The original cover featured a diving-suited giant, the Big Daddy, one of the toughest opponents to face. So too does two, only this time the cover character is you. Subject Delta, an alpha series big Daddy. Overuse of the Greek alphabet aside, you are one of the first successful models and were assigned to protect a Little Sister. A genetically-modified little girl who sings about angels while harvesting genetic materiel from corpses. Waking up after years of inactivity, you begin hunting for your lost Little Sister.

There are several new features from the original. Subject Delta’s enormous strength and size enable him to wield the rivet gun, drill-arm and many other heavy weapons that in the previous game you were on the receiving end of. Each one has a very different feel, and unlike many other shooters, each continues to be useful right until the end. The biggest improvement however is the research camera, which has been upgraded from a snapshot to a film reel, and gained unlimited ‘ammo’. Rather than trying to line up a shot of an enemy for maximum points, you simply start the film running and try to get in as many different attacks as you can before it dies.

You also have access to new plasmids, genetic tonics granting the ability to throw fire and lightning, or more unusual things like bees or mind-control tomatoes. All the originals are present, with a handful of new ones and a much better upgrade system. Previously, an upgraded power would deal more damage but now an upgrade lets you charge the power for new effects. Upgrade the Incinerate! Power, and your fires become explosions or flamethrowers, lightning bolts chain between targets, frozen enemies shatter into deadly shards and many more deadly effects await. Another nice touch is that each upgrade requires the previous level, so you don’t feel punished for upgrading early.

We also see some new enemies, along with the original cast of splicers. Special attention should be drawn to the Big Sisters, a new model of protector for the Little Sisters, they actively hunt you and other than a few scripted sections could show up almost any time. A shriek in the distance warns you when one is after you, giving you a short time to prepare before the fight starts. As she leaps around you, firing the same plasmid-powered attacks you have access to, you feel much more like a Big Daddy lumbering in it’s diving suit than at any other time.

The diving suit itself is a point of interest. Trailers promised us the ability to leave the underwater city of Rapture and explore outside, the sea-bed. This does indeed happen, but it is something of a disappointment. Delta puts away his guns and fistful of lightning, the diving helmet becomes more pronounced, restricting your vision, and water rises in an airlock. Then the door opens, and you step out into the ocean. You wander through a threatless valley of coral to another airlock, and reverse the process. Sometimes a small cliff prevents you from turning back, and later on you can loot drowned opponents or sunken crates for supplies, but the sections feel pointless.

Exploring the indoor areas feels much the same. Any game with a story to tell has a linear plot, but Bioshock 2 doesn’t even try to hide it. You take a train from one location to the next, solving the problem preventing you from driving further. Railroad plot has never been more literal, and for all that Delta’s allies call him a freed slave, you never seem to have an agenda of our own. You feel less in control than in the previous game, which is something of an irony. To say more would spoil it though.

Overall, this is a great sequel. It has it’s flaws, but they are minor in comparison. The combat is challenging, the story captivating and the atmosphere just as perfect as before.

• 2Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 Processor
• 320GB Hard Disk Drive
• 3GB DDR2 Memory
• 512MB nVidia GeForce 9300m GS
• 15.4” WXGA (2800×800 pixels) LED screen
• 2x Blu-Ray player
• 802.11n, Bluetooth, HDMI, VGA, eSATA, Line in, Line out, Firewire 400, card reader, 3xUSB, webcam, biometric finger print scanner, air ioniser

Two things really stick out from this roundup, and they have to be the 2x Blu-Ray Player and the Air Ioniser; so let’s look at what these bring to the machine.

Blu-Ray has been around for a couple of years now, and anyone who has a PS3 has been able to play them since they took them out of the box, but until recently Blu-Ray drives in laptops were a commodity only a few could afford (often adding over £300 to the retail price). The N50 sits in the new class of mid spec machines that bring you High Definition entertainment on the move. But there is one big problem with the blu-ray on this machine: the screen is only capable of 720p, not the full fledged 1080p that we have come to expect from new HD televisions. Although this is slightly overcome by the presence of an HDMI port, is does mean you can’t enjoy the full benefits of high definition on the move.

The next is the Air Ioniser, and even I am confused as to its presence on the machine. This is a slight oddity in the computer world, fitting something designed to improve the air quality around the machine. I can only assume that it is designed to improve your work area, but we will wait to see how it stands up to a lecture hall on a hot day. Ah, there is one very special thing I forgot about: this machine uses facial recognition.

Yep, you heard me right, this machine can use facial recognition to log you in to your account. It uses the camera in the top bezel of the screen, and we do have to say that we have had mixed results. Whilst we have had it work, we have more often had it ignore our faces and need us to type in a password or swipe our finger.

