takes a lot of its ideas from the hit game Halo (and in turn from films like Starship Troopers and Aliens), and that it suffers from flimsy writing, atrocious voice acting, generic enemies and settings, frame rate hits, poor mission design, lagging multiplayer, and severe bugs. All isn't totally lost, though. For all that Breed does wrong, it at least lets you control some neat vehicles in expansive environments. Still, even in its good moments--which are uncommon--Breed is a poor game. During its many bad moments, you'll want to avoid it altogether.

Everyone's favorite bald-headed assassin is back for his third outing in Hitman: Contracts, a game that's especially recommendable to fans of 2002's Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, because the gameplay and a lot of the visuals simply haven't changed in this latest installment. Danish developer Io Interactive created a memorable character and some impressive technology with its original Hitman game, but not till the sequel did the gameplay live up to the graphics. Given that Hitman 2 was such a huge improvement on the original, it's inherently somewhat disappointing that the new Hitman: Contracts is really just a rehash. It's more of the same, replete with everything that was good and everything that wasn't so good about the 2002 game--only it's now 2004, and some of the issues that were more easily overlooked then tend to stick out this time around.

The developer of Grand Theft Auto delivers its darkest, most violent game yet in Manhunt, a third-person perspective stealth action game that puts you in the role of a death row inmate forced to run a deadly gauntlet at the whim of a sadistic cinematographer. Released a few months ago for the PlayStation 2, Manhunt is now available for the Xbox and PC, and while these new versions feature exactly the same content as the PS2 original, they deliver relatively superior graphical quality--and in the case of the PC version, improved controls. The game itself unflinchingly depicts intense graphic violence, the likes of which you might expect from a slasher movie but not so much from games. However, these grisly scenes are done up in style, as Manhunt has a real cinematic flair to it--not to mention a suffocating atmosphere that perfectly fits the theme.

Not every game that goes for over-the-top action can pull it off, but Painkiller seems to be on the right track. In development at Polish studio People Can Fly, Painkiller takes the frantic action formula of classic first-person shooters and the more recent Serious Sam and adds explosive physics effects. It's one thing to have a group of big, tattooed bikers charge at you with tommy guns blazing, but it's definitely something else to send them all flying crazily through the air with a volley of rockets. This insane carnage takes place in huge, good-looking locations throughout some of the not-so-nice parts of purgatory. However, the game doesn't focus on gruesome battles, but instead on fast-paced, addictive action, and from what we've seen, Painkiller might just succeed.

With television in the 1970s rife with cop shows of varying quality, you needed some sort of hook in order to stand out. Starsky & Hutch had one of the best--a 1974 Ford Gran Torino with a memorable red and white paint job. Though the show didn't rely as heavily on its trademark car as, say, The Dukes of Hazzard, it was still a fundamental part of the show. Now Gotham Games has released a driving-and-shooting game that evokes the general style of the show. The gameplay isn't terribly deep, and the story mode isn't very long, but the game is still mildly enjoyable. What Starsky & Hutch does best is pay homage to the wonderful clichés of 1970s cop shows.

Unreal Tournament 2004 is a multiplayer first person shooter that combines the kill-or-be-killed experience of gladiatorial combat with cutting-edge technology. Ten game modes, both team-based and "every man for himself," provide even the most hardcore gamer with palm-sweating challenges through unbelievably detailed indoor arenas and vast outdoor environments. As the ultimate techno-gladiator of the future, players will take their fates into their hands, battling against up to 32 other players online in action-packed, frag-filled arenas. See more pictures Reload, rev up and ride out. The new Tournament is faster, higher and meaner.

Combat Pilots Wanted! As a fresh recruit in the Archipelago Air Force, players must counter the threat of the Peoples Militia Forces intent on creating a regime of terror. Defense of the islands requires intense aerial dog-fighting tactics and successful ground attack missions. Air Offensives Condor 3D Graphics Engine brings to life the art of flying in vivid detail. The recent invasion of terrorist forces has ripped your country apart leaving Archipelago military forces scrambling to counter this threat. As a fresh recruit in the air forces, you must fight to restore freedom through intense aerial dog-fighting and ground attack missions to become the master of the skies.

The first game based on the agreement is expected to hit store shelves around the same time as the Q4 2003 release of the Bad Boys II DVD. "It is very exciting for the group to have signed such a significant property," said Ian Higgins, CEO of Empire Interactive. "The movie is one of the biggest to come out of Hollywood this year and crosses over perfectly with our core gamer demographic. Empire is looking forward to making this a hit franchise for a number of years to come." No other details have been revealed about the game.

