Like its predecessor, Left 4 Dead 2 is a sort of hyper-violent personality test masquerading as a cooperative zombie survival shooter. If you want to know which of your mates you should trust with the water bottle after shipwrecking on a desert island, simply invite them over for a bout and let the game’s dynamic challenge factor weasel out hidden traits and flaws, profiling each player in sickly green strokes of undead gore.

Where other shooters are static, unreactive structures, brittle sandcastles awaiting the casually lobbed football of human intervention, the Left 4 Dead games give exactly as good as they get, altering the quantity, quality and positioning of enemies, weapon drops and obstacles in response to player behavior. Lone wolves will be pounced upon by terrifying cat-like Hunters, cowardly hangers-on showered in Horde-attracting vomit by repulsive Boomers, layabouts lassoed and dragged off by elusive Smokers. After half an hour’s play, you should have a lot of stories to tell and a couple fewer names on your Christmas card list.

Among the game's "Uncommon Infected" are clowns, who can summon the mob.

The Jack-Daniels-swigging sequel is a personality test in another sense, however. Its aim: to divide the gaming population up into those who are prepared to pay a full 30-40 quid for incremental advances on a formula, and those who aren’t. Calling it a glorified expansion pack is several steps too far, but if you’re one of those deeply misguided, patently untrustworthy and smelly individuals who somehow wasn’t blown away by the first game you should probably think twice.

Left 4 Dead 2 introduces us to four new Survivors – slack-jawed teen Ellis, hard-bitten gambler Nick, wannabe TV producer Rochelle and big poppa Coach – and five new campaigns, set in the humid fastness of a post-apocalyptic Deep South – a more colourful environment than the temperate Pennsylvanian suburbia of the first game, and no less abundant in memorable landmarks, from crashed passenger aircraft to mall-top concert arenas. Campaign formats are the same: the first four chapters challenge the Survivors to get from Safehouse to Safehouse with all limbs/organs intact, and the fifth culminates in an all-or-nothing battle against the ravening Infected while rescue takes its sweet goddamn time arriving.

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Much has been said about the price tag of Modern Warfare 2 in the build up to its release, and not much of it publishable. But if a videogame’s worth can be measured by how much of it stays with you after you’ve put the pad down, then even the most indignant will have few complaints if this hugely anticipated sequel ends up delivering as much as the original did two years ago.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the original Modern Warfare was the fact that most people didn’t put the pad down, devoting untold hours to mastering its thrilling online component long after they’d come down from its monumentally brilliant, if brief, single player campaign. Having mastered such a winning formula, the last thing you expect are radical changes, and so it proves.

Picking up from where the 2007 classic left off, you’re once again on the trail of a Russian Ultranationalist leader as he plots the destruction of the West. driven by a desire to cause maximum mayhem to the West. Having spun the death of his predecessor as an act of martyrdom, and successfully convinced his followers of the tyranny of the West, Vladamir Makarov proves to be an adversary with an impressively evil CV.

Four by two of reinforced plastic is a soldier's best friend.

Shock tactics quickly become a feature of Modern Warfare 2, so much so that the game specifically checks – twice – if you’d rather not be subjected to scenes of gratuitous violence. Evidently revelling in its new Adult Only status, Infinity Ward waste no time in repeatedly pushing the violenceometer needle into the red, depicting the kind of shocking scenes we’ve long been used to in gritty dramas, but rarely get exposed to in games in such uncompromising fashion. Expect an ugly media frenzy to develop as the wider world wrestles with the ramifications of What This All Means. [We started without you, actually - Ed]

What it means in the context of the series is simple: that terrorism is an ugly business, and Infinity Ward hasn’t tried to mask the reality, or trivialise what it looks like. Whether it crosses The Line is perhaps a topic to wrestle over at length another time, but it’s hard to divorce yourself from how brutal some of the scenes really are, even when, in truth, it’s still some way from reality. The fact that it’s often unclear who the bad guys actually are, and that it’s you that’s pulling the trigger is, of course, the difference.