But enough of the specs and features of the N50, what I think we all want to know is how it performs in the real world.

If I am to be frank with you, the N50 took what seemed to be an age to boot. At times I thought that it would be a good opportunity to make a cup of tea, whilst waiting for it to boot. It could be that the sample we received was clogged up by lots of other people using it, or it could just be it takes half a lifetime to boot.

Once booted the machine is quite nippy, loading applications with respectable speed. Making the use of it as a primary machine more bearable. However, this quickness was hindered at times by the touch sensitive controls, which would sometimes require 3 or 4 presses to get to work (a pain when trying to mute the music when the phone rings).

Gaming performance with the machine is what I would expect from the spec, it could run mid-specced games (such as Dawn of War 2, Supreme Commander, etc) quite well at medium graphics quality. Although this rules the machine out as a true gaming rig, this is not where it is aimed. More being thrust at the mainstream user, and people who work on the go.

This meaning to its existence can be seen in the battery life stats, with the N50 being able to last just over 3 hours on battery power. For a machine like this, this is brilliant, as it makes it useable on a long train journey, during a lecture, or even in a car. Mix this with the blu-ray drive and you have a good candidate for a machine that will keep you entertained when travelling, or away from the mains.

Unfortunately, we were unable to benchmark the machine, as we spent far too much time trying out the facial recognition if we are honest. So these figures are not here for this machine, but we are quite willing to tell you that they can be seen over here at Register Hardware.

In conclusion, the N50 represents the main stream branch of ASUS’s notebook computers. IT brings you the sort of spec and speed you expect for this price, with the added bonus of a Blu-ray drive and Air ioniser (if it is a bonus). Although this is hindered at times by long boot times, and unresponsive touch controls. It leads to a good all round machine that will be perfect for those who need to work on the go.

All in all, bitcolumns give the Asus N50 a score of 3/5.

Well. The N10 “netbook” from Asus.

If history has taught us anything over the thousands of years besides you should never accept a giant wooden horse for a gift or remake a horror film more than once, it’s that making something completely pointless is still pointless even if the said thing is good. Things like the ‘charge while you play’ adapters for the wireless xbox 360 controllers, yes lets take a wireless device and give it a wire to make use of… well yes you get my point. Stupid.

The point I’m getting at is the whole “netbook” idea in general. I see no real need for them; they are a needlessly small version of a normal laptop which runs Vista more slowly than the average laptop anyway (or PC since Vista is a POS!). I awoke to the delivering of the N10 one morning with the hope of being able to try some games on it. While this was possible, it was somewhat undesirable. I played through the first couple of levels of Condemned criminal origins on medium settings and the laptop chugged along reasonably well, but fell flat on its face when the screen had more than 1 character on it; which sadly meant 90% of the game. At this point I got bored and passed the N10 to my loving girlfriend who proceeded to play through Indigo Prophecy on it in ONE SITTING. Anyone who says girls don’t game, you are wrong.

On to the main features of the netbook, the overall look is nice. It has a stylish, neat and tidy exterior and some sexy looking blue lights which contrast the black interior keyboard + screen very nicely. Brownie points here Asus, your designer knows what he’s doing. As for features, there’s a TON of software included with the N10. Mostly though, it’s stuff that the average person would never ever use such as fingerprint recognition (seriously). All of which just seem to make Vista run even slower than normal. (more than 3 minutes to startup and be on the desktop without the egg timer icon.) The processor inside is somewhat underpowered for everything that is going on. Windows Vista sucks the life from the poor old 1.60GHz cpu like a gigahertz vampire.

There really isn’t much to say about the N10. It’s a small, underpowered netbook with a heck of a lot of pointless software included, that would have benefitted a lot more from running XP. The half-decent graphics card included is a good idea, but falls short because the rest of the specs are low-end. And for the price of around £500 you may aswel save a few more 0’s and get a macbook or a proper gaming laptop.

1. Resident Evil 5

Multiplatform: Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
Release Date: March 13th 2009

The much anticipated sequel to the highly acclaimed Resident Evil 4 is edging ever closer to release. Expectations are incredibly high and the fans will be hard to please, but with the addition of online and offline co-op play to shake up the experience even more, it’s hard to think this game will be anything short of fantastic. On top of that, thanks to the incredible power in the two consoles, the visuals for the game so far look absolutely stunning. A demo was released recently on the Xbox Live Marketplace and received a great reception, so even if you’ve never played the previous games in the series, this may be worth picking up on release day if you’re itching for a new survial horror game to add to your collection.

