The best things in Half Life...

Even the recent Doom redux felt a bit, err, lifeless when you picked your jaw off the floor and looked beyond the astonishing special effects.

And now here comes the long awaited sequel to Half Life. Can it possibly live up to the reputation of the original?

For a while this year it seemed as though we may have to wait to find out. Valve, the genius programmers behind the game, fell out with publisher Vivendi Universal in a big way. Thankfully, the two companies have seen sense and now we have Half Life 2 in the shops just in time for Christmas. Happy ending anyone?

It certainly is a happy ending for Half Life 2. Fears that this game could turn out to be a dud can be set aside.

Sure it's a linear first person shoot 'em up just like scores of other games crammed on the shelves, but done with such chutzpah that it makes everything that's gone before it look just a little bit pants.

Just like the first game, it pitches you into the action and never lets up. Few games are so gripping that you have to try and finish them in one sitting but this is one of those titles.

Of course, you won't finish it in one go so you go to work/bed thinking about what's coming next and how the heck you'll get out of the next cliff hanger. And what cliff hangers - helicopter gun battles, terrifying mutants, strider killing machines that look like they just walked off the page of War Of The Worlds. You don't have time to pause. You barely have a moment to take a breath.

So it's good. Very, very good, in fact. If you like first person shooters and can afford just one game this Christmas then Half Life 2 is your title.

I rarely enjoy this genre any more (too many repetitive clones have left me with a jaundiced eye I'm afraid) but even I found myself blown away by Half-Life 2 just minutes after I plunged into the game.

Half Life 2 just goes to show that the best things in life are worth waiting for.

SEGA SUPERSTARS. Format: PS2. Price: £30. Publisher: Sega: SONY should be congratulated for pushing the envelope by experimenting with the ways we can play our games.

Possibly the most innovative gaming peripheral of the past couple of years is the Eye Toy - a low res camera that can literally put you into a game.

Sega once experimented with similar technology. I can remember a lot of overblown talk about using motion capture to replicate player movement with a Mega-Drive cartridge game (yeah, right).

So it was perhaps inevitable that Sega would bring out a game of its own that makes use of the PS2 Eye Toy.

Even better, Sega has mined its back catalogue of gaming icons to help bring Sega Superstars to a screen near you.

All the legends are present and correct: Sonic (naturally), Samba De Amigo, Nights, Super Monkey Ball, Night of the Dead and Virtua Fighter as well as some of the lesser known lights like Chu Chu Rocket and Puyo Pop.

It's a great game to play at a party because, to others, a player always looks so ridiculous while they are having a go. But the games themselves are so immersive and challenging that you don't mind one little bit. For instance, the Sonic game has you moving the blue spiky hedgehog around by waving your arms. Sounds simple but the speed at which the little fella moves makes it a real challenge of dexterity.

The Virtua Fighter game is a dream for fight fans. You stand side on to the camera which places your image into the game and faithfully records your kicks and punches. As with all Virtua Fighter games, winning is just as much about defence, as it is your offence, and you'll spend a fair bit of time blocking kicks, etc.

Provided no one is unfortunate enough to get in your way and feel the power of your flailing fists in real life, this is a great way to work out and have fun at the same time.

Who said gaming was a hobby only for the sedentary?

VIRUS WATCH

Anti-virus specialist Sophos has discovered a Trojan horse which preys on visitors to hardcore adult websites.

The Troj/Delf-IT Trojan horse lurks in the background on infected PCs, waiting for the user to visit webpages which contain adult phrases in their title. If the Trojan horse determines you are visiting a hardcore website it then downloads code which redirects the browser to another pornographic site.

"It's possible that the Delf Trojan horse is deliberately designed to drive traffic from other adult webpages to its own website," says Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "With so much money being made by Internet pornographers it may be that some are using Trojan horses to generate more traffic and revenue."

The Trojan horse contains over 50 trigger phrases which will cause it to spring into action. They include: amateur, barely legal, beauty, bikini, ladyboy and lesbian.

"Because some of the trigger phrases chosen by the Trojan can be used innocently, it's possible that surfers who wished to see nothing sordid will find themselves redirected to a hardcore pornography website," says Cluley. "People who have an interest in rambling may find themselves far from the beaten track."

Published: 26/11/2004