If you're a regular Gamesweasel downloader you'll know by now I'm sick of World War II games. The last Call of Duty was a breath of fresh air and now it's back to the 1940s with World at War. This is where it all began for Call of Duty when it took on Medal of Honor and won. So, does it offer anything new this time around? Well, yes and no.

The last game had a great single player experience and addictive multiplayer that gamers are still playing today in their thousands. So, the formula and gameplay's not really changed, just the setting, which will really please World War II nuts.

The Call of Duty World at War single player campaign concentrates on America's battle with Japan and Russia's push back into Nazi Germany. When playing, you switch back and forth between them to keep the variety up. Of course, the game's full of fantastic set-pieces as you advance towards your enemy and there's the weapons you'd expect to be holding, including a new flame thrower which is fun to use as you burn out troops from their bunkers. Keifer Sutherland also provides his best Jack Bauer shouty voice as he leads the American troops to victory, and they've upped the music with modern-day heavy metal when it all goes off with a bang.

You can now play the single player campaign in co-op mode. This worked fantastically with Gears of War and it works well here too. You can now provide covering fire whilst up to three buddies try to flank the enemy and get off a quick head shot. And, similar to Left 4 Dead which I'll be reviewing next week, you have to revive each other when you take a mortal hit.

Play the game on Hardened mode and you'll have a hard time, particularly as the game seems to respawn enemies at you until you advance. If you're used to waiting behind cover for your team mates to fell the enemies you'll be waiting a long time.

Multiplayer is as addictive as always. If you played Modern Warfare you can jump straight in. You gain perks as you earn points and this time, instead of calling in a helicopter after 7 kills, you send in a pack of dogs to maul your enemies and there's no escaping indoors, they'll follow you upstairs too! Once again there are plenty of game modes to suit every taste whether you want to work as a team or just run and gun as a lone soldier.

This latest Call of Duty is another complete package. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, so they haven't. Although it won't take you an age to finish the single player campaign, there's more than enough replay value with co-op and multiplayer. Despite some dodgy accents and some unnecessary F-bombs from Mr Sutherland, Call of Duty: World at War gets 9 out of 10.

One of the things that the people behind the remarkably successful Football Manager series have learned is that when they bring out the new season edition, people will buy it. But it's not just a case of people buying any old crap: it's a case of people buying it because they have a history of producing the best football management sims out there, and so people have come to expect a high quality game.

I do know somewhat of which I speak — I have been playing the game since its earliest incarnation as "Championship Manager" (although I would suggest that they weren't really producing the best quality football sims. So in that respect I've been playing the football sims these people have produced for 16 years.

Bloody hell. When I think of all the time I've spent doing that, I could have actually done something constructive with my life.

Of course, that's only if you assume that building a quality Newcastle team capable of winning trophy after trophy (even if it is only on my PC) is not something constructive. And for the rest of you afficionados, you might be content with my brief review: "yeah, it's good" — before rushing off to order football manager 10 for yourself.

If, however, you'd like to know what I thought of it first, then read on…

Well, all I can say, having played as Newcastle is that the realism is stunning. Not only will Ashley not allow the manager any money at all for transfers, he expects you to finish top of the Championship with a paper-thin squad. If that wasn't realistic enough, my Newcastle side started off the season with a 1-1 draw away to West Brom, followed by 3-0, 2-0 and 2-0 wins against Reading, Sheffield Wednesday and Crystal Palace.

As usual, they've tinkered with the screen layout slightly, and have the tooltip affair which may be helpful to any beginners, but anyone who has played the game before might as well just switch this off — you should find your way around without any problems.

The 3D match engine hasn't changed much (I still prefer the 'elevated' view) but one key thing has changed: rather than just being a pitch with advertising hoardings around, you now have a view of the stadium and the crowds. In this example, you can see Peter Lovenkrands crossing for Nile Ranger to score a diving header and get Newcastle off to a good start in the pre-season friendly against Falkirk.

Depending on the stadium, and the team, you'll see different actions (fans cheering a goal and so on) as well as stadiums which are virtually full to those which are half-empty. It's a nice touch.

Not so useful however is the "back room analysis". The idea behind it is quite useful: it compares your team against the team you are about to play, tells you where relative advantages and disavantages lie — in this example I have a height, strength, speed, aggression and determination advantage over the team I'm about to play. Less useful is what you can do with this advice: you are simply directed to visit your tactics screen whereas some suggestions by your assistant or coaches would be more useful "try to play a controlling game; we don't want these to hit us on the break" or similar.