Command & Conquer: Renegade is a fast-paced, 3-D action game set in the gripping Command & Conquer universe. For the first time, you can experience a Command & Conquer game up close and personal as you fight it out on the ground among the structures, vehicles, and weapons made famous in the original. You assume the role of Havoc, an elite GDI commando who fights and explores from a first- or third-person viewpoint.

Published in 1998, the original Carnivores arrived just in time to cash in on the popularity of the hunting genre. One year earlier, the budget-priced Deer Hunter introduced players to this type of game, which used a first-person view to simulate the hunter having to stalk his wild prey. Carnivores took this concept one step further by placing you in a fictitious yet realistic-looking setting in which dinosaurs roamed the land. You'd get to hunt these as though they were deer--the key difference being that a lot of them could fight back. Carnivores was an interesting game, and it actually featured a rather impressive 3D-graphics engine as well. One year later, the sequel to Carnivores introduced a more open-ended play style but remained basically identical to its predecessor.

Combat takes place in a bizarre futuristic environment suspended in the upper atmosphere of some unnamed world. It is your job to maneuver yourself from the predesignated entry point through to the exit point of each segment, a process that wouldn't be quite so difficult if it weren't for the legion of ne'er-do-wells determined to end your journey.

Developed by Slovakia-based Cauldron, Conan is based on the original fantasy fiction of author Robert E. Howard. (However, it will feature pieces of composer Basil Poledouris' score for the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.) Details on the story are scant, but it will certainly concern the titular barbarian's adventures in the fantastical and prehistoric Hyborean Age. According to Cauldron, gameplay will be 70 percent swordplay-filled action--including numerous gladiatorial deathmatches--and 30 percent adventure and puzzle-solving.

A new standalone game, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (CS: CZ) extends the award-winning Counter-Strike multiplayer game with new maps, weapons, and more while simultaneously introducing new technologies, an extensive single-player campaign, and cooperative play. Texas-based Gearbox Software is co-developing CS: CZ with Valve--the samepartnership that produced the bestselling Half-Life: Opposing Force and Half-Life: Blue Shift expansions. For CS: CZ, Gearbox has created an extensive single-player campaign that includes more than two dozen new missions and takes players to several fictitious regions of conflict around the globe. In addition to the single-player campaign, players will be able to set up cooperative games via Internet and LAN connections.

Deer Hunter 2004 represents the most substantial upgrade to the series yet, with updated graphics and gameplay that set a new standard for the genre. The game features an all-new graphics engine that provides spectacular outdoor locales and realistic animal animations. Gameplay is further enhanced through more realistic animal behaviors and the addition of new hunting skills. Deer Hunter 2004 also comes complete with an exciting online multiplayer component for expanded hunting expeditions. The new adventure begins with Deer Hunter 2004!

With Grand Theft Auto III, Rockstar proves that not all developers are concerned with toning down the violence in their games. This sequel is even more bloody, violent, and sadistic than its popular predecessors, offering up an enormous 3-D city in which nearly any criminal act is possible. Players are free to steal cars, beat up the local population for their money (or weapons), make time with prostitutes, or simply roam to their heart's content. Those seeking more structure can embark on dozens of plot-driven missions or steal cars that let them play minigames. Nab a cop car and go on vigilante missions. Grab a cab and play a deadly version of Crazy Taxi. Take a fire truck and earn money putting out fires. The game just never gets boring.

Half-Life: Counter-Strike contains all the elements of the popular online multiplayer game originally built as an add-on for Half-Life. While the version of Counter-Strike available online requires a copy of Half-Life, this standalone version contains the Half-Life engine on the CD-ROM. The team-based gameplay divides players into terrorist or antiterrorist squads. Each team has access to different real-world ammunition and equipment, and all players have unique attributes plus the ability to upgrade their gear after completing missions. Missions have different goals, such as defusing a bomb or rescuing hostages.

At its best, Hidden and Dangerous thrusts players into the middle of a gritty World War II movie as they control a small team of specialized soldiers in daring missions behind enemy lines that are fairly crawling with Nazis. The superb graphics create a convincing atmosphere, regardless of the terrain missions play out on. The sound effects--from pattering rain to the frantic screaming of an alerted guard--did much to suck us deeper into the game. In fact, Hidden and Dangerous would stand as one of the best games of its type if not for its numerous bugs and steep hardware requirements.

