A game that drips with atmosphere and promises much, but fails to deliver the killer blow

While the gaming world is rich with WWII-based first-person shooters, oddly, there are no flight combat action games.

Adobe builds on its print strengths to take its rich design mission online. And it has made a success of it, too.

Here’s a new twist on extending the life and profitability of a game!

One of the mantras of business computing is reliability. It all ties into TCO (total cost of ownership) - if a mission critical PC suffers a hardware failure, the resulting downtime can cost you a lot more than the price of an entire new system. As such, we in the PC Authority Labs always place a high emphasis on a good on-site warranty, such as that provided by a few manufacturers this month, including Pluscorp with its INTEQ V26.

The setting may be mythical, but the simulation is real. Military grade real.

A new take on an old classic, with a first-person perspective and mixed results.

Take the world's best military forces into Iraq and handle the situation yourself.

Another 2D strategy game classic makes the jump to 3D.

Spybotics isn't the general-purpose robotics kit of Mindstorms, but it offers similar fun.

Simple classic fun with a healthy dose of nostalgia for good measure.

The Vivicam 6200W is terminator-tough and cheap enough to condemn disposable underwater cameras to the low-tech graveyard

You'd have more fun sticking a pickaxe up your nose.

ForFast action; neat RPG elements; huge galaxyAgainstRepetitive; linear; dull storyline and voice acting

In space, no-one can hear you scream "why can't they just make it like Elite?!"

Taking the concept of the Tablet PC to the budget end of the market is the AceCAD DigiMemo A501. It uses an electronic pen with an ordinary nib and a magnetic backing plate to replicate notes you write on ordinary paper.It will take an A5 pad which slots inside and can be up to 120 sheets thick.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault was a huge hit a few years ago, boasting a D-Day landing most of us will never forget. Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault takes the war to the Japanese; across Pearl Harbour, Guadalcanal and the Makin and Tarawa Atolls.

TimeGate Studios' original Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns caused a bit of a stir back in 2001 by defying a few of the realtime strategy genre's long established conventions.

Narrowly edged out of the winning position by the extremely capable Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 drive, this drive has plenty to crow about.

The Techmart SOHO is the only system in this roundup to be supplied with a copy of Windows XP Home rather than XP Professional. This highlights Intermedia's emphasis on the small office, home office environment with this system, where the additional networking features of XP Pro aren't necessary. Even so, it does mean you'll be restricted to using a peer-to-peer network, and you'll need an upgrade if you ever want to set up a client-server system. For the extra $90, it might be worth future-proofing and upgrading to Pro.