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A quick disclaimer. Modern Warfare 2 is, in all probability, going to be one of the best-executed and most substantial shooters you play this year. I was very impressed by the game when I previewed it last month, and the fact that my name won’t be gracing our review when it goes live tonight is the cause of many a flung teacup at Kikizo Towers (the honour falls instead to FPS Gamer’s veteran duelist Kristan Reed, with whom I’m currently not on speaking terms).

Not every aspect of the game or its titanic marketing putsch is above question, however, and as the first pre-orders blast through letterboxes and all-night-queues sprout from the doors of HMV, we should take time to reflect on the controversies Activision and Infinity Ward have ignited in the run-up to release.

The furore over pricing needs no introduction, nor is it chief among my concerns. A £55 RRP (or $60 across the Atlantic) is pretty steep given the reported shortish campaign length (Kristan’s run-time is 7-8 hours), Activision’s refusal to supply dedicated servers and the absence of crucial new gameplay functionality (not to mention a host of minor compromises), but retailers haven’t turned a deaf ear to consumer complaints – you can now pick the game up for two-thirds to as little as half the RRP in most major UK supermarkets. Over on GamesIndustry.biz, Rob Fahey has commented with characteristic eloquence on the risk that Activision’s brash pricing strategies will find over-eager imitators, but in the near future at least there seems to be nothing to worry about.

Yours for just $150. Cheer up, it could be the PSPgo.

The infamous playable airport massacre sequence leaked online a few weeks ago deserves less forgiving attention. Right-wing tabloid rants concerning the effects of such (100% skippable) material on the hearts and minds of young people are as predictable as they are groundless, but why, we might ask, did Infinity Ward feel obliged to provoke such reaction at all? Considered (admittedly) out of context, the decision to let players slaughter civilians in callously unhurried style seems little more than a shock tactic, a morbid attempt to one-up the previous game’s hostage execution intro, rather than a sensitively judged trot into the realms of ultra-realism.

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Fallout 3 was last year’s towering success. It’s no surprise, then, to see later games mimicking its barren, dystopian, desert styling. Borderlands borrows a huge amount from Bethesda’s epic roleplaying/shooter crossover hit, and reviewing it without mentioning this incredible debt is akin to forgetting that the Life of Brian may have been influenced by the Bible. Borderlands is not the Messiah, it’s a very naughty game!

Super Soakers are the interplanetary mercenary's weapon of choice.

Borderlands makes its intentions clear from the opening cinematic. Life on Pandora is colourful, vibrant, ugly and easily splattered across the front of passing buses. The game stamps its own signature on post-apocalyptic bandit-ridden cliches with a refreshing cell-shaded comic look. Fallout 3 saw the future of the 1950’s gone wrong; Borderlands funnels Mad Max through a Futurama kaleidoscope. It’s a bold move for a game that looked good in development even before this radical change in direction, and gives it an instant charm which more serious games lack.

The graphical overhaul also complements the main philosophy behind the game; make it bigger, badder and more powerful. Borderland’s run & gun combat is surprisingly well-honed, and shooter fans will have no problems at all adjusting to the controls. While your starting weapons are the staple guns of the FPS genre, after a few hours play you’ll come across more interesting specimens.

That shotgun looks awfully puny in his hands.

There are machine guns which set people on fire, and sniper rifles which instantly take down enemy shields. You’ll find rocket launchers which splatter bandits with highly corrosive acid, causing them to run around screaming in a lime-green fountain of toxic waste. For those permanently on the lookout for the next big thing, Borderlands’ randomised loot drops and weapon caches are as big a draw as the stat boosts and skill points gained when you level up. Plenty of enemy variety ensures you’ll swap frequently between guns for maximum impact.

Four character types are available from the outset: the soldier, a generic all rounder; the Hunter, a sniper and long range specialist; Brick, a shotgun-toting berserker; and Lillith, a sneaky lady who can become invisible.

The gang's all here. Also starring some giant purple lobsters.

As each character progresses points are unlocked to spend in their skill trees, resulting in greater specialisation. With the ability to play cooperatively with 4 players, a tuned-up team can make short work of giant mutant bosses. Character progress can be saved at “New U” stations dotted around for all your DNA-restructuring and resurrection needs.

