Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 review

You can always tell when it's coming up to Christmas because Activision decide it's time to release another in it's massively moneyspinning online cash cows which is Call of Duty. This time round it's Black Ops 2 and once again - surprise, surprise - box office records are tumbling as the faithful worshippers of the god of First Person Shooters dig deep into their increasingly cash-strapped pockets. No double-dip recession in the video gaming industry then.

It's easy to be cynical and say that Treyarch would settle for the same-old, same old. Yet rather unexpectedly they've attempted a few new avenues here that show that they're not content with just sitting on their laurels but are willing to try blowing some fresh air on the franchise's dying embers.

 

In the single-player campaign, for instance, it would initially seem like familiar territory with all the Western-alligned countries being threatened with catastrophic retribution from embittered South American terrorist Raul Menendez. Although the primary storyline follows the predictable path towards the final confrontation with the villain, for the first time CoD introduces multiple story endings depending on moral choices made earlier in the drama.

This non-linear approach is further enhanced by the introduction of Strike Force missions which operate much closer to RTS models than FPS. You take charge of troops, vehicles and turrets from an overhead view to prevent waves of enemy forces capturing the site. While this is a bold departure from the norm, many regular shooter fans will see them as unwelcome diversions from the main event, especially as dead troops stay dead, unlike in the regular missions.

 

On the plus side, you can now choose your loadouts before each mission, exactly the same as in multiplayer, so you do feel as though you're more involved in the conflict rather than just acting out the prepared script. The narrative itself divides the action between older scenarios with Alex Mason as the protagonist from the 1980's and his son David Mason in the year 2025.

The 'futuristic' missions are more attractive because they make use of drones, armoured vehicles with built-in flamethrowers and machine guns, as well as mechanical snooping spiders and 'batwings' for short flying sequences.



But of course it's multiplayer that most people want to know about and Treyarch have included a number of tweaks that are intended to pander to both veterans of the series and newbies. The new 'Pick-10' feature lets you decide which ten combat elements to take into the fray, thus making each battle more suited to your style. In addition, a new Score Streaks system replaces Kill Streaks as the principal method of rewarding players by the assistance you give to the team rather than the number of head shots you accumulate.

The console versions also allow you to create live commentaries on the action and to show live streaming so fans on the other side of the globe can see how well you're performing. And of course there are the ever-popular zombies who have been considerably beefed up - perhaps in preparation for an all-zombie CoD in the future?

Although not all of Treyarch's tinkering with the formulae have been successful, they should at least be applauded for making the attempt. Parents beware, though - there are several scenes of torture and mutilation in the campaign that are quite stomach churning and far from necessary for the storyline. One thing you can be sure of - with Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 making $1 billion in 15 days, you can be sure those Navy SEALS will be back next year...


Score: 4/5

Edifier e10 Exclaim review

One thing you can certainly say about Edifier's new e10 Exclaim speakers is that you're unlikely to have seen a design like this before. This twin set looks like a pair of misplaced exclamation marks but there's certainly nothing out of kilter when it comes to their performance.

The press release says that Edifier intended these speakers for PC's, televisions and mobile devices but one look at them tells you they should ideally find a home next to your entertainment oriented laptop.

Although they are highly seductive pieces of hi-fi eye-candy, each speaker houses a total of three active speaker drivers and two passive radiators which manages to give a much richer sound than you'd expect from most laptop speakers on the market.

The long upright silver sections each contain two 1.5" midrange tweeters and a 1.5 x 3" passive radiator with the chunky round base sections housing a 3" woofer and a 3" passive bass radiator. Thanks to the use of full integral DSP (Digital Signal Processing) and DRC (Dynamic Range Compensation), the resulting levels are kept in balance and free of distortion even at close to max volume.

Operation is simple as the speakers are connected to your PC or music device via a 3.5mm jack lead and the power and volume buttons are integrated into the design of the right speaker column.

The first time you experience the quality of the sound is similar to that of finding an oasis after trudging through miles of burning desert - you almost can't believe both the volume (up to 35W), bass response (admittedly mostly in the mid-to-low range) and clarity of the voices and instruments from a bi-amp system that costs a mere £80.