Secondly, there's the goal analysis. This simply tells you which 15-minute segment of the game the opposition have scored and conceded the most goals in. Really, what is the point of this? Without any further information ("team tires easily, likely to concede goals at the end particularly against fresh, fast players") it's just bonkers statistics. It would be fine for the media to quote it, but why on earth would my assistant manager feel it necessary to bring this to my attention unless he had something useful to add?However, despite my quibble over this "backroom analysis" stuff, I do have to say that I very much like what they have done with the tactics screen. Instead of the previous thing, where you have arrows drawn forward and backward all over the shop to tell people to drop back (or run forward) depending on who has position, you know assign players to a particular role associated with the part of the pitch they are in.

For example, for a person playing right-hand side of midfield, you've got winger, right-midfielder or defensive winger: for your centre halves, you can decide who is a ball-playing central defender providing more deep-lying cover, and who is your stopper; there's roles such as 'ball winning midfielder', 'box to box midfielder' and so on, and the number of different roles available to your centre forwards really need to be seen to be believed…

Of course, getting all of this right will improve how effectively your team plays, and might even result in you scraping past Coventry on a wet wednesday evening at the Ricoh. I suspect that this is one of these things that will eat up even more of your time as you attempt to tweak your formations and methods of play until it is just so.

Developer EA Sports

Genre Sport

Score 8

So,one more fifa series game is in front of us.

Electronic Arts originally struggled to get off the ground properly on Wii, instead focusing its attention mainly on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. That resulted in many of its annual game releases, such as Need for Speed, NBA, Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf and the huge European hit that is FIFA Soccer, merely being port-downs from the higher powered consoles or the PlayStation 2 editions forced onto Nintendo's console, complete with some token motion gestures for 'good measure'. FIFA 09 saw EA change its approach, though, and definitely for the better. Does FIFA 10 continue this positive new direction and draw the FIFA franchise ever closer to Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer?

After EA going on record to confirm it had 'backed the wrong horse', ignoring the Wii and facing the consequences, the developer / publisher started making a conscious effort to ensure its Wii line-up was of a higher calibre, rather than a bog-standard port from another system. The results have so far been extremely positive, with EA Sports Active, Tiger Woods 2010, all showing what can be achieved when some extra care and attention is put into Wii releases. FIFA 10 follows the same lead and is actually built from the ground-up, rather than being another format's version with waggle-controls forced in. Gone is the flashy intro sequence and licensed soundtrack and in comes a much lighter ****of appearance, with players still easily recognisable (for the most part - this is FIFA after all; home of the most hideous of character models in the past?), but looking rather more cartoon-like than before, with pale shaded colours, rather like the approach taken for EA's recent tennis outing. The result does not mean that Rooney does not look like his real-life counter-part, but it is something that is bound to make some sectors, such as those more used to high definition visuals and super realistic players, turn their noses up at this Wii version. Yet there is definitely great appeal in the direction taken and the final result is that FIFA 10 looks far better than any of the other FIFA games on Wii so far.

The lack of licensed music is somewhat of a disappointment, though, as what replaces it is bland background tunes that are instantly forgettable. Thankfully the commentary is of a high standard, with Martin Tyler and Andy Gray giving constant play-by-play updates through each match and actually improvising for their recordings, as opposed to being fed lines from a script as in previous outings, thus leading to a much greater natural flow on the punditry side. Additionally, the roar from the crowd is as pleasing as ever, especially when everyone starts chanting, urging on your team. A dedicated team was employed to travel around the world and record crowd noises from various matches to make sure the on-pitch atmosphere is as authentic as possible. Obviously some chants had to be dropped due to their vulgar nature, but on the whole it goes to show the lengths taken to provide the player with the best possible experience. EA can nearly always be counted upon to deliver on the presentation side and in FIFA 10 for Wii that definitely does not change.

Last year's odd collection of Mii mini-games, with players such as Roonii and Ronaldiinho, has been dropped and in their place comes a nice little managerial effort called 'Battle for Glory', which is like a very watered down version of Football Manager. It has you playing through a standard season in the league of your choice, taking control of the set-up of your team, changing tactics, buying/selling players and giving motivation to your players before each match commences. It certainly will not satiate those who want Sports Interactive to make a Wii edition of Football Manager, but it does add a nice twist to the usual League mode featured in most football titles. This is likely to be the mode most people play through, although there is also the option to play in a tournament or simply jump straight into a quick match, either against the computer, up to three friends, or against people all over the world (one-on-one or two-on-two).