Role-playing elements are cleverly interwoven with the shooting action. As your character gets more statistically proficient with their chosen weapons, shots become visibly more accurate. Numbers showing damage inflicted on enemies spill from their bodies in place of blood.

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The over-indulgent verdict on Dead Space: Extraction is that it’s Dead Space with all the crap drained off. Aggravatingly backward fixed inventories are out, as are tiresome modular upgrades systems. You won’t be carting lots of precious semiconductors, depleted weapons and oxygen cylinders between Stores, as there’s no longer an in-game economy, or back-tracking across cavernous starship interiors, as the action’s now on rails, or, indeed, bothering to do anything other than point and shoot.

The trademark noisy pink mutants look, animate and fall to pieces much as they do in the Xbox 360 and PS3 original, predictable drops in texture quality and geometry aside. Human character animations, facial or otherwise, are just as impressive, but the starship and planetside environments are once again the biggest attractions, equal parts high-tech deathtrap and primeval cave, immaculate holographic displays floating against worn blood-stained metal.

Let's see if he's still grinning when I chop his blooming knees off.

Kicking off some weeks before the events of Dead Space, Extraction’s five to six hour multiple-perspective storyline details the discovery of the mysterious Marker on Aegis VII, ensuing outbreaks of violence among the colonists, Necromorph infestation, chaos, and final flight to the orbiting USG Ishimura, shortly to be abundant in reanimated corpse-flesh.

From left: tough guy, arrogant exec, cutie, sacrificial extra.

It’s hackneyed, superficial but well-executed stuff, players becoming acquainted with characters through the eyes of others before leapfrogging into their shoes during chapter breaks. The game sensibly never lapses out of first-person, keeping your retina glued to the HUD till a chapter ends or the moment of death, and in one instance beyond.

If the prequel is cleaner and, by necessity, more tightly constructed than its high def sibling, it falls a little short on gameplay “oomph”. Disregarding the odd winged squid or giant raging octopus boss, there are no new varieties of Necromorph, and few novel ways of killing them. Legs and arms must be shot off as before, mutant grappling holds broken (with furious shakes of the ‘mote), glowing boss appendages blasted, reloads timed to intersect with lulls in the carnage.

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You couldn’t ask for a more appropriate candidate than Wolfenstein for first FPSGamer review ever (cue flying champagne cork). The Wolfenstein series was to the emergence of our favourite genre what certain apples are to the Book of Genesis, for starters, and this iteration comes care of Raven Software, the venerable gun-cradlers behind such classic shooters as HeXen, Soldier of Fortune and Jedi Knight II.

Most importantly of all, though, returning frontman ‘B.J.’ Blazkowicz has to be one of the butt-ugliest bundles of polygons ever rendered. What better way to reinforce your love for the first person viewpoint than lacing yourself into the boots of Daniel Baldwin’s reptilian half-brother? If this were a third-person game, I’d have phoned an exorcist halfway through the tutorial mission.

Regrettably, B.J.’s letterbox mouth and caterpillar eyebrows aren’t the only things the new Wolfenstein has against it. Derivative to the core, this goose-stepping paranormal blaster settles comfortably in behind such second tier releases as F.E.A.R. 2 and Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. It’s no pea-shooter, but it’s a fair way from a BFG.

Halfway through, the game tries its hand at a haunted hospital sequence.

The Nazis are up to their accustomed evil shenanigans. This time they’re trying to ease wartime energy shortages by burrowing into something called the Black Sun, a bottle-green alternate dimension stocked to the rafters with demons and rechargeable batteries. Who will thwart such dastardly machinations? Special Agent B.J. Blazkowicz of course, but as the game begins he’s busy getting shot full of holes on a German missile ship in the English Channel.

Luckily enough, an ancient ‘Thule’ medallion B.J. pinched from the officer’s deck turns out to be endowed with bullet-blocking, Nazi-evaporating powers, and a brisk boat ride or two later the lad’s on his way to the fictional Polish city of Isenstadt to straighten everybody out.

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