2. God Of War III

Exclusive to PlayStation 3
Release Date: TBA 2009

By the end of this article I’m going to be using the phrase “much anticipated sequel” all too much, but it just so happens that some of the best games, that we currently know are being released, are sequels. God Of War landed on the PlayStation 2 back in 2005 and was critically acclaimed to be the King of the hack’n'slash genre. With more than enough bloody and brutal combat to suit your needs, over-the-top boss battles and an overly aggressive and angry main character, the setting was indeed set. 4 years, a fantastic sequel and a well received prequel later, and here we are, in awe of the new God Of War III trailer. If the improvements that God Of War II made to the original game are seen again in the third iteration of the series, then it’ll be safe to say that this could be the greatest hack’n'slash game of all time.

3. Street Fighter IV

Multiplatform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC
Release Date: February 20th 2009

Street Fighter to many people can still be seen as the leader in the genre of fighting games. The original game was first released way, way back in August 1987. Over the course of the next 21 years many sequels and versions of the series would be made, most of which were received well. Street Fighter IV is soon to be upon us on the home consoles having previously been released in Japanese and American arcades in July and August respectively. This new entry in the series is also the first to be featured on next-generation consoles, and will also feature 3D graphics, which is unheard of in Street Fighter. Luckily though the gameplay will still be completely 2D, and the 3D graphics are purely to give the characters and environments a look like never before. With the ongoing success of the Street Fighter franchise for so long, it’s hard to ignore this title, and the fact that it’s the next main instalment in the series is the reason why it’s so sought after.

4. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Exclusive to PlayStation 3
Release Date: Winter 2009

One of my personal favourite games of 2007 was Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, an action-adventure game with a cover system like Gears Of War and the adventure elements of Tomb Raider. It was a great mixture of gameplay, and it wasn’t just me that enjoyed it. The majority of reviews for the game were very good, and with a high quality game on the console that really needed it, it was only natural that a sequel was expected. No surprise there then when Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was announced in December 2008. While many people were thrilled to hear about a sequel, just as many were so surprised to see another game in the series on the horizon so soon. From what we’ve seen already stunning visuals in the original are being topped, and with brand new animations, environments, smarter AI and new gameplay mechanics no top of all that, the sequel to the already fantastic game is looking to be quite a game.

5. Halo 3: ODST

Exclusive to Xbox 360
Release Date: Autumn 2009

Any Halo game is going to create a lot of interest and hype, so while the upcoming Real Time Strategy game ‘Halo Wars’ may not be what a lot of Halo fans are looking for, Halo 3: ODST should keep the core Halo fanbase happy. Being looked at as an expansion as opposed to a full blown sequel, ODST follows the journey of one particular trooper during the events of Halo 2. You’re not Master Chief this time though, and that’s where the name “ODST” comes in. It stands for “Orbital Drop Shock Trooper”, and you’ll as an unnamed one known as the “Rookie”, who has been separated from his four teammates. The game takes place at the same time as some of the events of Halo 2, and as it’s only an expansion, it’s expected to last up to 6 hours in the campaign. The game will also come packed with some Halo 3 maps, but you don’t need Halo 3 to play those maps, so you must be able to play multiplayer on ODST? It’s a bit of a grey area at the moment, but it’s a new Halo game, so there will be an abundance of hype closer to release.

My Personal Picks

1. New Ratchet & Clank

Exclusive to PlayStation 3
Release Date: Autumn 2009

These “personal picks” are just a handful of games that I personally can’t wait to get my hands on, and what better way to start that with quite possibly my favourite series of games ever? Ratchet & Clank debuted on the PlayStation 2 back in 2002, and I’ve loved the series ever since. The humour, charm, art design and the gameplay itself make me come back for more in every instalment, and I’ve yet to be disappointed. The first entry into the Ratchet & Clank series on PlayStation 3 was named Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, and it was exactly what I wanted in the game. The classic humour, stunning graphics and classic R&C gameplay that makes the game what it is. This was followed up 10 months later with Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty, which was essentially an expansion that follows a small amount of the adventure following the end of Tools of Destruction. On completion and following the credits, a teaser graphics is shown stating “The Quest Continues Fall 2009″. Whether this is going to be a full blown sequel or another expansion is yet to be seen, but either way I’ll be playing it on release day. Hopefully it’ll be a full sequel, but as I say, I can only hope.

2. InFamous

Exclusive to PlayStation 3
Release Date: Spring 2009

InFamous seems to be a mixture of different games, but not in a bad way. Take the huge explorable city of the Xbox 360 game Crackdown, add in the parkour-style climbing and navigation of Assassin’s Creed, and throw in some Force Lightning from Star Wars, and InFamous is basically what you’re left with. That’s no bad thing though, because sandbox games are some of my favourites. One of the cool things about Crackdown was that you could run around this huge city as a genetically enhanced agent, and leap from rooftop to rooftop and shoot down criminals as you go. I personally think it’s going to quite interesting to have that freedom given to you with such a big environment, but a different style of navigation and gameplay could shake things up a bit. There isn’t actually a massive of information about the game around and, considering the game is scheduled to be released in the next few months, I’m not really sure whether that’s a good or bad thing. We’ll have to wait and see, but hopefully it isn’t delayed, and even moreso I hope it’s as good as it seems.