Whether you just want your music playing in the background while you type or if you want to receive a more authentic feel of the action ffrom Call of Duty, Edifier's e10 Exclaim speakers have to be a must for all PC users fed up with tinny squawking coming out of their built-in audio systems.

Score: 4.5/5

Medal of Honor: Warfighter review

 I don't know if it was hubris or just bad luck that Medal of Honor: Warfighter was released just a few weeks ahead of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 but when you read EA's press release claiming that MoHW is "this year's only true modern military experience", you have to suspect it was probably the former.

I notice the absence of the word 'original' in this description and once you start playing the game it becomes obvious why. Let's start with the campaign. A terrorist group is threatening to cause untold mass destruction on innocent lives and it's the job of our brave elite military boys to follow the chain of command back to the ultimate villain and save Western civilisation as we know it.

Sound familiar?

Along the way, you will play as different members of your squad, pilot boats, call in air-strikes, shoot down helicopters, strafe bad guys from helicopters, steer robots and rescue hostages. Hmmmm, nothing new there then.

So in order to mix things up a bit, Danger Close have included lengthy cut scenes that follow the emotional marital rollercoaster that the main warrior Preacher is going through when trying to balance keeping Western civilisation safe with staying home safe with his wife and daughter. Great if you're making a movie but not great if you want to get back to the business of shooting hordes of terrorists in the face.

Spec Ops: The Line managed the difficult feat of throwing in some moral ambiguity without dropping the pace in the action but Medal of Honor: Warfighter seems caught between making a movie and an action game and failing.



The one truly promising innovation in the gameplay is the breach menu which offers you increasingly varied ways of bashing a door down if you manage a decent number of headshots when you barge in. Yet the whole exercise is ultimately pointless as however you break in, the scenario is exactly the same - maybe someone more imaginative could take this up and run with it.

A similar issue happens in multiplayer where at the beginning you can choose to fight in the uniforms of half a dozen countries. All very patriotic but even when you've customised your weaponry, all the partcipants still look relatively the same.



There are a couple of interludes where you indulge in 'Mafia' style car race-'n'-ram chases but in most other respects, the single-player is standard cover-shoot-sprint fare. As for the mush vaunted realism, yes, the sounds and locations by and large do have a ring of authenticity about them but the AI combat tactics are highly predictable. Also, there's no danger of you running out of ammo as long as you have a squaddie nearby to keep feeding you top-ups and this means that the game lacks the one vital ingredient for this genre - nerve-jangling adrenaline.

The campaign is also very short at little more than 3-5 hours max - and where are the meaty rewards and achievements? In the end, Medal of Honor: Warfighter is just a short burst of semi-realistic target practice before the main CoD war kicks in.


Score: 2.5/5

MAGIX Movie Edit Pro 2013 Premium review

Taken some holiday footage on your HD camcorder and want to edit together an impressive show to wow your friends and family? Don't want to spend a fortune on heavy-duty movie editing software? Then take some time to explore the latest package from MAGIX: Movie Edit Pro 2013 Premium which has several juicy upgrades on last year's effort, a great bundle of thrown-in software and all for less than £100.

See my full review on PC Advisor's website:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/software/3409014/magix-movie-edit-pro-2013-premium-review/

Score: 4/5

Acer Aspire Timeline M3 Ultra review

This is the fourth generation of Acer Aspire Timeline laptops and the M3 is described as an Ultrabook because it is amazingly thin at just 20.7mm and weighs in at 2.3kg. It does have a 15.6" display, though, so you'll have to be a bit more careful than usual when stuffing it into your backpack.

I was sent the bottom of the range M3-581T model which comes with four Intel Core i3-2367M processors clocked at 1.40GHz and 4GB RAM. It also has a basic Intel HD Graphics 3000 card, plus 320GB SSD storage - this particular model will probably set you back around £450 if your intensions are not too ambitious in terms of multiple simultaneous operations (especially in terms of gaming).

However, if you truly want to make the most of this model, then insist on buying the version with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M card with 1GB memory installed as this will ensure that you play games like Battlefield 3 with high frame rates even with the settings cranked up. You can also boost the storage capacity to 500GB.

