The first expansion to Half Life 2 doesn't provide much excitement.

For a company whose only other major release was the original Half Life, Valve has pushed the boundaries with fresh, bold gameplay that stays true to the legendary legacy.

Valve may have missed the point of episodic gaming, but this is one of the best value gaming packs ever released

Leadtek's 6600GT offering was a mixed bag this month. It didn't handle our DirectX 8 tests too well, but 3DMark05 saw a complete about face to see it sit in first.

If soundcards were supermodels the X-Fi would be the Claudia Schiffer of the model world. Or maybe Jennifer Garner, since our first hands-on look at this card can be succinctly summarised as 'kicks major booty'.

An exciting glimpse at future performance, but by the time games appear to make them worth buying, the price will have plummeted.

Look what four grand can buy you.

Using the same engine that has won Half-Life 2 more than a few friends, Bloodlines turns players into one of the 'eternally dammed' on the streets of LA. It comes with a terrific plot supported by excellent writing, and developer Troika has pitched Bloodlines squarely at an adult audience.

It isn't an add-on, a mod or a new way of playing the world's most popular online shooter. Counter-Strike: Source is the same game that's known, loved and often responsible for gamers sitting motionless for days on end. But it's now been ported to Valve's new 3D engine, the Source engine, giving us our first glimpse of the technology that will be powering Half-Life 2.

A fast, fun, cheap game to keep you going over the weekend.

A familiar plot – meddling with forces beyond our control – and some new weapons greet you as you once again enter the Mars UAC facility.

With the X800's and 6800's hogging limelight, a new battle has begun for affordable, mid-performance cards -- the 6600GT's versus the X700's -- and ASUS has stepped up to the plate with its Extreme AX700Pro.

Explore the burnt out shell of Chernobyl while shooting and savaging your way to the top.

A potentially stunning card -- but don't buy one just yet.

Where XFX rose early with the DirectX 8 tests and dropped off in the DirectX 9.0 tests, this card did the exact opposite - it jumped up five places to the middle of the pack in 3DMark05.

Like the MSI X800XT-VTD256E, Sapphire's offering represents bang on average performance. But, unlike MSI, this doesn't offer the feature set to offset the higher price.

NVIDIA has been criticised for its oversized graphics cards, but the shoe is on the other foot this time with HIS putting a truly massive cooler on its X800 XT card.

The GeCube is a good performer -- of the standard X800 XT's it produced the highest 3DMark05 score of 1024 x 768. Most current games require full DirectX 9.0 support to be played at their best, so a good 3DMark05 score means this willhandle the newest games -- at least until DirectX 10 appears.

At its very reasonable price, the Excalibur 9200 is ideal for anyone on a budget or in search of an upgrade.

The man behind Ultima tries to reinvent the online RPG and partially succeeds with this robust MMO.