Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition bundles the original Fallout 3 with all five downloadable content add-ons for the game. When you consider that these cost 360 owners 800 Microsoft points a pop (or £6.80 for those of us who still use real money) the deal starts to seem much tastier. Currently priced at £29.99 on Amazon, the ‘saving’ is already staggering before the inevitable price drop. When all five DLC add-ons would usually come to the total of £34, it’s already paid for itself without factoring in the price of the game disc.

Fallout 3’s main story is seen through the eyes of ‘The Lone Wanderer’; a blank slate of a protagonist whose young life has been spent in an underground ‘Vault’, hidden away from the harsh realities of the post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland above ground. Naturally, you end up leaving the Vault to face several game-altering decisions such as whether or not to detonate an active atomic bomb in the middle of a small town for a pile of cash.

Fallout 3 is a massive, open-ended and immersive gaming experience that developers Bethesda know how to do better than anyone else. Anyone who played 2006’s Oblivion will know exactly what I mean. The amount of freedom you get in both these games has actually been known to alienate some players used to a more linear experience. This could be partially down to the fact you can pretty much steal everything and kill everyone, apart from some of the game’s more major characters, who are instead rendered ‘unconscious’. It’s a game that often requires more thought than current titles, being a role-playing game with first person shooter elements and not the reverse.

The additional content brought by each of the downloadable add-ons is also worthwhile, each adding around 6 hours of additional play time to the game. They all follow their own separate story arc that takes place away from the main area of the Wasteland.

Operation: Anchorage, for example, takes place within a military simulation, where you help release Alaska’s largest city from its Chinese invaders. Broken Steel, on the other hand, deals directly with the events following the main storyline, as well as raising the level cap from 20 to 30.

This is not the Fallout 3 you will know either, oh no, that would have been too simple. You don’t get to fight puny post-apocalyptic Super Mutants, if only. You will be fighting the Red Army, or as you will find out, China’s finest. This word ‘finest,’ I feel needs to be explained in more detail because I’m not just talking about men with guns or Sam Fisher-a-likes. No, when I say ‘finest,’ I’m talking about the kinds of soldiers you don’t even see coming, you just cease to exist and when you think you’ve got one there’s a bigger, uglier one to replace him.

The best bit about this content though is that if (IF) you finish it, you’re left with lots of expensive toys that can be unleashed on the Wasteland. Fun, destructive toys . This titan sized package comes in at 800 Microsoft points, or to us mortals a tenner, but believe me when I say it, this is worth every penny. This content changes Fallout from a ‘Are you ready to die Raider?’ to a ‘Today is a good day to die, bring on the Red Army,’ kind of game.”

So I jumped in, chose to have the hints and tips on and started to play.  Within seconds I was so peed off that I nearly deleted the game that I spent my hard-earned money on.

I tried looking at the help in the game but while it told me what the different icons did, it didn’t tell me to drag and drop new defensive items – so all I got were guns dumped in the bottom of the sea, miles away from the attackers – Game Over!

The idea behind Coastal Defense is that you must protect your island base by placing defensive items in the waters to destroy enemy vessels before they can get close enough to fire a shot off.  Your protection varies in power and intensity, and also cost.  You start with $200 and gain cash whenever you sink an enemy boat – so the more you sink, the better defences you can get.

However the quantity and quality of the enemy ships also gathers pace.  It becomes a race to get the right defences in the right places, and an addictive race at that.

When you finally see that “You Lost” screen – or “You won” but I haven’t seen that yet! – there is smooth Facebook integration to let people know how you have fared against people around the world.

All in all a good, addictive game worth looking at if you can get past the learning curve frustration.

I’d been looking forward to this for a while now – I’d enjoyed the 2008 version of Madden on the Wii, found it to be a fun game, with good detail and just enough of a balance between playing and the replays and stats that us boys seem to like. So I hoped that Madden NFL 09 would be an improvement on this. Not on the Wii it’s not!

EA have decided that the Wii version of Madden needed making cuter – and that’s why the Mii’s have become involved as player screens use them, and so does any indication of Madden with a Mii version of him.  Any spare Mii’s get involved as well as the referee.  And there’s more.

Add into the mix that if you score a touchdown or complete a particularly impressive play such as an interception, then you can help the particular players rating by “celebrating” with the Wiimote.  Swing your arms around in the air as much as possible and get the ratings boost.

These sort of changes/additions to the game do mar what is basically a similar version of the 2008 Madden, with a few other changes such as a neater play access system, and a fun “5 on 5″ muck-about play option.

Online access is new to this version and is one of the saving graces as it strips away a certain amount of the more childish elements.  Barely any lag, and a number of different play options such as “Casual” or “Competitive”, the online version helps this version step up a level and gives it a longer life-span.

If you have Madden NFL 08 on the Wii already then I wouldn’t bother to upgrade unless you have really been looking forward to the online option.  In fact just get it for that, as of the time of writing, the online area is pretty sparse of players….

NBA Live 08 comes with all of the play options that you would expect, you can jump straight in with the Play Now option, choosing from any of the current NBA teams, international teams and fantasy line-ups such as “Best of the 1980s” and “Adidas”.

You can also start a Play mode such as a Season, an All-Star Weekend, just the Playoffs or what is called the Superstar Challenge where you take control of various players at differing stages of games with the challenge of scoring a certain number of points, etc.

Playing against other people should of course be the best challenge, and NBA Live 08 not only gives you the chance to get you and up to three of your mates on the court at the same time, but of course it also comes with Online play.

The control system has two options, you can play with the Wii remote only where the players movement is handled by the Wii, and you just control shooting or trying to swipe for the ball. You can also attach the Nunchuk and use that to control your players movement, which gives a much better feeling of immersion in the game.

The game feels nicely put together, though it is slightly let down by the occasional slow reaction to wii remote moves.