3. The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf

Multiplatform: Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
Release Date: Autumn 2009

The Witcher was originally released in late October 2007. The game was met with fairly decent reviews but it was praised for trying some new things. The over-shoulder gameplay, inventive combat system and interesting gameplay mechanics as well as somewhat impressive visuals made for an impressive single player RPG for PC. During the next 11 months an Enchanced Edition of the game had been in the works, and in late September 2008, the Enhanced Edition of the game was released. It was essentially a Collector’s Edition of the game, featuring a ‘making of’ DVD, a 29 song soundtrack CD, extra quests and a game map. All of this is available in a box-set, or for players who had already bought the original, all of this content was made available as free downloads on the official website. In December 2008 a console version was officially announced, but Rise of the White Wolf is more than just a port. The graphics engine is being completely updated to fit the next generation consoles, and the combat system is being completely remade, again to fit with the consoles. I already found the game throughly enjoyable on PC, so a huge update and port to my preferred system is a no-brainer purchase for me. Hopefully the “improvements” to the graphics engine and gameplay mechanics will actually be improvements, but we’ll have to wait and see.

So that’s 2009 folks – part of it anyway. I know there are some titles here that some of you may feel should have been included instead, but this wasn’t intended to be a list of every hyped game coming out in 2009. Hopefully all of the games we’re looking forward to will be as good as we want them to be, and let’s all hope 2009 is as good as the past two years have been for gaming.

We will start this review very differently from normal, by talking about the sheet size and weight of this machine. Having owned a 17 inch laptop I had been prepared to expect a slightly bigger machine, but nothing could prepare for what i saw upon opening the X780’s box. This machine has the same sort of footprint as a standard 17 inch machines, but it is incredibly tall. You are talking almost 2 inches here, and for a laptop that is a lot. I can assure you, ‘behemoth’ and ‘powerhouse’ are definitely apt ways of describing it (especially with the unit’s weight of ~4kg). It is a very good-looking machine. With a brushed metal lid, and what looks like carbon fibre bordering the keyboard, it looks smart.

It is obvious that all of this space is for the components, and the cooling they need, that make this laptop a state of the art quad core gaming machine, with some quite impressive specs.

• Intel Q9000 2.0Ghz Quad Core Processor
• NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS 512Mb DDR3
• 2GB DDR3 1066Mhz RAM
• 250GB 7200rpm SATA HDD
• 8x Dual Layer +/- DVD-RW
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• 17” 1920x1200px Glass Screen

You can see the power just bulging out of the machine.

‘rock are selling this machine as a ‘budget’ quad core gaming machine, but we are yet to see the ‘budget’ side of a £1699.00 price tag. Of course with spec like this we have to put the X780 through some benchmarks to test this power.
3DMark Vantage:  3768 Points
SuperPi Calculate 1million (19 iterations): 31.485 seconds

We also were able to play some games on this machine, such as Crysis and Red Alert 3. We have to say that Red Alert 3 was a dream to play, with no lagging or slowing. But we could ‘only’ play Crysis on medium, above this and it became unplayable. Even though, playing Crysis on Medium is no mean feat for a laptop.
At the time of writing rock are giving each buyer of an eXtreme series laptop a copy of ‘Assassins Creed’, something we did not receive with the review sample,; as well as a 30 day trial of the MMORPG Eve Online. These games will run very well on this machine, and should be a good baseline for seeing what it can do.

To go with this spec, we have a wide array of Inputs and Outputs:

• 4 x USB 2.0 + 1 x E-SATA
• 7-in-1 Card Reader
• 34mm Express Card Slot
• 1 x mini IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port
• HDMI Output
• DVI Output
• Headphone, Microphone, S/PDIF Output Jack
• 10/100/1000 Lan, 56k Modem, 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi

This plethora of ports will ensure you will be able to use pretty much any device with this machine without worrying. Moreover, for those of you who prefer your current monitor, there is a DVI to VGA adaptor in the box.
But with all this power and good, has to come some bad. And unfortunately there is quite a bit of it on the eXtreme 780. First is the weight. The sheer mass of this machine makes it very uncomfortable to use it on your lap for any period. Whilst recording this week’s bitcast, Andy was unable to keep the laptop on his lap for very long. This is not helped by the amount of heat generated by the powerful components in this machine.