Sometimes a mediocre game can seem worse than an outright dud. When you're playing an obviously terrible game, you can usually put it safely aside and move on to something better. But mediocre games like Innerloop Studios' IGI 2: Covert Strike trick you into thinking that there might be something great just around the corner, only to repeatedly disappoint you. The previous game, Project IGI, was an above-average shooter when it was released in 2000, despite some serious shortcomings. But things have changed since then--more-sophisticated and more-stylish action games such as Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, No One Lives Forever 2, and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell have raised the bar for action games. Yet Innerloop has slid under it with IGI 2, which is a shooter that might have seemed exciting if it had been released in 2000, but is mostly forgettable now.

Take control of an entire company of the most fearsome military machines in history: BattleMechs! As a MechCommander, you command a unit of mercenary MechWarriors in a real-time strategy game of power, combat, and treachery set in the sci-fi BattleTech universe. Order your huge, heavily armed BattleMechs to divide and conquer the enemy as you become deeply involved in a bitter struggle for power among three warring noble houses. MechCommander 2 is fully 3-D, with state-of-the-art terrain that you can manipulate to your advantage. Knock down trees, blow through walls, jump jet onto cliffs, and step on things standing in your way to victory.

Moscow-based game publisher Buka Entertainment has unveiled Midnight Nowhere, its upcoming survival-horror game in development at Saturn+. The game is set in a city plagued by a series of terrible murders being committed by a seemingly unstoppable criminal. Players assume the role of a man who wakes up in a mortuary with no recollection of where he is, who he is, or why he is there. As players explore the more than 60 3D environments featured in the game, they will uncover clues to their past and come across numerous puzzles to solve and characters to interact with.

The Mortal Kombat series is one of the premier arcade series around today. The series, which until now utilized digitized actors to give the game an extra layer of realism, has been the topic of comic books, movies, action figures, and even Senate hearings. The fourth time around the game has gone polygonal, giving the developers much more leeway when it comes to adding new moves, holds, and characters. Also, weapons have been added into the mix, with each character possessing a different sword, club, or staff to beat his enemies with.

Since the late 25th century, Earth's population has skyrocketed, and the face of our blue planet has been transformed into a complex grid of concrete, polymers and steel. Oxygen trickles into the atmosphere by virtue of precious biospheres that dot the skies in a suspended fragile mesh several miles above the surface. Humans toil and commute along side the masses of alien races that have since inhabited Earth's centres. Together they have concocted the most voluble and copious of environments known to mankind since the Garden of Eden. At the turn of the fourth millennium, pessimistic speculation led philosophers to believe that Earth was bound for troubled times and that great suffering would engulf the helpless inhabitants.

This is possibly the worst video game ever made. You have a machine gun and are supposed to shoot down enemy planes. You don't see the planes until they are right in front of you for about one second before they fly overhead. This game probably took about half an hour to make from start to finish. It is completely two dimensional, it has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I was completely tired of it after about 15-20 seconds of playing.

During the heyday of the original Quake in 1996 and 1997, several Quake mods rose to prominence. These included the first ever team-based first-person shooters, including the Lithium CTF mod, Team Fortress, and Future vs. Fantasy. In fact, Future vs. Fantasy was one of the most original and popular Quake mods available at the time, pitting several high-tech classes against characters pulled from the fantasy genre. The creators of Future vs. Fantasy have now released an updated version of their game on the more modern Lithtech engine, changing the name to Purge but keeping much of the vision and design from the original game intact.

You control Jill Valentine, one of the playable characters from the first game. Jill has returned to the zombie-infested streets of Raccoon City after resigning as a member of S.T.A.R.S., an elite police unit. She's there to investigate the headquarters of the Umbrella Corporation, the evil conglomerate that is behind the zombie plague. While in the city, she must avoid the constant threat of the nemesis, a tough monster that is hunting down S.T.A.R.S. members and obviously isn't interested in the fact that Jill has quit.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Rogue Spear Mission Pack: Urban Operations has got to be one of the longest names in the history of gaming. At first glance, it seems as if the amount of new content in the actual game doesn't prove equal to the large number of words jammed into the title. But spend some time with Red Storm's first expansion for its popular Rogue Spear, and it becomes apparent that while the mission pack doesn't provide a huge quantity of new maps, it does include a lot of different ways to play on them.

Raziel, a brooding blue-skinned half-demon, half-vampire armed with a soul-sucking energy blade, is the memorable antihero of Soul Reaver 2 and its predecessor. He was first introduced in 1999's Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, which itself was a follow-up to the 1996 PlayStation game Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. All three games in the Legacy of Kain series were originally developed for video game consoles, but all three were subsequently ported to the PC. Like the previous installments in the series, Soul Reaver 2 is a third-person action-adventure that shows its roots as a console game, both for better and for worse. Those players familiar with the original Soul Reaver should have a good idea of what to expect from the sequel and its innovative blend of action and puzzle-solving.

