I certainly don’t think COD: WAW has anything on COD4! Well I’ll start with the campaign, there’s nothing wrong here, a decent length with a similar style to COD4, I particularly like the story-telling cutscenes. The campaign can also be played online competitively or just as a team, another great addition. The campaign is somewhat too linear, with little choice of ‘thinking tactically outside the box’ and your AI team-mates could be a little sharper. A major problem (in my opinion!) is the array of weapons you get given to use, maybe I’m just used to COD4 guns, but it seems to me that Treyarch have tried to over-balance the guns, making some obsolete (semi-auto rifles.) in online play, and some downright ueseless online or offline (iron sighted bolt-actions).

In online play, again I can only criticise the maps some being too large, some too small with a minority being decent maps. I also find that the maps lack ’sides’ as you will no doubt remember, in COD4 every map seemed to have two very distinct sides, the WAW maps are a lot more randomly organised which leads me on to my next major criticism… One word. Spawning. I have no idea what Treyarch were hoping to achieve with this system, you get spawned infront of a camping enemy five times where, not suprisngly you get killed five times, next three enemies spawn far behind friendly lines, getting you all knifed in the back, it certainly gets 10/10 for yelling-at-your-telly factor.

I do like a few of the added perks, another great thing is the fact that Stopping Power is no longer a necessity and you can play just as well without it, some of the weapon addons are also insightful, although having to unlock a sniper scope on your would-be sniper rifle is pretty aggravating. The extra levels added in (55-65) also give you more play time, although perhaps it makes reaching the next prestige a bit too tedious, and the incentive to enter prestige (although small) is quite encouraging too (gaining extra customisation slots as you progress.) I also think that many of the best, most anticipated weapons/perks are only given to the player at a relatively high level, making it harder to rank up when you’re only a lower level.

Although, I can’t write all negative, as the game retains the same play style as the amazing COD4, which hardly needs comment, as all readers will undoubtedly know and love this system. In short, I think you either need to be a rather talented gamer, or a pretty persistent one at least. Players who are moving to WAW from COD4 will definitely either love it or hate it!

Right now you can buy Call of Duty: World at War from gameplay.com for only £39.14, I would definitely reccomend giving it a go, if not buying, at least renting it. WAW is a totally different game, yet fundamentally the same as COD4 (if that makes any sense!)

10/20 for the simple fact that this game can instantly change from being phenomenal to plain annoying, and therefore could be an 18/20 or a 6/20, so I give it a middle rating.

Well… Civ Rev… Where to start ? Although Civ Rev isn’t perhaps the best game ever made (although its certainly not the worst!), or one for serious gamers on or offline, it’s certainly great fun! You’ll start the game with a choice of 16 different civilizations and 5 difficulty settings, all of which have their own different advantages and disadvantages. Early on, time advances by 100 years each turn, this is reduced to only 2 years a turn when in the Modern Era. This is turn based strategy gaming at its finest (on a console). With so many different civilizations and different ways to achieve victory you’ll find it hard not to carry on playing this incredibly addictive game, players can achieve victory by having great culture, a strong economy, fierce armies or the most advanced technology. No match is the same and one game can take anywhere from 30 minutes to hours.

This game was made especially for consoles, therefore the controls are easy to remember and more importantly easy to use on your controller. Although this is a turn-based strategy, it can still appeal to all gamers purely because its such great fun, you can sit there playing it for hours. Civ Rev also has a strong online community and each week a Game of the Week map is released by Firaxis, this is a new scenario allowing players to try and get a high score for submission to online leaderboards.

Although Civ Rev is good fun and has amazing gameplay, it has its downfalls… Firaxis had to make cut-backs due to the fact that the game is console based, so graphics and variety are slightly lacking, with no story/campaign mode and only one universal game type. Also, although there is a wide variety of civilizations to choose from and victories to be had, the game can become boring due to lack of scenarios, and if you choose to go online, chances are you’ll find many of the players to be rather good (I did…) Overall, well worth £29.99 (Xbox360 and Playstation 3 from Play.com).

I give this game a rating of: 17/20

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Well to put it bluntly. I dont like it one bit. The Dualshock 3 controller is apparently some amazing new gadget which vibrates to give an almost life-like feel to games, although from what I’ve seen (and I do have one.) this controller looks EXACTLY the same as the Dualshock 2 controller (10/10 for originality…) although it feels quite a bit heavier, 40% heavier than its predecessor infact. Its roughly £10 dearer in shops, than the Dualshock 2, not bad for what it does?

Well heres the thing, it really doesnt do anything more, its vibrate is in my opinion no different to the Dualshock 2 but it just works with less games than it. So if you feel like wasting ten quid or you are a vibration fanatic then this is for you, otherwise I’d suggest you buy a Dualshock 2 controller if you’re in need of a new one. Please feel free to contact me if you think I’m missing the point here…

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