What all the models in this range have in common is the positioning of all the ports round the back of the machine rather than along the sides. This is partly because Acer had to make room on the left side to include a DVD optical drive and a 2-in-1 card reader and also because they think it looks less clutered. Although this may in the end be a matter of personal taste, you do at lease get 3 USB ports (one of which is a USB 3.0), plus HDMI and Ethernet.

The styling of the M3 is deliberately low-key black throughout, with matching grey around the keyboard keys. The keys themselves are the typical chiclet style that are pretty universal these days but typing feels firm and responsive. There's a large touchpad underneath that is fine if you want to use lots of gesture controls like pinching, rotating and scrolling but can also be irritating at times if you catch it unawares when creating a document.

The other area where the M3 shows no variation across the range is the screen resolution which is a rather disappointing 1366 x 768 - surely if you're trying to promote this laptop as a good choice for gamers then they should deserve a higher spec than this? The other irony is that the only feature that is visibly promoted above the keyboard is the presence of Dolby Home Theatre sound technology, yet the speakers (as with virtually all laptop speakers) can never do justice to the content without plugging into an external source.

That aside, the Acer Aspire Timeline series has always had a good record on battery life and the M3 is equally impressive, even if it didn't quite reach the dizzy heights of the claimed 9 hours when I was using it with a mixture of video, sound and spreadsheets operating.

So be discriminating when choosing which version of the M3 best suits your needs and you may well find that it will appeal to both the low-level business user who wants a fast processor but limited graphics and the student gamer who also enjoys hours of social networking.


Score: 3.5/5

Canon imageFORMULA DR-C130 review

In an age of multifunction printers which provide all of the basic needs of a small office, sometimes the needs of the space-restricted business person on the move seem to be more neglected. You may have been handed some documents or graphics you require for a presentation or that have to be e-mailed at short notice and you don't have the ability to cart even a medium-sized MFP around with you.

At times like this, what would be ideal would be a compact scanner that would do the workload fast and yet be light and highly portable. So this is where Canon's new range of imageFORMULA scanners come into their own and I managed to lay my hands on the DR-C130.

It only weighs 1.8Kg and in its fully shut-up state measures just 298 x 160 x 160mm - i.e. perfect for popping in a suitcase or back seat of a car. Once in position it unfurls so that the front panel becomes the feeder tray and the hidden panel underneath drops down to be the output tray - very neat indeed.

After that you simply drop in the pages you want to scan, choose between single scan and multiple scan, install the software and away you go. Attach to the PC via USB lead and then it's up to you what you want to do with the data. Canon's impressive CaptureOn Touch programme not only lets you scan documents to e-mails and PDF files but also lets you access Cloud services like Google Docs, Evernote and Share Point.

In addition, CapturePerfect, BizCard, OmniPage, PaperPort, eCopy PDF Pro Office and Kofax VRS are all part of the included bundled software. Scanning at 600dpi resolution, the DR-C130 comes with duplex scanning as standard and the front feeder capacity of 50 sheets of A4 width and up to 3000mm length.

Canon claim print speeds up to 30ppm for both black and white and colour documents and in practice I achieved around 28ppm which is still pretty impressive. Even with a stack of bills of different sizes, I was pleasantly surprised at not having any paper jams - although there's a quick-release mechanism at the front to keep things moving if in trouble.

While Canon's official release price for the DR-C130 was £605, there are already offers of around £415 circling on the Web and as such is strongly worth considering as a lightweight, swift and versatile accessory to any small office or travelling business person.


Score: 4/5

DRAGON Naturally Speaking 12 review

Now I have to freely admit that I never learnt to be a touch typist or to do dictation but when I first became aware of Nuance's speech recognition software several years ago, I thought this had to be a useful tool for any hard-pressed secretary.

So with the latest - 12th - incarnation of DRAGON Naturally Speaking I felt it was time to see if a complete dufus like me could suss it out in a couple of hours and see if it could be of help to me as a journalist.

Once the basic software is installed, you're immediately encouraged into setting up your audio source - which for me meant headset first, then audio voice recorder. I took a few goes at getting the computer and software to recognise my new Tritton headset and arranging the voice levels so they were comfortable for me and loud enough for Nuance and then I was ready for action.

