The co-operative team play makes for a very fun and engaging experience. You can't just run around and do your own thing in this game, you have to keep an eye on your team mates and work together in order to beat the levels.

Below are two game play videos that I recorded of the game-play. The 5mbit/sec versions will load fairly quickly for most users, but they don't depict the game's graphics very well. The 15mbit/sec versions depict the graphics quality much more accurately but require a fast (20mbit+) internet connection, or a lot of buffering time.

Be sure to click the full-screen button on the video player.

If you spent a lot of time a few years ago playing Counter Strike and Counter Strike Source, then you might enjoy this game too. It certainly isn't the best game ever (Team Fortress 2 is) but for $5 it has provided great fragging relief whilst calculating my taxes.

In the video we see that the traditional ore gathering method has been replaced with Ore nodes which harvesters simply dock with to gather ore and then return with it to the base. Many amphibious units and abilities have been added, including the Bullfrog amphibious troop transport and the ability to deploy the Soviet MCV either on land or in the water.

Red Alert 3 is due to be released later this year. Hopefully it will take advantage of multicore technology unlike Command and Conquer Tiberium Wars which would choke up during massive battles on a quad core machine with 4 gigs of ram and a 768mb gfx card.

Check out the video below or download the high resolution 400MB .mov version here (right click, save target as).

The machine specs: Dell Dimension 9200, Quad Core 2.4ghz, 4gig ram, RAID 0 HDD, GeForce 8800 GTX 768mb, and a Dell 24" wide monitor running at 1920 * 1200.

Update 30th May 2008: Added another TF2 video, this time with me playing as Pyro. Low and high quality versions below.

Blackwatch is a top secret special forces branch of the US military who were set-up specifically to deal with biological outbreaks, wiping out everything in their path for the greater good. The story begins with a viral outbreak in New York city and Blackwatch are brought in to clean up the mess.

Check out the video below.

The shift from FPS to RTS is not going to please everyone, but if you prefer games like Command and Conquer, Star Craft, etc to FPS games like Counter Strike then this looks promising. You will be able to command full armies, create buildings and vehicles, etc taking full control of the war.

The Halo Wars story takes place before the first Halo FPS game during UNSC’s initial deadly encounters with the Covenant.

Below is the cinematic trailer and an additional 10 minute video demonstrating the game play.

The single player mode is loaded with various scope enabled weapons, fully automatic rifles, etc. To access these in multiplayer you need to "level up" or gain "XP" points, which is achieved by gaining kills in the online game.

Once you've got a few kills under your belt the "sniper class" will be unlocked (press ESC in game to choose your class). After a few more kills, and resulting XP points, the "create class" will be unlocked which will allow you to create your own class with any of the weapons that you have unlocked. Gain more XP points to unlock more weapons.

The above video is game play footage from the Call of Duty 4 PC demo, which I downloaded today from GamersHell. I've not played any of the previous Call of Duty games so I can't compare it with any of the prequels. The only similar game that I have played is Ghost Recon 2 on the XBOX 360 and it has to be said that Call of Duty 4 blows Ghost Recon 2 out of the water.

You play as a single person, not having to worry about commanding your squad (which I found tedious in Ghost Recon). The squad and enemy AI is great, with no stupid enemies running right at you shooting 10ft above your head. Rather, they make full use of available cover and the large array of weapons.

The graphics were beautiful with realistic smoke, explosion, and gun fire effects. The game also loaded quickly, with no noticeable lag at any time.

Highly recommended, check it out for yourself, I'll be purchasing the full PC version (£10 cheaper than the XBOX 360 version) from the local shop tomorrow.

Test system specs:
Dell Dimension 9200, quad core 2.4ghz, 4gig ram, 768mb gfx, raid 0 hdd array
1900*1200 resolution on a 24" wide monitor