FIFA 10 comes with various control methods, including the ultra basic All-Play mode that has the game doing all the running for players, leaving them to just tap the pass and shoot buttons on the Wii remote. Then there is the standard ****c Controller set-up that helps the game feel more like its 'older' brothers. However, the most intriguing way of playing has to be using the Advanced set-up, with both the Wii remote and nunchuk combined. Here the nunchuk is used for several purposes - jogging using the analogue stick, dashing whilst holding the Z button, quickly controlling your speed when running too fast with a tap of the C button and directing passes, also using the analogue stick in tandem with the pass button on the Wii remote. Through balls and lobbed passes are done by tapping or holding A and B as appropriate to the amount of weight you want to put behind the kick, the directional pad lets players pull off one of four tricks and a swift shake of the Wii remote results in an overly elaborate shot occurring. There are various other control nuances, such as getting players to make runs ahead or join in with hustling attackers when defending, merely by tapping the minus button, plus the fact that chipped shots can be pulled off by holding C and shaking the Wii remote. It may sound awkward to those used to standard control settings, but once it falls into place, matches become fantastic arcade experiences with inch-perfect passing, fancy moves and stunning goals being the order of the day.

Free kicks, corners and goal-keeping from free kicks also take on a slightly different slant than before, with two basic options - pass and shoot for the dead ball situations and great timing required when attempting to prevent a goal being scored. The quality of shooting is determined by the timing of when the Wii remote is shaken, with too early a waggle resulting in a weaker effort and one done just before the ball is kicked leading to a rocket being fired. As for corners, whether you or the defender wins the ball comes from timely Wii remote shaking as well, and the same goes for goal-keeping from free kicks. A green light will appear on-screen and that is your cue to give a deft flick of the controller in an attempt to be quicker off the mark than your opponent and deliver that devastating blow.

There are also some interesting additions to add to the arcade feel of the game, such as Manager Moments, Game Boosters and a Momentum Meter. Before each match commences, you will be asked to choose a statement that shows your intentions for the game ahead ('Score more than four goals', 'Do not commit more than two fouls', 'Sustain a minimum possession rate of 60%', and so on). Out of the three options available each time, there are points attributed to them that are added to your team's confidence rating if successfully achieved. On top of this, meeting the set targets then allows the player to select two random Game Boosters; items that augment the strength of various aspects of the team. They come in common and uncommon formats, heightening aspects such as player speed, stamina and tackling prowess, plus certain combinations can form special ones like allowing players to pull of tricks they normally could not dream of doing.

Finally, there is the Momentum Meter, which builds up during play itself, filling gradually the longer you retain possession and build up pressure against an opponent. When this meter fills up, players perform better tricks, have stronger, more accurate shots, make the opposing goalkeeper parry each time and revitalise flagging stamina levels. EA has tried is hardest to gain the right balance between helping out those Wii owners that may not be quite as au fait at football games as others, whilst also maintaining a certain standard that will not push away the hardcore following too much. Given the reception from users and critics alike so far, it would appear the company has pulled off quite the coup, and Cubed3 certainly agrees that out of all the football games currently available on Wii, FIFA 10 takes the trophy home. Can Konami fight back with Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 later this month, though, using its excellent point-and-pass control method?

So,improvement is still needed.

Need For Speed Shift

Another addition to the series of racing game need for speed. This time EA has created a difference between it's previous versions and this new one. The graphics are very good.

Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed had the distinction of being the first racing game that I purchased for my PC. All in all, I've played all the subsequence NFS titles minus the one with Maggie Q, Undercover.

With all that experience in hand, I can safely say that Need for Speed: SHIFT on the other hand takes out all the unnecessary baggage accumulated from years of feature creep and "street" culture. The game has more in common with the original title, with a focus on realism (without being too overwhelming) and more importantly speed.

To get a sense of what Electronic Arts has done with SHIFT, you'll literally need to get into the cockpit of whatever car you've selected. Like the very first game, you are presented with a detailed dashboard but with the key difference of actually feeling like a driver.

Your head bobbles with every turn and bump, your vision turns blur with every hard hit, you even have to use the right analog stick to peer around the interior or look at the other side-rear mirror.

All this is fine and all, but what this cockpit view conveys best is the terrifying sense of speed, you can't help but feel a little tight in the gut or have jittery feet driving down a straight in the excess of 200 km/h an hour.

I've been spending some time with this game, having gone through the Tier 1 events into Tier 2, and having experienced that, I can safely say that the decision in exorcise the franchise's crazy past, is certainly an excellent move.

Since this is a racing game, I'll split the review into several parts with this being Part 1. In the mean time, take a look at what I'm driving: