Grand Theft Auto IV:The Lost and Damned
Xbox 360
This is the first of two planned chunks of downloadable content for GTA IV.
The Lost and Damned is an amazingly good add-on to what is a fine stand-alone title.
It's available exclusively on Xbox Live Arcade, and you get another rich slice of Liberty City, this time studded with violence and vendettas courtesy of warring biker gangs.
It's a classic tale of young upstarts gaining power, as elder statesmen fight back to preserve their turf. It offers gamers 20 new missions, plus mini-games, a slew of new weapons, songs and modes, all of which add up to around 20 hours of play. Brilliantly told and beautifully realised.
Men Of War
PC
WORLD War II strategy titles aren't exactly thin on the ground, and only a handful capture the horror and hurt, shock and awe of the conflict like Men of War does.
Men of War, with seriously impressive graphics that capture the frightening reality of fighting in gory, flaming detail, looks the part and, thanks to soldiers tooled up with generous inventories, it plays just as well too.
However, it's also quite exhausting to play, because many of the missions are brutally fast and action-packed - this is no game for beginners or anyone wanting to idle away a calm half-an-hour.
Bloody and brilliant.
Professor Heinz Wolff's Gravity
Nintendo DS; Wii
THERE'S something about the word "physics" that makes my heart sink.
But this puzzler aims to make playing with physics fun, and it doesn't do too bad a job of convincing me.
Each of the 100 or so levels sees players having to use gravity - and an array of oddly shaped objects - to create a smooth path for a ball to run along.
It sounds easy but, as with all the best brain-teasers, it soon proves fiendishly tricky to master.
New Play Control : Mario Power Tennis
Wii
ANOTHER Game Cube game has been given the Wii treatment in Mario Power Tennis, the latest in Nintendo's New Play Control range.
To a new generation of gamers used to the intuitive and effective controls of Wii Sports, Mario Power Tennis ought to be a handsdown winner.
However, despite the magic of Mario and high-energy action, Nintendo has failed to make the control system anything like as good as it could - or should - be. - Rebecca Armstrong, The Independent