If you consider yourself a Star Trek fan, then you probably wouldn't expect the TV series to be very good material for a first-person shooter. After all, more so than other science fiction series, Star Trek has always taken a more cerebral approach as the courageous crews of vessels like the Enterprise and Voyager try to seek diplomatic solutions to conflicts with various alien species, prior to having to resort to their phasers and photon torpedoes. And so 2000's Star Trek: Voyager Elite Force was by all means a pleasant surprise--it was a high-quality first-person shooter that happened to take place in the Star Trek universe. Now, nearly three years later, Elite Force has a sequel, one that fans of the previous game will also enjoy.

In the tradition of the multi-award-winning Star Wars: Jedi Knight, Star Wars: Jedi Knight 2, Jedi Outcast features rebel agent Kyle Katarn in exhilarating first-person action. Several years have passed since Kyle avenged his father's death and saved the Valley of the Jedi from Jerec and his band of Dark Jedi. Allowing his Force powers to languish for fear of falling to the dark side, Kyle entrusted his lightsaber to Luke Skywalker, vowing never to use it again. But when a new and menacing threat to the galaxy emerges, Kyle knows he must reclaim his past in order to save his future.

The publishers of Grand Theft Auto III are back with another game geared towards a mature audience. But fans of GTA III should note that while State of Emergency contains adult themes and extremely violent gameplay, that's pretty much where the similarities end. Whereas GTA III was about creating a deep experience unlike any other video game, SOE is a throwback to arcade beat-'em-ups like Smash TV and Double Dragon. However, the game takes the genre to a new level with mind-blowing graphics.

Caught in the heart of a nuclear explosion, victim of gamma radiation gone wild, Dr. Robert Bruce Banner finds himself transformed during times of stress into the dark personification of his repressed rage and fury--the Hulk, the most powerful man ever to walk the face of the Earth! In this game you control The Hulk and smash all enemies that stand in your way. Hulk the game takes place takes place one year after the events in Hulk the movie. Troubled scientist Bruce Banner and his enraged alter ego the Hulk are forced into battle against the terrifying forces of the Leader, whos intent on using the Hulks gamma energy to unleash a relentless army of gamma creatures on the world.

These days, when shooter fans prepare to enter virtual combat, they're more likely to reach for an MP5 submachine gun than some futuristic plasma rifle. Games like SWAT 3 and Operation Flashpoint have offered realistic situations, weapons, and tactics that create deeper alternatives to pure fantasy shooters like Quake III Arena or Unreal Tournament. Of course, if there's a game that's synonymous with the tactical shooter subgenre, it's Rainbow Six or its successor, Rogue Spear. With these games, developer Red Storm set an unprecedented standard for realistic gaming combat. One shot could kill, and stealth and planning were the order of the day. Now Red Storm is back with a new tactical shooter, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, which is big news for shooter fans.

You've got enough weapons to level a small army - and you'll need every last one. That's because the mythical armies of Lost Olympus are looking to destroy you. And if you live long enough, you'll face the wrath of Zeus himself. Are you going to cry like a mortal - or send 'em all to Hades in a handbasket? Become Will, a modern-day archaeology student gone ballistic when his mentor is murdered by a fanatic cult. Possessed by the power of the Titan Prometheus and fueled by his own mortal thirst for revenge, Will storms the gates of Lost Olympus to avenge the murder and rescue a mortal, Emma - before Zeus marries her and gains ungodly power over the world of mortals.

Enemy Territorys feature list seems a little on the short side when you read it. That there are six maps seems to be a huge knock against the game, until you play them. The maps are huge, have a lot of detail and multiple stages. A tank must be escorted and fixed along the way to a fuel depot. It and its companions will face artillery barrages and airstrikes called by the enemy team. Panzerfausts will knock the tank out of action while MG42 wielding soldiers cut down any engineers trying to repair the tank. An Allied covert ops agent breaks the stalemate at the chokepoint by stealing the uniform off a dead Kraut and wreaking havoc behind enemy lines. With the machine gunner, panzerfausts and artillery out of action, the tank can move up to the next choke, and so on.

The spineless and unassuming critters that star in Worms Armageddon epitomize the game itself. You'll quickly notice that the worms in this game are not as meek as they appear and instead are funny, ill-tempered, and wickedly clever. At about the same time, you'll find that while this game may look cute, it is in fact as sophisticated and enjoyable as the very best strategy games out there. It's also highly polished, easily customizable, accessible to all ages, and perfectly suited for quick spells and marathon sessions alike.