A sporting chance

Don't want to watch the Olympic Games on television? Why not train up and enter the finals yourself? You won't even need to get off the couch! Eidos has produced the obligatory Olympic tie-in for the world's greatest sports festival.

If you want a quick fix, get into Arcade Mode and you're straight into the action. You get to take part in any one of 12 events. If you feel a bit more energetic, you can try the Olympic Mode where you begin as an aspiring athlete and you must train and qualify through three levels of competition before you earn the right to compete in the Olympics.

This game is great. It has lots of variety in how you compete in the events, mixing fast button tapping and skilfully-timed pressing of required buttons. With the Virtual Training and the diversity of events, it gives a nice learning curve and is not frustratingly difficult. You can win Olympic Gold at the 100-metre sprint within an hour, but trying to master some of the more difficult events, such as kayaking and skeet shooting, should take you some time.

I wouldn't be immediately drawn to this game by looking at the events it contains - 100-metre sprint, 110-metre hurdles, javelin, hammer, triple jump, high jump, skeet shooting, 100-metre freestyle swimming, 10-metre platform dive, super heavyweight weight lifting, Olympic sprint cycling and Kayak Ki slalom. They do, however, give a good mix of playing styles, and plenty of fast-paced action. It would have been nice to see the 4x100-metre relay in there, though.

There are some really great extras in the game, too, such as selecting your nationality ready for when you are on the winning podium and get to hear your national anthem. The virtual gym in the training mode looks great, too, but I particularly like the ghost runner who duplicates your best time and runs against you in the coaching mode. You can even save your Olympic trainee on a memory card and compete against other people, each at the level you have trained to. However, when you play a novice you can see a real difference in the handicaps, so you need to be fairly evenly trained.

A real treat for serious sport buffs. Start the health food diet and add this one to your collection, it will even last longer than 19 days!

Graphics 4/5

Sound 5/5

Gameplay 4/5

Gamespan 4/5

Overall 4/5

SEAN HARTE

Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, published by Activision for PC

SPECS: Pentium 233, 64MB RAM, 3d graphics card, 650MB hard disk space, 4xCD-ROM, age recommended 11+

ELITE Force is so, so near to being one of the finest games ever.

The game is a first-person shooter in the Quake mould, but set in the Star Trek universe aboard the USS Voyager, lost in the distant Delta Quadrant. Using the glorious Quake III engine to provide some truly special graphics, and putting it together with a neat storyline that sees you facing up to Klingons, Borg, Malon and other enemies, surely it's a winner... right?

Up to a point, it is. The problem is that the point it impresses up until is the all-too-premature finish of the game. Within eight hours or so of starting up, you're more than likely to be watching the final cut-sequence and thinking "Is that it?".

Sure, there's multiplayer options as well , but the game shouldn't be relying on those as a sop to throw to unhappy gamers.

Apart from that, this is spot on, with fabulously realised environments, excellent voice acting from the real Voyager cast and graphics that sometimes border on the jaw-dropping especially when you're looking at characters you recognise from the show.

If only there was more substance to the actual lifespan of the game, I'd have no hesitation in recommending it as an essential purchase. As it is, it could prove an expensive addition to a bookshelf that will soon be doing nothing more than gather dust.

Graphics 5/5

Sound 5/5

Gameplay 4/5

Gamespan 1/5

Overall 3/5

STEPHEN HUNT

Deus Ex, published by Eidos for PC

SPECS: Pentium 300, 64MB RAM, 3d graphics card, 4xCD-ROM, 150MB hard disk space, age recommended 15+

IF there's one thing Deus Ex doesn't lack, it's ambition.

At first glance, you might think it's another first-person shooter, not a million miles removed from Voyager, but Deus Ex has ideas above its station.

You take on the role of JC Denton, an agent for a shadowy government organisation that is taking on terrorist organisation NSF. The terrorists may seem to be the good guys at first, challenging a society which is happy to let a deadly virus ravage the planet and ration the treatment to only the richest and most powerful. As an agent for the group that not only allows this to happen, but positively encourages it, you may have more than a few questions about your role.

Deus Ex also radically differs from the shooter style of game in that it positively discourages you from charging in with all guns blazing. Sure, you can go and do that, but you're not likely to get anywhere. You'll make a lot of noise and draw a lot of heavily-armed attention your way.

Instead, your best approach is usually to sneak as much as possible, and make use of tranquilliser darts or electric prods to knock out your opponents. You can fail several of the missions for killing too many of the enemy, so you can see the great difference between this and the usual combat-hungry games.

Deus Ex is most dramatically different, however, in that it genuinely harbours a strong role-playing element. You can interact with scores of characters in the game, although your options are often limited. However, the outcome of the game depends on the choices that you make, and there are several endings to be uncovered.

But. There always is one, and with Deus Ex, it is the incredible difficulty of the game. Getting through the levels is sometimes very frustrating because it's unlikely you'll get through many of them at the first attempt. The question is, can you get through the level before you become bored of trying?

A steadier learning curve would have been much appreciated, particularly offering an easier start to draw you more into the game before you find yourself slogging away.

Other than that, Deus Ex is a splendid game, particularly because of the developing storyline that is painted in shades of grey rather than the usual black and white, right and wrong approach most commonly encountered.

Produced by Ion Storm, Deus Ex is also a hit at last for a studio that has previously only produced appalling misfires such as Daikatana and Dominion. If the studio's learning curve keeps going up at this rate, then we should be in for a treat or two in times to come.

Graphics 4/5

Sound 4/5

Gameplay 4/5

Gamespan 5/5

Overall 4/5

STEPHEN HUNT