Burton's Bytes: Voodoo Vince will make you wince

Arguably this genre has been moribund ever since Nintendo took the platformer to a whole new level with Mario 64 more than six years ago.

Some people still reckon Mario 64 is the greatest video game ever committed to a silicon cartridge. Everything that came after was striving to be a "Mario-beater" and none of them were.

And yet the platform adventure genre remains popular (especially with gamers new to the world of interactive entertainment) forcing console manufacturers to have a whole slew of titles for their particular hardware.

At first glance Voodoo Vince appears to be exactly the same as all the others.

You play Vince, a voodoo doll who has lost his mistress, and it's your job to explore a strange cartoon world that's supposed to be the Louisiana bayou. Along the way you meet interesting friends who point you in the right direction and you do battle with some outrageous enemies.

Vince is Microsoft's second attempt at an engaging mascot for the Xbox. The first, Blinx the cat, was so generic he might as well have been invisible, so Voodoo Vince takes a very different path.

This game may look like a cartoon and the tired plot may sound like a million other Mario wannabes but there's a very wicked sense of humour running through the proceedings that actually makes for a rather fun little adventure. It's a bit like Conker's Bad Fur Day without the bad language (don't worry, a sequel to that game is on the way too).

More intriguingly still, Voodoo Vince turns established conventions on their head. Because Vince is a voodoo doll, any violence dished out in his direction is revisited on his enemies, so the best way to beat the bad guys is to beat yourself up (still with me?).

What this means is that instead of running away from danger, your character must actively seek it out if he is to succeed.

This leads to some amusing situations and scenes of a comedic violent nature that wouldn't look out of place in a classic Tom and Jerry cartoon.

Don't believe me? Then how about making Vince turn himself into dog meat by jumping into a giant blender? Or squashing him flat by throwing him under a falling safe? The further you go, the more outlandish the punishments - like stabbing with sharp scissors, death by lightning bolt and being devoured by killer bees. Whoever came up with this neat idea certainly had a lot of fun working out what to do next.

The visuals are suitably impressive and the game runs smoothly from one set piece to the next.

There are the usual drawbacks. The camera that doesn't follow your movement, the sudden deaths (real, not voodoo) and the infuriatingly precise jumping are but three.

Voodoo Vince isn't the fabled "Mario-killer2 Microsoft no doubt hoped it would be. By going its own way, this game is at least a bit different from the myriad other platformers to be found on other consoles and for that I feel we should be grateful.

WARHAMMER 40,000: FIRE WARRIOR. Publisher: THQ. Format: PS2. Price: £39.99.

I COULD never get excited by tabletop gaming. Pushing little figures around a board always seemed like a second-rate way of war gaming when a computer could paint those little soldiers in all their polygonal glory. It always felt a bit too much like train-spotting for comfort.

Fans would, no doubt, argue that the Warhammer universe is far more realistic and well-developed than any number of real-time strategy computer games. Certainly to an outsider looking in, the rules and concept are stupefyingly immense.

So it came as a surprise to discover that the latest Warhammer game isn't a real time strategy title at all. Fire Warrior is, in fact, a first person shoot-'em-up.

Before fans of table-toppery choke on their Pepsi let me assure them that the Warhammer universe is all faithfully recreated - only on a more personal level. If you've ever wondered what it must be like to join your war-gaming worlds then this is the game you bought a PS2 to play.

The grubby game-world is a perfect place to deal some death as your space marine fights his way up the ranks. Fire Warrior adopts the ability to use two guns - one in each hand - that made Halo such a hoot to play. Weapons left by the bad guys can also be collected and re-used.

This is actually a very good FPS shooter indeed. The graphics are spot-on, the movement smooth and the intelligence display by the enemy surprisingly cunning. It's a bit repetitive but what FPS isn't these days? And if you get sick of playing alone you can always go on-line or switch to multi-player.

Film-buffs will also have a ball spotting the celebrity acting talent who lend their voices to this game. I spotted Tom Baker and Sean Pertwee and there's Bert Kwok and Brian Blessed in the mix somewhere too.

MADDEN NFL 2004. Publisher: EA Sports. Platform: PS2, PC, Xbox, Gamecube. Price: varies

IN Europe the EA Sports flagship is undoubtedly the Fifa football series of simulations. In North America it's this.

Named after the legendary commentator John Madden, this series has represented the pinnacle of the American football genre for more than a decade. Times, and video games, have moved on a great deal since then. Luckily for gridiron fans the Madden series has grown to reflect those changes.

John Madden still contributes to the game that carries his name. Things are little changed for the annual up-date although there are some interesting game play additions.

Owner mode is now, more than ever, a game within the game. It lets you take control of your favourite NFL team across several seasons, hire and fire your staff, even set the prices right down to the hot dog stands. You can even do a Wimbledon and up-sticks to another city altogether if the mood takes you.

Successful play unlocks legendary teams from the golden age of NFL and the playbook is bewilderingly vast to anyone who isn't a US football fanatic.

Madden remains at the top for another year but only real devotees of the game will appreciate the subtle enhancements for 2004. A classic of its kind.

VIRUS WATCH

SOBER is a mass-mailing worm that disguises itself as a security warning issued by an anti-virus company, with attachment names such as anti_virusdoc.pif and check-patch.bat.

The email also tries to hide itself by using a number of different subject lines in both German and English.

Sober contains its own email engine, allowing it to spread at a greater rate, issuing emails to addresses collected from the infected computer.

Once installed, Sober displays a fake error message designed to trick users into thinking infection has been avoided.

Hidden inside the virus is text praising the creator of the Sobig virus that, in August, became the fastest-spreading worm in history.

* For more information, updates and downloads visit www.f-secure.com