If any of the forthcoming Ubisoft games has the potential to generate hype anywhere near as readily as Halo 3, it is Assassin’s Creed, the medieval action game from Jade Raymond, a producer with a wealth of experience, and her team at Ubisoft’s Montreal studio.

The title’s trailer, featuring plenty of in-game footage that competes with much of the pre-rendered clips seen in other games, is undoubtedly fantastic, but the media frenzy surrounding the game is a little questionable based on what has been shown so far.

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Free Radical, the eccentric British development studio that broke away from Rare to create the brilliant Timesplitters games, is back with a new FPS, and though it means another entry in one of the busiest of gaming genres, a new release from such an irresistibly off-key dev team has to be worth a look.

Set in 2048, Haze depicts a corporate and highly privatised world both Tony Blair and Maggie Thatcher would have been delighted to have conceived. One huge company, Mantel, not only produces almost everything from the clothes you wear to the satellites orbiting earth, but also owns and runs hospitals, schools, and most importantly, their own private army, that effectively replaces bodies like the UN.

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Heist is an easy game to be sceptical about. From the moment you see the first screens and character art from Codemasters’ new bank robbery romp it’s all too tempting to dismiss it as another Grand Theft Auto clone. And it’s not just that Heist concentrates its energies on providing a huge, free-roaming cityscape filled with criminals, back alleys and a heavily armed police force.

There’s also the posters and promotional art, presented in a style we’ve all seen before in too many Guy Ritchie films. There’s the characters that reek of cliché, the 60s themed soundtrack and the general feel of a violent game designed to get Daily Mail readers sharpening their pencils.

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Development maestro Peter Molyneux offered gamers one of the first chances to play the bad guy with the hilarious and thoroughly playable Dungeon Keeper, released on the PC in 1997. Since then the rise and rise of the crime game has let players experience the thrills of being bad in a different way, but Overlord’s take on playing it mean is certainly a novel one in the current gaming climate.

Overlord’s plot begins at the end of what could have made another soulless video game. After the defeat of the powerful evil-doer by seven do-gooding heroes, the curator of all things nasty and dark lays on the verge of death amongst the rubble of his once glorious tower.

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Every new WWII themed first-person-shooter desperately tries to construct some gameplay mechanic to make it stand out on shelves awash with Nazi-bashing titles. Most are admirable attempts, but few go as far as Turning Point, which uses a little out of the box thinking to great effect.

Rather than introducing new methods of stealth or intricate team-play systems, the team behind Turning Point have opted instead to invent a small but significant moment in history that affects plot, atmosphere, style, and hopefully gameplay.

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The basic premise of racing games is an easy one for the new generation of consoles to handle. Driving a relatively simple shape around a track has been within the capabilities of game machines for years, meaning there has been plenty of time for developers to dedicate to more surplus concerns, such as insanely accurate handling physics and near photorealistic vehicle renders.

Any new driving game in this market has always had to offer something pioneering and modestly revolutionary to stand out in the overcrowded genre. SEGA Rally did it in arcades in 1995 with groundbreaking graphics and immediate playability, and it has returned over 15 years later with the same aims. The classic driving game attracted queues in its heyday, and is still SEGA’s most successful arcade game to date.

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If you’re only a casual observer of online PC gaming, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Battlefield series is all war fans have to choose from. So big is EA’s franchise that every game which attempts something similar is instantly labelled as a copycat. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is such a game, but comes from Splash Damage, the studio behind the hugely popular (and free) Enemy Territory: Return to Castle Wolfenstein. With a strong pedigree and id Software as a partner, there’s every chance that Battlefield will finally have some stiff competition.

Storylines are largely irrelevant when it comes to online shooters, but in Quake Wars the maps you play on are part of an overall story, acting as a prequel to id’s Quake II. The game takes place on Earth in the year 2065 and charts the initial invasion of the Strogg. This alien race hasn’t landed on Earth to make friends, so Quake Wars pits the Global Defence Force (the humans) against the Strogg in a battle to the death.

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At a recent press event to promote The Shivering Isles expansion pack, Pro-G caught up with Pete Hines, Vice President of Public Relations and Marketing at Bethesda, for a chat about Oblivion, Sheogorath and what the future holds for the franchise.

Pro-G: How did you come up the title The Shivering Isles? It’s quite different from the others, isn’t it?

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Since its release on PC and Xbox 360 this time last year, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has racked up awards and perfect scores aplenty. Set in the realm of Tamriel at the end of the Third Era, gamers were instantly wowed by a vast landscape, amazing graphics and a gripping plot. After the main game there quickly came a succession of downloadable content which included the infamous Horse Armour and the critically acclaimed Knights of the Nine side quest. Now, a year later, Bethesda is unleashing its first expansion, The Shivering Isles.

To be released simultaneously on 360 and PC, The Shivering Isles focuses on another Daedric Prince, Sheogorath, the slightly-bonkers (and then some) Lord of Madness, who will be familiar to fans of Morrowind as He Of The Fake Apocalypse and Rain of Dogs.

