Now  that I’ve recovered from whatever I got down in London, I can finally look at the screen without getting the urge to proclaim that the light burns. Nor do I hack a hernia-inducing hurricane when I’m trying to sleep. Now you’ve got that thought in your head, let me say that it was good.

Nay, it was great.

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I’ve been a big fan of Prince of Persia since the beginning of the previous generation’s remake series (I’ve never completed a Prince of Persia game, but I am willing to live in blissful ignorance of that fact). Needless to say, I was excited at being able to try out the new game a few months before release, and also needless to say, it is a worthy successor to not only the previous series, but the originals to.

From that, I mean that the game holds features more common to the original Prince of Persia than the previous series, while still including the acrobatic thrill the last-gen games offered. In this, you might argue that it feels a bit like Assassin’s Creed (it does run on the same engine after all).

In the new Prince of Persia, the time-shifting TiVo system of old is replaced by a new gimmick. Her name is Elika. She is magic. That’s about it.

While you might expect Elika to be the star of the new game, she factors into the gameplay as little more than a weapon - being assigned to one of the buttons much the same as acrobatic attacks, or sword attacks are. This plays into combat interestingly as you jump around using deadly combinations to surprise and defeat your foes.

Talking of combat, in the new Prince of Persia you only fight one enemy at a time (an homage to the original? Or perhaps an example of the limitations of the Scimitar engine). This means that you need to think a lot more about every move you take, as you face death after one connecting strike to your vulnerable body and means that blocking is key to the game. Blocking is also key for the enemies, which is why the variety of attacks becomes so important to  surprise your enemy and get through his defence. It also makes for tactically engaging boss battles.

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It’d be a mistake to say that it was a good idea to cart upcoming 360 exclusive, RACE Pro along to Eurogamer for public viewing. Really, it would.

RACE Pro is developer SimBin’s (developer of many a GTR game) new project aimed at weaning Forza fans away from Microsoft’s own published effort get them feeding on Atari’s (sinister) bottle. I’s a game which looks promising, yes. It features pretty graphics and realistic in-car views for all vehicles featured (amounting to a decent 48 different types). Question is, will RACE Pro - without all of Forza’s bells and whistles of complex car customisation and realistic physics - be able to entice fans of racing simulators?

From what we saw at the Eurogamer Expo, it would be safe to say that - in its current state - the answer is a resounding “no”. The game itself appears to have great gameplay which has a brilliant physics system of its own, along with better-than-Forza visuals. The AI can be realistically irritating, as rival cars slither around you, and the locations boast more detail, as well as more interesting settings, than Forza. The comparisons to Forza don’t stop there though, as it even borrows the advice beam seen in Forza (which advises the player where best to drive on the track to maximise placement on the track and to prevent you from skidding into barriers, as well as at what speed you should be driving).

Now, for the bad points. RACE Pro is riddled with issues. I started the game from the main menu, where I chose my car and track in which I wanted to race. I next waited for a tedious 7 minutes for the track to load. 3, 2, 1, GO! Wait a minute… I attempted to go, but the excessive lag wouldn’t let me go without a fight. I raced for a further few minutes, trying out the controls and different camera angles before my patience snapped, then I stopped playing as my car ploughed into a wall. Ouch.

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What with all the good games around at the expo, we unfortunately didn’t have time to wait in line to play SVR 2009. We did, however, see some live gameplay for ourselves.

What can we say? It’s very much SVR 2008, but with a different UI. The HUD’s changed to a more gritty ink-splotch style design, and the character selection now boasts a larger quantity of wrestlers with ridiculous expressions on their faces as they strike pantomime-esque poses. Short sentence. Other differences, while meagre, include: an awesome sounding finisher-creator, “enhanced” tag team matches and finally the inferno match. Wrestling… with fire (apparently). None of the aforementioned new features were seen in our preview, but we can expect that they hardly warrant a new game.

Differences aside, what you have here is a minor update to a solid game. The feature list is almost identical to its predecessors (previous issues, such as dodgy collision detection and dated graphics remain) and the new features, as always, aren’t likely to be worth a new purchase if you own any of the previous games in the series.

Die-hard fans of the series should check it out, but it’s hard to recommend DLC quality additions at a forty pound price point, while the previous game in the series (SVR 2008) can now be picked up at a measly £24.99 new.

I think that this is pretty much the same as the multiplayer beta, except that everything was unlocked. All the perks, all the weapons, everything. And oh dear God, it is glorious. Imagine CoD4, more tactical, with WWII weapons, and vehicles. The same goddamn polish is applied so well, and it looked great and played even better. I got nineteen kills and three deaths on my first and only play of it. One was a fifteen kill streak in which I got the Recon Plane (Aka UAV), artillery (Aka Airstrike without the planes) and the dogs* (Aka RUN YOU F*CKERS) at the usual three, five and seven streaks.

