Eidos Interactive Eve Of Extinction PlayStation 2 Games

From the word go this game is hard. Very hard. Rarely does it cut you any slack; one wrong move and it's game over. Initially this can be very irritating, but persevere and Commandos 2 is a real gem. The game's designers have thought of just about everything when it comes to running, crawling, tip-toeing and creeping past the enemy--there are around 100 very short tutorial missions designed to introduce the control system and the various vehicle, weapon and stealth techniques available to the player, and these alone will take a couple of hours to play through; skipping them is a really bad idea if you want the best from this title.

In addition to wandering around on foot, a wide variety of vehicles can be commandeered and driven around (usually badly). Tanks can be used as offensive weapons, and boats are available for water-based missions. All of this Nazi-busting malarkey is brought to you by a squad of combatants including six commandos, each with their own special ability, a female member of the French Resistance, a dog and a rat (!), which makes for interesting gaming indeed.

Its relatively slow pace will put many folks off, but stick with it you'll find that and Commandos 2 is one of the best RTS games to hit consoles to date. --Chris Russell

It's 2052 and you play JC Denton, a nanotechnologically-enhanced, trench coat-wearing employee of anti-terrorist organisation UNATCO. At the beginning of the game, UNATCO is embroiled in a war with one particular faction who is demanding vaccines for a deadly virus sweeping the planet. As the game progresses and more and more information about the true motivations of both terrorists and UNATCO surface, Denton begins to question his allegiances.

Essentially Deus Ex is a first-person shooter, but with a hefty helping of role-playing game. As you progress you get experience points which you can distribute across Denton's various skills, from hacking to weapons. How you solve a particular problem decides how many points you get and wading in guns blazing isn't always the best response. There are also a lot of non-player characters in the game from whom you can extract information, thus furthering the story, unlocking sub-missions and generally immersing you in the game's narrative. It's the story that really raises Deus Ex to classic status, though it's also incredibly atmospheric, completely interactive and effortlessly stylish.

The PS2 version is a direct port of the PC game; the control system takes a bit of getting used to if you are a seasoned PC FPS player and there are some issues with the graphics, which are blocky in places, but the rich gameplay more than makes up for any small niggling failings. This is a brilliant game on any format. --Kristen Bowditch

What limits the game's potential though is the continual stream of frustrations. The enemy's artificial intelligence, for instance, is sometimes very sadly lacking, and there are occasions when the pace drops to snail-like speed, without always generating sufficient tension to carry the player through. That said, when it hits top gear Hitman 2 can be tense, atmospheric and enjoyable. Graphically it's very polished, and those who enjoy games that reward solid thinking more than an itchy trigger finger will certainly find something to enjoy. But while undoubtedly a step forward from its predecessor, it's an ambitious game that still falls short of what could have been. Put simply, it's good, it's challenging, but it still leaves quite a lot of room for improvement. --Jon Foster

The first thing you'll notice when playing The Angel of Darkness is that they've changed the control system to try and make it fully analogue--but it hasn't really worked and lining up for jumps in particular is now infuriatingly difficult. You do get used to it but there's going to be a goodly proportion of fans who'll just immediately give up in disgust. This is a shame because apart from that one (admittedly fairly major) blunder the game is pretty good and far more inventive than any previous Tomb Raider game. For starters there's no set path through the game, but plenty of minor and major plot branching: you now have the chance to talk to people and further affect the route the game's plot takes.

You can also try out a new stealth mode, hand-to-hand fighting, a rather spurious RPG-style attribute upgrade system and even play as a new male character. The Angel of Darkness isn't even close to perfect but apart from the appalling new control system it's mostly all good news and once you start clambering over and under all the new buildings and tombs you'll start to remember just why this series has remained so popular over the years. --David Jenkins

The game takes place as the age of the samurai is coming to a close. Wearing your choice of faces and clothing, you meander through several settings, choosing how to interact with certain characters as the plot develops around you. And, of course, you engage in frequent swordplay. As befitting a game about samurai, the game world offers an interesting combination of Zen atmospherics and machismo posturing. The graphics are often pretty but rarely terrific, although some backgrounds are quite peaceful and attractive. The main strength of the game is the fighting system: each of the swords offers different moves and attacks.

Though it's advertised as a multipath adventure, this is not a free-roaming game--once you're locked into a path, you basically follow it to its conclusion (though you can do so in a few different ways). The hitch is that the conclusion is usually only 2.5 hours into the game, meaning that to derive value from Way of the Samurai you'll have to play it a dozen times or more. But the gameplay and unlockable features just aren't interesting enough to warrant playing it a dozen times, a fact that'll be clear after you exchange the same bit of dialogue with the same characters for the umpteenth time.

Aside from the limited length and repetitive gameplay, the big downer of Way of the Samurai is the poorly conceived save system. Not only do you have to find an elusive save point before saving, but once you choose to continue playing the game, it automatically erases your last save, meaning you can't start again from the same point and must start from the beginning if you die. So, what, exactly, is the point of saving again? --Rivers Janssen