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After untold hours exploring the realm of Daedric Prince and general nasty guy Mehrunes Dagon, it’s easy to forget that just because his plane of Oblivion is reminiscent of Hell that the realms of his brothers and sisters might be equally different. Such is the realm of the oddly likeable, yet still insane, Sheogorath. The Shivering Isles might evoke images of an icy tundra but it’s actually anything but. Half is almost pleasant, bathed in autumnal light, and the other is filled with mist and suitably creepy. Welcome to the first and last expansion for Bethesda’s award-winning RPG The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Although visually very different, The Shivering Isles feels very much like a part from the original Oblivion; a journal note pops up directing you to Niben Bay, south of the Imperial City and an aptly named ‘Strange Door’. A mysterious island has appeared slap bang in the middle of the lake and there is a strange portal at its centre. You don’t need to be a high level to enter or worry about a different control system as The Shivering Isles uses exactly the same game engine as Oblivion.

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TMNT, the game based on the recently released Ninja Turtles movie, falls strictly under the ‘made for under 10s’ heading. While some of us twenty-somethings have fond memories of the Turtles, the new movie wasn’t made for us and neither was the game. Judged alongside great action platformers like Prince of Persia, TMNT comes up short, but as a game made strictly for kids, it’s not a bad effort.

The game follows the four shelled ninjas as they battle through various locations, with the actual story being told as a recap, with each turtle taking a turn to tell his own story. It’s all rather confusing, especially considering Raphael has become some kind of disguised solo superhero and the turtles rarely seem to fight together - they’re never all together on screen at once.

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Few games hold as many fond memories as the Command & Conquer series but the PC RTS market has changed a lot in the last ten years. Gamers now have plenty of big franchises to choose from, including Company of Heroes, Warhammer 40,000 and Supreme Commander. Given this abundance of quality, why should anyone be too excited about EA’s latest C&C? Well, it’s damn good fun, that’s why.

What’s great about C&C3 is how it effortlessly appeals to hardcore RTS fans and newcomers to the genre/series. For the fans there’s the incredibly cheesy FMV that outlines the plot and Kane’s return, while newcomers can enjoy what has to be one of the most action packed RTS experiences going. With a full campaign from the Global Defence Initiative (GDI) and the Brotherhood of Nod to play through, each showing the battle for Tiberium from their own point of view, plus a brand new alien race to contend with, C&C3 offers in excess of 20 hours worth of RTS brilliance.

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In the summer of 2005 Brian Lara made a triumphant return to video games, with Codemasters’ game being addictive and highly enjoyable. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best option cricket fans had. Now we’ve moved into the next-gen era and the legendary series has arrived on the Xbox 360 (as well as PS2 and PC). Some spit and polish has certainly helped, but things are largely the same as they were - except England have become worse.

The big news this time around is the official licence for the Cricket World Cup, and this means that while playing in the official tournament mode you get all the correct player names and stats. Of course, this makes playing in any of the non-official game modes rather strange as your sporting heroes lose their proper names, only to be replaced with rather blatant but not license-breaking titles. Still, the World Cup is where the excitement is at the moment, so the official licence can’t be sniffed at.

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Test Drive Unlimited somehow managed to sneak up on me when it arrived on the Xbox 360. Now it’s arrived on the PC and is every bit as impressive as its 360 debut. Eden Games’ ambitious sounding racing game isn’t the easiest to understand. It’s not that the concept of racing is something new; it’s that this is more than a racing sim - it’s a racing, lifestyle sim. You won’t truly get a sense of what the game is all about until you start playing, arriving in Oahu with $200,000 in your back pocket, ready to spend on a swanky pad and new car. Of course, you’ll need something to potter about in before hand, so you hire a car from a rental place, giving you the chance to cruise around in some impressive rides right from the start.

Once you’re in Oahu that’s it; other than a New game/Load game option when you boot up, everything else is handled entirely as if you’re a real person living the high life on a tropical island (albeit a person that can’t walk). Everything is seamless, and the sim aspect really shines through in all areas of the game. You need to buy a house for somewhere to live, but also so you can store more cars, so the obvious thing is to drive to the real estate agent - and that’s what you do. If you want a new Ferrari in real life you wouldn’t buy from a menu, you’d head over to the show room and have a look for yourself, and the same is true in TDU - complete with the option to inspect each car and go for a test drive.

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Can an action game be released these days without using some kind of ‘cover’ system? Just as bullet-time appeared in every other action game for a while, it seems that your game is nothing these days without the ability to put your character’s back to a wall. Rainbow Six Vegas is the latest game to use such a system, but unlike GRAW for the PC which was more or less a version created specifically for the PC audience, Vegas sticks very much to its console roots, for better or worse.

I’ll get the boring stuff out of the way first. Ubisoft has once again attempted to build a story into the action, and some effort has gone into creating team-mates that you care about. As with previous games, it doesn’t really work as well as Ubisoft would have hoped, but you’ll easily follow the basic terrorist attack storyline, complete with kidnapping, bluffing, a load of casinos and plenty of news coverage. It’s typical Tom Clancy stuff, and the lack of great storytelling doesn’t really hurt the game as a whole.

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