I just heard that there will be a zombie game similar to the Horde mode in Gears 2, which sounds a blast. Keep your zombies in my video games; all the more reason to grab WaW on release day.

They sorted out the one problem with CoD4’s gameplay, and that was the over-spontaneity of the kills. In IW’s masterpiece, in some matches you didn’t even have to move to die. In this game, you get a chance because the matches themselves move slower, simply because the weapons are less ‘pop pop you’re dead’ due to the time period. Juggernaut is no longer Juggern00b, which is a relief to me, since those perks felt toned down, both Juggernaut and Stopping Power, anyway (I of course chose the latter). The guns still felt like they lacked the recoil, but it’s the beta build that we played rather than the Gold build which is being pressed as we speak.

This game no longer requires a fast connection, so much as it requires skill and tactics. And the game, without a doubt, is better for it. With Treyarch at the helm, I assumed it would be CoD3 all over again. How wrong I was.

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This was a game that I expected to do well. But when I saw the queues for it extending around the corner of the whole place, I was still surprised. We sat down, and played Annex for one match before being rotated out. Pity; I would’ve loved to play the Horde mode that’s been touted about. Not only that, but we weren’t able to take any pictures of the screen. The rep from Epic was pretty strict about it, but I’ll see if I can grab one on the sly.

The game was satisfying, with the Hammer of Dawn now having a limited capacity, and reduced movement compared to last time. You can do your meat shield thing, as well as move a little when you’re downed, in order to get out of fire and focus on hammering A to get up.

I didn’t die in the game, which is a first. I also won both of the Annexes, which is another first. It was either that, or get kicked out. Having said all that, it’s still Gears. Cover-hugging is still easy to do, and the weapons still have that satisfying kick. No chance to play the campaign mode though.

Gears 2: Worth a pre-order.

Dave was supposed to review this demo, but since he’s off to find some games that he hasn’t played or owned already, I get it. And I’m glad, because this is a damn good game.

First off, the game is accessible. All you need is one hand (I proved that on my second play), and a voice. All the voice commands work really well, even to the point where I can call upon all units of a specific type to move, attack, or engage. I can combine units’ orders to make things easier, and the HUD makes it so easy to maintain a good eye over the battlefield. Calling it an RTS game is a bit of a push, though. It’s more a tactical game, similar to that of Dawn of War, that you can only call so many units up (In EW’s case, 12), regardless of what type they are. But that’s good, because it means that the equivalent of Zerg rushes, or massing infantry to cause problems for the opponent simply through numbers, is impossible.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game, and I was impressed with it, both graphically and ergonomically. Needless to say, this is a game that I will be putting on my Pre-Order list.

When I saw that it was supposed to be a PSP game, and it involved a helicopter, I was dismayed. I thought that this would have made an awesome XBLA game, or even one for the Wii.  But, despite all that, the game looks pretty good.

The controls were the first thing that I was going to be worried about, yet they handled surprisingly well. The Analogue stick is used for movement, with the shoulder buttons being used for strafing. Triangle gives you a lock-on, and all the other buttons (circle, square and cross) give you a weapon to fire. There was no buttons for altitude, and I found myself having to leave the movement controls to swap targets. Your index finger is on the shoulder buttons, and that means that you can’t try to do all three at the same time.

The graphics were pretty solid, the image header being an enlarged screenshot from actual action. I was impressed, since 3D games can’t really be used in portable games without looking shoddy. There are always exceptions, but that’s the general rule. All in all, I wouldn’t say that this is a system title, but if you already have a PSP, keep an eye on it if you have a little trade-in credit left at your local store.

No sign of any people, nor games. Just this.

Almost sad, since it was one of the games I was really hyped up for.

Things are looking good for this game, so let’s get the positives out of the way.

• I haven’t seen a first person game in a long time where the killing of people isn’t the main objective. A game based around time-trials with the slight inclusion of guns, for the simple reason that you can pick up the gun of an enemy, is great.
• The graphics look sharp, even without the motion blur that is on the corners of the screens. As much as for some people it takes away from the experience, the feeling of motion is definitely there. It was slick, smooth, and altogether awesome. Thoroughly impressed.

So now onto the one thing that I just couldn’t get around with the demo; the controls.

As much as I can appreciate that the controls have had to be tailored (I was using the PS3 version, but simply because I was using Sony’s console is no reason for me to hate on the controls; chances are it would raise the same problems if I was playing the 360 version) for this game, there was no demonstration of the controls. I had to spend a few moments glancing through the options menu to find it. In a living room environment this would not be a problem, but in an area where you’ve got people behind you, and they’re getting just a tad aggravated because you keep dying, it’s a downer.

The combat also felt a bit messy, almost in a touch-and-go sort of way, but that is easily because I hadn’t played it before.

Overall, I was highly impressed. Cannot wait to see the finished product, and I already have my pre-order in.