Whilst looking very nice, the X780 does unfortunately dissappoint in some areas.

Second is the touchpad, which at times was almost unusable. It took a good few scrolls of the pad to get the cursor from one side of the screen to the other, and even then, it often did not respond to some strokes or scroll actions. When this is mixed with the painfully long, at times, boot time; it became almost painful to have to turn the machine on and launch a program.
So, we come to the matter of the price: £1,699 :O. This is a very expensive machine, with most similar machines either being Macs or a slightly better spec. Although there is no doubt that the components themselves make up the bulk of this price; once they have been combined they leave you with a product that does not seem to us to be truly worth the price. Unfortunately, it could just be that the unit we have received has faults (as I have seen before on many laptops); which have hindered our enjoyment of the product.

In conclusion I cannot give the X780 more than 3.5/5 due to some rather intrusive problems with the final product.

Fallout 3 has been released alongside Fable II, Gears of War 2, and Farcry 2, That’s a far from easy line up to compete with. And with Christmas looming ever closer how will you choose what to buy? Does saying that Fallout 3 is an absolutely massive open plan RPG that strongly resembles Oblivion but with lasers, rocket launchers, drugs and power armour entice you?

Fallout 3 is here! Having said that there’s a very good chance that the 3 at the end of this games title means nothing to you. If that is the case then prepare to be enlightened.

The graphics, and cars, have vastly improved since the last game.

The original Fallout games were PC only RPGs set in the post-apocalyptic wasteland that used to be America, their top selling points were the massive scope of the games and the ability to do almost anything you wanted. For example you could become a prize fighter, leader of the mob, an x-rated movie star or a slaver. This was all along side trying to complete the main storyline of saving your small tribe from disease and starvation. If that sounds good to you, and if you enjoy a bit of old school gaming then I would actually recommend Fallout 2. I got that game for my birthday when I was a kid and I still play it now and then!

There’s nothing like blasting the head off a feral mutant at close range with a sub machine gun, except for maybe blowing it into tiny pieces!

The Production of Fallout 3 was taken on by Bethesda who were the producers of Oblivion. The game starts with you as a baby in a sealed vault, which has been your people’s protection of the nuclear war. The game quickly speeds you through early life and along the way you determine what you will look like and what your initial stats and skills will be. When you finally leave the vault at age 19 to find your father you are left alone and unprepared in the wasteland. Ultimately you can lead you character to glory, by saving prisoners from super mutants and by purifying the worlds water supply. Or you can become a super villain, by blowing up entire towns and murdering innocent people and eating their corpses (nice!).

Fallout 3 uses the Oblivion engine and within Fallout 3 is a heart of dungeons, loot and death. At times when your in a cave fighting a giant wolf-bear hybrid with a Chinese sword, you could actually be playing Oblivion.

Shoot it first, ask what it was doing on the train LATER!!!

Graphically Fallout 3 is very impressive, as you would probably expect from the producers of Oblivion…
For example there’s nothing like blasting the head off a feral mutant at close range with a sub machine gun. Except for maybe blowing it into tiny pieces by sneaking up and putting an active mine or grenade down its trousers. Cresting a hill often reveals some fantastic eye candy, and due to the size of the world there are plenty of hills to crest.

Speaking of the scale the game is massive; coming in at about 70% of the size of Oblivion this game is big. It takes about 20 hours to complete the main story line, but anyone who can play it without being sucked into the fabulous side plots is very single minded. Unlike Mass Effect the side line missions and stories don’t feel like they were written by a 10 year old child. Some of the side missions include, a scientist who wants his renegade android recovered, slavers who will pay a lot of money for anyone you manage to drag to their hidden city and saving (or not) a small town built on a highway overpass from a strange nocturnal gang.

However you choose to play this game combat will always be a big part, from battling creatures and robots in the wasteland, to obliterating a giant mutant ambush with a “mini nuke”. Keeping this in mind there are two ways that you can do combat. Firstly, as an FPS. In terms of an FPS Fallout 3 will never match up to Call of Duty 4 or another such dedicated shooter but it does the job adequately, keeping the combat fun by often ending with the separation of the last limb hit from the body of your enemy.

Do you wanna play the odds?

However the main talking point in the combat of Fallout 3 is VATS. VATS or the Vault-tec Assisted Targeting System is Bethesdas concession to the old turn based Fallout games where you could pick a part of your opponent to target. VATS allows you to pause the game and spend action point on shots or hits aimed at a specific part of your opponent. Attacking different parts of different enemies will result in a different outcome. For example attacking the feelers of a giant fire ant will send it crazy killing friend and foe alike, whereas attacking the head of most creatures will often result in the most damage. VATS also gives you a percentage likely hood of a direct hit to that part of the body and gives you damage estimation so that you can plan your attacks carefully. Depending on your character, your weapon and what drugs you may have taken before combat you can get up to about targeted shots or hits in one go. However if you are in combat for a extended period you may use VATS again because action point recharge slowly over time.