No-one can fault Nuance for not providing enough assistance - a sidebar drops down on your right which provides you with stacks of voice commands for handling text, navigating the Web and even sending e-mails. There's plenty of scope to create your own commands and build up your vocabulary and there's an additional Accuracy Center that will constantly improve the finished document.

The real eye-opener came when I started dictating this review, as the sheer speed at which the words appeared on the page was astonishing. Of course, you have to get used to adding your punctuation and paragraphs, etc., verbally as well but I was impressed by how quickly you fall into the habit. Once it was all down on the page, I then used the text-to-voice command to get the whole piece spoken back to me by a warm and friendly female voice that managed to get around 97% accuracy while still keeping plenty of believeable inflexion.

Navigating the Web took a little longer to master and creating and sending e-mails I'll admit is still a work in progress. However, it's easy to see how this software will be an invaluable tool for business in general and secretaries and journalists in particular.

For those already familiar with DRAGON Naturally Speaking, you'll be happy to know that scores of new, helpful features have been added including customisable Click commands, a Dictation Box for preparing material to insert in programmes like PowerPoint, more support for Gmail and Hotmail, the ability to disable commands you don't use much, and there's also a BestMatch V speech model that kicks in for higher spec PCs that have 2 or more processors and more than 4GB of RAM.

Naturally because we live in the age of the App, the Remote Microphone app that was only available for iOS systems in the last version is now extended to cover Android devices. Haven't had the chance to try this yet as somehow I don't think it's going to be my main priority.

I know I'm never going to be taken on as a legal PA, but thanks to my experience of Nuance's top notch DRAGON Naturally Speaking 12, I might be able to hoodwink a few firms into thinking I have great typing accuracy and speed....


Score: 4.5/5

Guild Wars 2 review

I remember when the first Guild Wars game came out and what was so astonishing was that you got to go out and explore this huge and mysterious world without having to pay a penny beyond the initial installation disc.

MMOs were still relatively in their infancy and there was still an air of excitement and surprise in the new genre. Then a fantasy monolith called World of Warcraft swallowed all the headlines and most of our cash and the age of innocence was over. From the moment WoW hit the shelves, every games designer across the globe began dreaming up clones or imitations with the aim of grabbing a slice of the Blizzard pie.

While the original Guild Wars was quietly adding new chapters that seemed to be drowned out by the hooves of the WoW stampede, some new kids on the block started making waves of their own. All this year Skyrim has been supreme in achieving for offline RPGs what WoW had succeeded in doing online - creating a vast, sprawling and cohesive world that you could lose yourself in for months - whilst creating a gripping core storyline. No wonder, then that The Elder Scrolls Online will shortly cross the divide for good.

But then suddenly along comes Guild Wars 2 and that breath of fresh air we were hoping was going to be blasted into the lungs of the MMORPG community has become a reality. The land of Tyria plays host to five main races - the diminutive but powerfully magical Asura, the mystical plant-beings known as Sylvari, the natural hunters called Norn, the death-or-glory savage Charr and the common or garden Humans.

I chose the Charr because - naturally - I love a fight and as there's plenty of scope for specialising your features you won't run into many copycats in the course of the game. The graphics are simply drop-dead gorgeous and what I liked immediately was the fact that you can get in and out very quickly with minimal load times.

Essentially there are three ways to play - follow your character story by gradually building up your levels through quests, achievements, XP, etc.; going straight into PvP, in which case you instantly level up to awesome abilities and weaponry and can go straight into a decent slugfest with small teams of like-minded friends; or playing World vs World where massive teams battle across four giant maps in true global combat.

But even if you want to do most of the action solo, the game constantly asks you to get involved with other players. As you explore each map, an event will be announced and all players in the area are encouraged to jump in and help. Unlike in most of its rivals, Guild Wars 2 rewards you with points and treasure even if you only land one blow on a target, so it takes the selfish frenzy out of each contest. The result is a truly cooperative game where you're constantly rewarded for even small victories as well as for reviving fallen comrades and you're thus emboldened to take on greater and harder missions.

