CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

Platform: PC

From the prime time American television series CSI comes a unique game that allows you to enter the grisly world of murder investigation.

Alongside Gil Grissom, Catherine Willows and other characters from CSI, you get to play a fully-fledged crime scene investigator and set to work to solve increasingly bizarre and baffling murders.

At your disposal is an array of forensic equipment, including fingerprint dusters, UV lights, casting kits and much more.

With precision and skill, you piece together the shocking truth behind five hideous crimes, using forensic skills, puzzle-solving prowess and unflinching nerves.

If you play the game in too great a hurry, however, you risk overlooking vital clues. Fortunately, other crime scene investigators come to your assistance.

The game faithfully reproduces the atmosphere of CSI, complete with the music and locations from the popular television series.

Mission Impossible: Operation Surma

Platform: Xbox

Ethan Hunt is back in Mission Impossible: Operation Surma, a stealth-action adventure from Atari, filled with the latest weapons, high-tech gadgets and a wide variety of cunning disguises.

Simon Algo has taken over an eastern European country and built a conglomerate of high-tech companies used for researching and developing all kinds of modern weaponry, including the Ice Worm Virus Case. Using the Ice Worm, Algo has become extremely powerful. Apart from having infiltrated the IMF, he is posing a threat to global peace.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to save the free world from certain doom.

You play Ethan Hunt as he leads his IMF agents in a bid to gather information on Surma’s structure, defuse Algo’s plans, infiltrate and destroy his facilities, incapacitate Algo and his aides, while at the same time making sure that Algo’s dangerous technology does not fall into the wrong hands.

In the course of the game you:

• Encounter more than 11 characters.
• Utilize classic IMF-style gadgets including scanners, inner-ear communicators and high-tech IMF disguises.
• Control the gameplay with multiple paths towards completing each mission.
• Tackle missions in exotic locations such as Russia, Italy and the Middle East.

The Getaway

Platforms: PS2

An uncompromising action-thriller of a game, The Getaway is set in London’s seedy underworld. It features breakneck, ultra-realistic driving action through the heart of London, as well as hostage-taking, gangland executions and gunfights.

The Getaway revolves around three violent men, locked in a struggle for power, justice and revenge. Mark Hammond is an ex-gangster on the run, wrongly accused of murdering his wife and desperate to avoid capture so that he can clear his name. Frank Carter is a ruthless vigilante copper, currently suspended from the Flying Squad, but prepared to go to any lengths lawful or otherwise to get justice.

Both men, however, find themselves manipulated and controlled by a formidable adversary: Charlie Jolson, a notorious crime boss and master of London’s East End underground for over 30 years. Both Hammond and Carter are desperate, for different reasons, to bring down London’s king of crime.

Game features include:

• A cast of 22 main characters.
• Over an hour of compelling narrative, delivered in a photo-realistic, cinematic style, which fully involves gamers in the story.
• A photo-realistic London complete with genuine London weather.

Trainz Railroad Simulator 2004

Platform: PC

Here is the ultimate indulgence for railway buffs.

This latest version of a popular Queensland-developed game offers the player opportunities for interactive experiences with just about every aspect of the railways. You can be operations manager, route-builder, yardmaster, engineer or engine-driver. And the pace of the gameplay is entirely up to you.

The game includes more than 50 steam, diesel and electric locomotives from famous railways around the globe, as well as a variety of passenger carriages and freight wagons.

There is little chance of exhausting the choice as there are hundreds more loco and rolling-stock downloads available from the Trainz web site.

The locomotives themselves are a sheer delight to handle. There is now a wider field of view in the 3D driver’s cab, complete with a free-roaming camera. The controls for the various steam, diesel and electric locos are true to life, featuring interactive switches, levers and dials.

To add to the realism, carriages or rolling-stock get heavier when loaded.

New sound effects, such as synchronized steam engine sounds, track sounds and horn blasts, add to the authenticity of the game.

There are dozens of new scenery items, including Semaphore signals, trackside objects and stations.

There is a nice personal touch to the game. You can appoint drivers, name them, choose their photographs – or even add your own.

You can issue directions to your drivers. Or, should you wish, you can volunteer to drive the odd train yourself…