I would also like to praise Bethesda on the perks that they have included in this game. Perks are a special trait that you gain for your character every time you level up. Some of the perks are both inventive and funny and can become an important part of your characters game. For example the ability to eat corpses to heal yourself, the Sandman kill (I’ll let you find out for yourself), the Animal friend and the Ninja training are all fantastic perks that improve the game that little bit more.

After playing a lot on this game and comparing it with many others I would recommend it if you are a shooter fan or an RPG fan but ideally both. The game holds a lot of surprises and is a long source of entertainment. I do have one or two negatives to add though. You can’t kill children! Which might not seem much but is really really annoying trust me and secondly the game doesn’t or rather won’t make it to classic status. It’s a very good game but in my opinion people won’t still be talking about it in a few years. It just lacks the spark that makes it different from all the other games, and whilst I would recommend it, if you’re not an avid RPG/shooter fan I wouldn’t put it at the top of your Christmas list.

Score: 4.5/5

2G network
2.4″TFT Display (240x320px)
350mb Built in Memory
MicroSD card slot
Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/i)
Bluetooth
SMS, MMS, Email, IM
Games

But with some nice extras:

Linux Operating System
5MP Kodak Camera (autofocus, xenon flash, 15fps video)
TV Out
Direct upload to Kodak Gallery, over Wi-Fi

First impressions of the phone were great, with a sleek and stylish design with a great mix of black and purple. The camera has a very useful shutter, protecting the lense and used to activate the camera software.

The menu is well laid out, in the traditional Grid found on most Motorola phones. The icons are high quality, and much better than those seen on the recent Razr phones, with all features easy to find and use.

The most time was spent, as expected, with the camera. The pictures we took (which can be seen at the bottom of this page) were very clear, and with good colour depth. The camera uses an autofocus feature to get the best possible picture with point and click. Afterwards, you can apply Kodak processing to improve the picture, with the choice of either saving or cancelling depending on which you prefer.

Unfortunately, we were unable to get the full feel for the phone, but from what we have seen so far it is definitely a competent device.

Model: Motorola Motozine ZN5
Carrier: O2
Typical Price: £250

Good Points: Retains the charm, innovativeness and challenge of its DS predecessor – Fantastic and gripping plot – Plenty of new operations to try your hand at.

Bad Points: Some levels are hard enough to make you tear your hair out – One level has you breaking a mechanical lock with surgical equipment.

Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 is the sequel of the surgical sim which hit the stores in April 2006. In a nutshell, Trauma Center puts you in the role of Dr. Derek Stiles – a genius surgeon who leads the fight against the outbreak of bioterrorism. In this second instalment you must once again face the deadly man-made disease GUILT and solve the mystery of who is behind it all. This game, whilst simplifying the complicated art of surgery to a near absurd level is probably one of the most addictive and well made games for the DS, and uses the handheld console to the maximum of its capabilities.

The story this time begins in the African Republic of Costigar, where a war is being waged and Dr. Stiles and his faithful assistant Nurse Angie Thompson are volunteer medical staff helping to treat casualties of war. Soon you meet a new and (later) significant character, Dr. Adel Tulba who is a rookie surgeon sent help Dr. Stiles and Nurse Thompson. After various war-related surgeries, the main plot kicks in and we see the return of GUILT, and thus the stage is set for a thrilling battle which will no doubt keep you hooked throughout.

For those unfamiliar with the gameplay of Trauma Center, it is basically a medical themed puzzle game where you must use a variety of tools to combat different afflictions. It is not “gory” or graphic in any way and at times (especially when fighting GUILT) you almost forget it is a virtual human body you are operating on. The primary objective, quite obviously, is to keep your patient alive and this is done by keeping the “vitals” which is a numerical representation of the patient’s condition, above 0. There is also a time limit on every level (normally 5 minutes) in which you must complete the surgery. Let your patients vitals hit 0 or run out of time and you will get the most depressing game over screen ever (trust me, you WILL see this at some point and you WILL cry). One of the main features of Trauma Center’s surgeries is the “Healing Touch” the divine gift that Dr. Stiles possesses which allows him to slow down time and perform surgeries at incredible speeds. In Trauma Center this is done by selecting the Healing Touch from the game’s interface and drawing a star on screen, and while this does not make the time limit go down any slower, the patient’s vitals will decrease slower and whatever is causing the patient harm will be slowed in its attack.