What's even more exhilarating is that all your actions have personal consequences and the dynamic events system which is at the heart of this game constantly adjusts and redefines how you progress based on the choices you've made. Defend one community and its enemies might redouble their attacks on you - support one clan and they might come to your assistance when you need them.

There's a massive array of skills, crafts, traits and weaponry that you can accumulate along the way and if you die you can either wait for someone to revive you or restart at one of the many waypoints scattered round the map. Exploration is also heavily promoted as XP is handed out for discovering points of interest and puzzling out how to arrive at key viewpoints on the map.

Of course some battles will have to wait until you've levelled up sufficiently but the main enjoyment of Guild Wars 2 is from taking a risk with a group of like-minded combatants and engaging in a fight that might normally be out of your range. What ArenaNet have managed to achieve here is to put the fun and the buzz back into multiplayer online gaming and if for no other reason, this should be your MMO of choice. RIP WoW.

And - yes - it's still subscription free.

Score: 5/5

Canon PowerShot SX160 IS review

Canon PowerShots have always had a good reputation with comparative newcomers to the art of photography who want to try everything from basic point 'n' shooters to bridge cameras that allow you more freedom of expression and manual controls.

The PowerShot SX160 IS continues this tradition by creating a comparatively lightweight (290g) model that remains comparatively robust (albeit made of toughened plastic) and has a user-friendly array of controls that invites you to express something of your personality.

It feels generally comfortable in the hand but the thin metal strip at the front that is supposed to act as a grip is somewhat slippery. The control layout, however, will be very familiar to regular Canon camera owners - the firm mode dial on the top next to the shutter with a zoom ring outside and a recessed power button, plus the circular control dial on the back surrounded by dedicated buttons for exposure compensation, playback, display and menu.

The substantial 3-inch LCD has a standard 230,000 dots which is more than enough to provide plenty of detail and colour variation and the instant video capture button at top right of the back panel ensures you can instantly start shooting at 720p HD quality and then play the results back immediately via the HDMI port on the side.

The PowerShot SX160 IS has obviously been constructed with holiday snaps in mind, too, as the power source is two AA batteries, thus allowing you to carry several days' worth of photography without having to constantly recharge. In addition, a smooth acting 16x optical zoom which is perfect for those events where you want to capture close-ups of Disney floats or dolphins is further enhanced by a 4x digital zoom, which is probably best used if you can keep the camera on some stable surface. Zooming is also possible when recording video and the image stabilisation system does a good job of keeping the picture steady when on the move.

The quality of the images is especially sharp in lighter conditions, which is due in part to the expansion to a 16MP 28-448mm equivalent lens over the former SX150 IS's 14MP. You can also have some fun with this camera as the 32 possible scene modes include effects like Miniature, Toy, Fish-eye and Poster.

While the price (currently around £165) is highly attractive, that does mean you'll find certain restrictions that you wouldn't expect for more advanced cameras - i.e. no electronic viewfinder, maximum 800 ISO for low light photos and 15 seconds flash recycling times. But if these are your first tentative steps into digital photography, the PowerShot SX160 IS is not a bad place to start.


Score: 4/5

Acer Aspire V5-571 review

 Slim and light are the two obvious words that come to mind when you take the new Acer Aspire V5-571 out of its box. This is a 15.6" notebook made of tough plastic made to look like silver metal that should sit very comfortably into a backpack or briefcase.

It's less than 23mm thick and at just 2.3kg is not going to cause serious arm strain. It feels reasonably sturdy and the hinge in particular is reassuringly solid when you flex it. The keyboard is the type where the keys are all isolated apart from the left shift and enter keys which annoyingly have adjacent keys attached to them - thus providing plenty of opportunity for striking the wrong one.

 When you're in full typing flow the keys feel somewhat dead and unresponsive and it feels strange to have the Del key directly above the backspace. The touchpad, though, is very large and highly responsive, yet I'm not convinced that it was an entirely smart move to place it so far to the left of centre.

A glance round the edges reveals an SD card holder unobtrusively hidden under the front, a handy DVD optical drive on the right side and three USB ports (one of them 3.0) plus an HDMI output. What is new - and I suspect part of a growing trend - is an adaptor slot that comes with a supplied split lead for either VGA or Ethernet usage, depending on your need.

