For years the football manager series has dominated the sports management genre with its classy mix of on-pitch realism and detailed tactical features. The Championship Manager franchise has often been considered a  poor man’s football manager, but this year, that’s all changed thanks to CM2010’s array of fresh new ideas that have revitalized the series and made it a genuine alternative to it’s flashier rival.

The most striking addition to CM2010’s arsenal is its new 3D match engine. Players move with fluid, lifelike movements, while varied stadium sizes and a raft of excellent, expandable tactical and statistical tabs ensure that the match day experience is both visually  impressive and strategically flexible. The on-pitch action does lack the consistent realism of Football Manager 2009 , with the flow of play sometimes looking a little robotic, but there are still plenty of satisfying passages of play to enjoy.

A few strange incidents aside- such as players clearing the ball into touch for no reason or occasionally bouncing off each other like dodgems – action is slick and exciting (especially in highlights mode) with defensive midfielders harassing players, star strikes unleashing blistering shots and players jostling during set pieces.

Goalkeepers now rush off their lines in one-on-one situations and leap through crowds of players to claim crosses, though rather bizarrely they also appear to parry shots several inches  in front of their limbs.

Championship Manager 2010 is bursting with new features and  innovations. An excellent set-piece creator allows you to construct free-kick routines and watch them in real time, while the ability to monitor training sessions enables you to view your squad performing drills and mastering your tactics during practice matches.

Scouting has also been revamped. Finding star players no longer involves  simply trawling through a comprehensive player database, as you must know scout players several times before working out their abilities. The more times before working out their abilities. The more times you scout someone, the more accurately you can gauge their stats. You can also set up global scouting networks to track down new talent.

Dabbling in the transfer market requires more in-depth negotiations and haggling than in previous Championship  Manager games, but it’s forgiving enough to allow you to bolster your squad with a few key additions . Sadly there are virtually no press, fan, player or board –interaction features, and navigation is still a problem.

Championship Manager 2010 is an excellent choice for those looking for a more forgiving and accessible management experience , while its exciting new features ensures that it’s  winnable footie coach friendly.

Championship Manager 2010 (PC)

Wolfenstein is the latest resurrection of the series, with plenty of occult powers, energy weapons and a few survival horror elements thrown in. You as US military agent BJ Blackowiz, sent to investigate a secret Nazi weapons  which taps into power of a sinister alternative dimension through a barrier called the Veil . Soon, you learn to use Veil powers yourself to find secret doors, slow time, cast a shield and boost your attacks.

The game looks good, with atmospheric locations. It attempts to create the impression of an open world, but there’s only a little freedom as you move from one resistance group  to the next. Crossing Isenstadt is initially a little tedious, then it becomes a real drain on your ammo with endless vicious firefights.

As you explore each of the mission maps, you can uncover hidden areas, intelligence, gold and spooky tomes that boost your mystical abilities; only completists will bother to take the time archive 100 per cent scores for each mission’s hidden objects. Gold is required to buy weapon upgrades, but we got through the game easily by focusing on conventional weapons and a few mystic powers in preference  to the fancier plasma guns.

Wolfenstein doesn’t  feel like a modern game. The boss levels are very old-fashioned, with powerful foes who move in a fixed pattern until you shoot out pillars energy beams or magical items to destroy them.

While some missions are little more than straightforward Nazi blasting, others are more tense. The laughter of invisible assassins in an abandoned hospital will haunt us for months. It’s not deep, but sinister enemies and plenty gore make Wolfenstein a real blast.

Wolfenstein

Those with fancy video cards be proud!

Got your shiny DirectX 11-enabled Radeon HD 5800 series and you’re itching to stretch its legs? Well then, the newly released demo of Dirt 2 is your best option. While Dirt 2 was released for consoles a few months ago, the wait continues for this still-unreleased PC version. The delay to the PC version was for the sake of graphical enhancements, and if you have a DX11 card, you’ll be able to enjoy some of the new features.

Check out this video from Codemasters that runs through all the little enhancements afforded by this new generation of software and hardware:

#VIDEO_ 3921#

Grab the 1.3GB demo right here.

We’ll be including Dirt 2 as part of our regular testing suite once the full version releases, but if you want to know how the demo benches, check out tests from TweakTown and Bit-tech.

Pearl Jam emerged from the furtive Seattle Grunge rock sense in the early Nineties, although fans seemed to be divided between Eddie Vedder’s outfit and neighboring pioneers Nirvana. However the band’s debut album , for many deemed their opus, was given the reissue treatment in March with a superlative package with remastered tracks, and replicas of collectable rarities.

To coincide with the release  , they launched a promotional online campaign with agency Freedom +Partners  called ‘Ten Game’ that campaign that allows expectant buyers to hear track previews – only after completing a 2D puzzle. Users are asked to place coloured cubes featuring tiny square cutouts onto a special image board, all from a tricky isometric perspective. As you might expect it is fairly Flash-heavy affair  , but the use of Papervision to achieve the 3D effects throughout is quite wonderful. Perhaps most special are the exploded product views of the various album versions, which manage to incorporate short sequences of live performance  and packaging details . All can be fully rotated and offer a really dynamic insight into each edition – perfect for generating collector interest.

What’s more , in an age where physical music sales are slowly dwinding it’s nice to see a big fuss made of such a release and certainly a real investment  in pushing the product. The content and ideas that are on display here do such a great job og inspiring interest from music fans, regardless of any love for Pearl Jam’s music, that it deserves high praise indeed.

When news came that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 would come without dedicated servers for the PC version, gamers were upset and disappointed at the removal of one of the advantages of the PC platform.

Some PC gamers even decided to boycott the game. Of course, that didn’t seem to hurt sales too much as Modern Warfare 2 went on to become the fastest selling game in history. Clearly Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 gamers weren’t fazed by what was happening on the PC front.

Interestingly, and perhaps not too surprisingly, it appears as though some crafty PC gamers have been able to hack together a dedicated server for Modern Warfare 2, complete with mods such as superjumping and grenade spamming galore. So far all we have is a video of it in action, but we’ll let you know if we hear more.

A free turn-based tactical strategy game for high-fantasy fans! with a compelling single player campaign and support for online, local, and hot seat multiplayer, you, you will be battling for Wesnoth pretty much all the time. Website: http://www.wesnoth.org

It’s taken a while – nearly a decade, in fact – but Games Workshop’s tiny figures finally have an MMO home. And this, a more competitive take on World of Warcraft, is a fine start. It’s a deep, complicated and occasionally beautiful game that both World of Warcraft fans, and the Games Workshop faithful, will fall head over heels in love with.

It plays like any other RPG, to begin with. Angry men/dwarves/elves/orcs offer you quests to gain experience points and equipment. Keep leveling, keep upgrading your items, until you switch off and discover the mortgage hasn’t been paid. But you have some totally sweet armour.

The new ideas Warhammer offers will quickly be taken up by the other MMO games. The faction warfare, where competing sides scrap over their capital cities, provides a much-needed reason for players to continue once they hit the level cap. For the MMO crowd, and Warhammer fans, this is perfect – and they’ll happily pay the £9 subscription. Everyone else: wait for a free trial.

The main reason it was delayed is because they wanted to do some upgrades with Battle.net. Blizzard folks are trying to take their every seconds to fulfill their vision on online multiplayer as the important part of SCII experience and  future Blizzard release.

You can’t really blame them because the service has been around since 1997 and that is quiet a long time. Fortunately, this will not affect the release date of DIABLO III as scedule that is expected to be out next year.

Starcraft II official website