For fans of the previous game (and perhaps the Wii counterparts) you will pleased to hear that while new features have been added, the surgeries play out in much the same way as before. Before each surgery you get a briefing of the patient’s condition and an objective and then you must get to work. A lot of the same tools return as well as a few new ones such as the defibrillator (the electric shock thingies they shove on your chest) which is used to resuscitate patients who go into cardiac arrest. But you can still inject stabiliser to raise your patient’s vitals, stitch up wounds with a small scribble and burn off nasty tumours with a laser. There is also a fair amount of new types of surgery to perform, such as putting broken bones back together as well as various new strains of GUILT to deal with. The token “fluff level” returns (if you recall the bomb disposal of Trauma Center 1) and this time you must disable a mechanical lock using your surgical skills and tools – as ridiculous and needlessly hard as ever.

Trauma Center 2 is still devilishly difficult at times but unlike the original you can change the difficulty of each surgery, and there is an “easy” option this time (however I never resorted to this and neither should you). The X missions also make a return once you have finished the main plot, in which you replay all the forms of GUILT at “extreme” difficulty – not for the faint of heart.

The game’s design is very similar to the original – reasonably realistic 3D organs in the operation screen and 2D anime backgrounds and characters in dialogue screens (of which there are a lot). The plot is one of the major parts of Trauma Center and these screens are well animated and even include the occasional bit of voice acting for emphasis. The characters have been slightly toned down from the somewhat wacky style of the first game, but you will recognise all your old friends easily.

Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 takes what made its predecessor so addictive and fun and expands on it, resulting in a much better game. The difficulty has been calmed down (somewhat) making it far more accessible to the casual gamer, but it still has the difficulty options for it to pose a serious challenge to more hardened gamers. The plot is more exciting and deeper than the previous game and will keep you thoroughly entertained for the good 12-15 hours it should take you to finish – and for those of you flying through the first few levels thinking you’ll be done in an hour or two, trust me you’ll find one operation that will have you tearing chunks out your hair soon enough. Overall Trauma Center 2 is one of the best uses of the touch screen you will ever see, and unless you instantly hate it you will get completely addicted to this game and enjoy every second of it. For the time being there is no European release date, so if you can’t wait to see if it ever hits our shores then you can import it, but if not you might have a long wait to play this fantastic game.

Score: 4.5/5

For the first 40 minutes, Wall·E plays like poetry in motion. The film drifts along with a Kubrick-esque intelligence; it reminded me of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Director Stanton’s garbage strewn netherworld invites comparison with the dusty lower levels of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and the seedy Manhattan underworld of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York. Apart from the mixed robotic wails from our adorable Earth-Class Waste Allocation Lift Loader, the opening is largely silent. Likewise the narrative confronts its apocalyptic premise in a melancholic manner, the film has the linearity of a Keaton or Chaplin picture.

It is testament to Pixar’s genius that what would be wrongly pigeonholed as a ‘kids’ film, could press issues such as environmental decay, loneliness and the dark side of materialism. Pixar and Stanton have enough faith in their multi-aged audience to keep an intellectual edge. They delegate intuitively, adding slices of humour that break the mould of pessimism around the early stages of the film. And while the film may not be as breathlessly entertaining as Toy Story or The Incredibles for example, the sheer cuteness of our Hello, Dolly! fanbot keeps Pixar’s faithful legion of young viewers smiling.

The attention to detail applied by Pixar’s esteemed sound crew (figure headed by designer Ben Burtt) serves as a natural accompaniment to the trashy gulches of the environment. The naked winds and dry rustling of garbage emanate a feeling of nothingness, of lost hope. Wall·E delivers himself from the harsh realities that come with sacking and packing the Earth’s waste through a slew of quirky habits that include collecting miscellaneous items salvaged from the wasteland and befriending a likewise alone cockroach. We are privy to his downtrodden, domesticated existence. It is a case of beautifully executed simplicity.

Wall·E, however, takes its biggest, if only stumble during the second act. The film is at its weakest when amongst humans. The film’s vacuum-like locale houses hundreds of de-westernised humans, encased in a world of equality and peace yet shielded from the basic necessities of human existence. The humanity in the picture comes from more robotic avenues. Wall·E and EVE provide the neurotic romance and the ships computer, in true HAL 9000 fashion, adds the inevitable touch of tyranny. The displacement of humane responsibility promotes a fear over the dominance of technology; a motif explored by Kubrick in the previously mentioned 2001.

One scene in Wall·E that particularly sticks out is the rocketing space pas de deux between Wall·E and EVE. Their intergalactic dance emits a lyrical hedonism that shows how the purest forms of pleasure can become the highest goods known to man (or machine for that matter). Perhaps Pixar’s finest achievement is restoring our youth and hence our belief in a transparently defined bliss.  Mr Kane may not have dropped that snow globe with Pixar around.

With there being several different versions of this laptop, the features vary, but this particular model includes these:
Windows Vista Home Basic operating system
3.2 hours of battery life (Bapco MobileMark 2007 battery)
8-in-1 media card reader
Intel X3100 Integrated Graphics card
4 USB 2.0 ports
DVD RW drive
Built-In 802.11b/g wireless

Speaking as someone who has been using Window’s XP up until now, the laptop’s operating system does take some getting used to. As a whole it’s a very competent system and even the Basic package comes with everything you’ll need for student life – including the full Microsoft Works, giving you the word processor for those 10,000 word dissertations and spreadsheets for keeping that budget up-to-date! Furthermore, Vista’s ‘Welcome Centre’ is an invaluable help in so far as getting started on your new laptop – walking you through the easy transfer of files from an old computer and getting you connected to the net quickly and efficiently. You can even customise the side-bar to host a whole range of gadgets specific to your own needs. However Vista does have its downsides. It isn’t always the most user-friendly system. One odd quirk I’ve found is that the process of saving documents has been changed considerably since XP and, in my opinion, overcomplicated. On the other hand this is just one of a few small quirks which don’t really affect the laptop’s performance, but just take a little getting used to. On other problem which has been reported with Vista (although I’m yet to experience this problem for myself) is that the operating system takes such considerable effort for laptops to run, that it can severely impact the computer’s performance in terms of speed and the use of multiple applications.

In so far as the graphics go on the Inspiron 1525, opinions are mixed. The 15.4 inch screen and X3100 Integrated graphics card combine to really do justice to those stunning holiday photos and make for excellent viewing if you’re watching films on the laptop. So from what I’ve personally seen the graphics on this computer are excellent. However, I’m no gamer – and reviews of the X3100 graphics card itself in relation to gaming potential aren’t so enthusiastic. It seems that this card isn’t up to the challenge when it comes to games with seriously in-depth graphics and can produce a very slow frame rate. It seems that this graphics card has more to show for itself when used in conjunction with XP than with Vista – so if you’re a gamer, it might be worth looking into something with a different graphics card or operating system.

As for the sound, its nothing extra special, but its not bad either. The speaker is one long strip located above the keyboard / below the screen and its output can be controlled by the touchpad beneath it. The touchpad allows the user to change the volume and mute as well as controlling the media player, with options to change track (or scenes, if you’re watching a movie), play/pause and stop. At first this can be odd to get a feel for, as you can find yourself constantly reaching for the turning dial on the side of the laptop to change the volume, only to find it isn’t there – however, it doesn’t take long before you can enjoy the novelty of your shiny new touchpad! As for the sound itself, it is of a very good quality. Although, like most laptops, not very loud, it does have very good clarity and I’m more than happy to listen to music and watch films without having to plug in external speakers. Furthermore, the laptop does also have a built-in microphone – the quality of sound produced by which I was happily surprised by!

Other features of the Inspiron 1525 include a very reasonable battery life. At 3.2 hours it outstrips many other laptops within its price range, most of which seem only to last for up to 2-2.5 hours. As with most computers it is also possible to change the power settings so as to consume less energy and make that battery life stretch even further. The 8-in-1 media card reader is an excellent little space-saver, conveniently located at the bottom of the laptop’s front and supports several of those commonly used media cards such as SD camera cards. Plus it comes with a card-shaped piece of plastic that slots into place when the reader is not in-use to help keep out the dust and such. The laptop also comes with 4 USB ports (which I find particularly useful and convenient!) and a DVD re-write drive, as is standard for the majority of products on the market today.  The drive is not capable of supporting HD, but considering the youth of HD technology, most (sensible) people won’t consider that to be a serious flaw in a £339 laptop!

All-in-all I’m very happy with the Dell Inspiron 1525. It does have a few small drawbacks, for example certain usability issues, but these just take some getting used to, and some graphics issues – but those are only really drawbacks depending on what you’ll be using your laptop for. It is also worth noting that you can buy this laptop with Window’s Vista Home Premium, and with a higher-power processor and a greater capacity memory through Dell’s own website, although this is perhaps not for most of us ‘financially challenged’ students as it does, of course, mean paying more. I, however, am more than happy with the lower spec version: its still a fantastic little laptop with a good memory and processor, decent sound and graphics, a great battery life and a sleek, stylish look. Gamers; this laptop probably isn’t for you if you’re hung up on mind-blowing graphics – but for anyone else the Dell Inspiron 1525 is not only an excellent laptop, but also great value for money!

Score: 4/5