Under the hood is an Intel Core i3 2367M processor clocked at 1.4GHz, which is quite sufficient to cope with regular light usage (web browsing, MS Office documents, etc.) and it also packs a decent 8GB RAM. On the other hand, with a basic Intel HD 3000 graphics card and a screen resolution of 1368 x 766 (i.e. less than Full HD), you're not going to be using this for any form of serious gaming unless you go for the slightly higher spec version with NVIDIA graphics.

On the positive side, you do have a hefty 500GB HDD for storage (no SSD at this price) and if you have high activity for all functions simultaneously, you can manage about 5 hours before you need to re-charge. So for a price point around £450, the Acer Aspire V5-571 is defintely worth considering for low level usage especially when you're on the move.


Score: 3.5/5

The Secret Files 3 review

If you're a fan of 'old school' adventure games where objects have to be collected from the screen and frequently combined before being used to solve a particular probem, then The Secret Files 3 will probably be right up your conspiracy theory.

Both previous prequels followed the exploits of feisty heroine Nina Kalenkow and her boyfriend Max Gruber as they tackled long-unsolved mysteries. In the first game, Nina was searching for her disappeared father in Tunguska in Siberia where some catastrophic event had taken place and in the second she tackles a secret society - Puritas Cordis - which is threatening to create the apocalypse.

In the current game, Nina and Max have put aside their differences and decided to marry but before the big day Max is kidnapped by masked militia. Nina finds a link with Max's archaelogical research at an ancient site in Turkey and hurries there to pick up any clues - what she discovers there is the beginnings of a secret that could result in the destruction of the entire human race.

As with the previous episodes, Nina's journey has her criss-crossing the globe from San Francisco to Florence, Berlin, Santorini and Switzerland and the artwork throughout is detailed and atmospheric. In addition, there are a number of dream sequences where Nina not only views but participates in events of both past and future to unravel more of the enigma.

The eclectic cast of characters range from the amusing and quirky to the scurrilous and sinister, with a mix of fictional and historical people adding to the general air of authenticity. There are a number of surprises along the way to keep you guessing until the end and the quality of the dialogue is superior to most in this genre.

As you'd expect, there are a wide range of puzzles to solve and mini-games to complete before the final truth is revealed. Some are of the 'move the squares to reveal the picture' type, as well as reconstructing notes, timed robot wars (yes, really!), working out codes and scaling buildings to reach useful artefacts. You also change between characters quite often which allows you to view the story from different angles.

Most of the 'combination' tests are relatively easy to solve but some will definitely have your head scratching for a while (including using a cat to chase a thief). There is a harder difficulty setting offered at various points throughout the game if you prefer a tougher challenge and finishing the game offers a few extra perks if you want to try again.

Although the gameplay time is fairly short (8 hours should be more than sufficient), I enjoyed spending time with Nina and Max as both are engaging to explore with. The occasional burst of wry humour also makes a welcome break to the serious undertone and apart from one sequence in Florence that got repeated once too often, Secret Files 3 is a breath of fresh air to the often stale adventure genre.

Sscore: 4/5

Canon DR-M140 scanner review

Need a portable scanner that packs a punch, has auto duplex and handles stacks of varied paper sizes at once? And is a cool Apple-y white? Why not check out my review of the Canon DR-M140 on PC Advisor...

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/printing/3381296/canon-dr-m140-review/

Score: 3.5/5

Brother MFC-8520DN review

If you're thinking about buying a fast mono laser printer for a small business or hiome office, the Brother MFC-8520DN is a nippy little blighter with impressive ink quality. Check out my review on PC Advisor:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/printing/3381066/brother-mfc-8520dn-review/

Score: 4/5

Lost Souls: Enchanted Paintings review

 Hidden object games rarely seem to rise above the humdrum - find 12 objects in a packed frame, then change picture and repeat - so when something resembling a storyline and even <gasp> humour appears, you know it's time to take note.

Lost Souls: Enchanted Paintings is an adventure game for the iPhone which manages to pack in a host of mini-games that are sufficiently varied and absorbing to keep your fascination. A young boy is transported into a magic picture by an evil wizard and his decidedly foxy mum has to journey through several more spellbound images in order to save different worlds and pick up clues to recover the boy.

Not only are the paintings beautifully rendered but you have to interact between several locations inside each world to assemble all the pieces you need for success. Even the hidden object sections require you to move some items before you find what you're after. While hints are available along the way, you can also win achievements by stringing correct moves together or solving puzzles without help. Coins can also be gathered to spend on visual prizes at the end of each level.

It's a perfect brain-teaser to haul out when you have a spare ten minutes but beware as it can become very addictive quite quickly... You may well find yourself shelling out for the Collector's edition which includes a further 9 locations and 4 extra mini-games and the tone throughout is light-hearted and fun.

Score: 4/5

BenQ W1060 projector review

Ever thought of starting your own home cinema but not quite sure what sort of projector might do the job without breaking the bank? Well, BenQ have recently released the W1060 which is currently available on Amazon at under £700 and might meet many of your requirements.

If you want something that looks cool and stylish, the W1060 comes in chic tones of cream and silver and its smoothly curving edges taper downwards in elegant lines. It doesn't weigh a ton at just 3.6kg yet it feels sturdy and reliable. Measuring a very manageable 150 x 330 x 247 mm, you can also carry it around in the supplied soft black case or slip it into a suitcase.

All the features on this projector are extremely easy to manage. On the top is a backlit menu panel with large keys that are easy to navigate without having to make use of the remote. Both the zoom and focus rings are wide and smooth to operate and generally need the lightest touch to achieve the right effect.

Round the back you'll find a useful collection of connectors including VGA, USB, composite, component, S-video, stereo Mini Jack and no less than two HDMI 1.3 ports which will save swapping cables every time you change from Blu-ray to console or set-top box. You also have two 10W speakers but the sound quality is so poor that you should only use these in extremis.

With Full HD (1920 x 1080) as your native resolution, a 2000 ANSI Lumens level of brightness and a contrast ratio of 5000:1, the quality and sharpness of the image is impressive even in relatively well-lit rooms.

The W1060 is also satisfyingly quiet in operation but the only aspect that is disappointing is the rather limited throw ratio of 1.59 - 1.9 which means you'll need a reasonably large room to get a decent size image.

Score: 4/5

Samsung CLX-4195FW review

Need a good, sturdy all-round performer when searching for a new multifunction printer for your small to medium sized office? Then perhaps you should pass your eye over Samsung's new CLX-4194FW.

This colour laser printer has a fax function as well as the usual print, copy and scan options. It feels suitably solid and dependable, measuring 420 x 426 x 448mm and weighing a chunky 21.3kg.

Styled in smart two-tone black and grey, the CLX-4194FW comes with a 250-sheet input tray in the base, a 50-sheet ADF on the top and a 100-sheet output capacity. There are plenty of options for connectivity - via Hi-Speed USB 2.0, Ethernet, Wireless or the Samsung Mobile Print app for Android and iPhone - plus a USB port for flash drives and PictBridge enabled cameras.

Operation is extremely user-friendly thanks to the 4.3" colour touch screen display and like most other printer manufacturers, Samsung has embraced Eco technology to keep running costs low by reducing toner usage by 30% as well as unnecessary power-ups.

The CLX-4194FW has a Dual Core CPU running at 533MHz so printing is relatively nippy at around 15.5ppm for documents and less than 10 seconds for A4 colour photos. The quality and sharpness of colour documents is quite superb and would almost be worth the price of the printer alone (currently £349 on Amazon).

Photos sent via the Samsung app also reveal authentic colours but I did notice that colour prints via PC had a slight tendency towards a pinker hue. The only obvious printing downside, though, is the lack of an auto duplex mode which would really have been the icing on the cake.

I'm also not a fan of providing owners of new printers with 'starter' cartridges  - in this case 1000 page black toner and 700 pages for the three other colours - when you should kick off with the full 2,500 page black and 1,800 page colour. Based on current prices available online, black toners are available for around £58 (i.e. 2.32p per page) and colour for £63-£67 (3.53p and 3.75p) with a 40,000 pages Monthly Duty Cycle.

Score: 4/5