Final Fantasy X. Publisher: SCEE. Format: PS2.

OH how pleased with itself Sony must be feeling about this game. Just when it seemed Nintendo and Microsoft might be making some headway against the might of PS2, along comes Square's epic role playing game and blows them all away.

The series may be about to defect back to Nintendo but, for the moment, Sony's slinky black box is the only place to get your Final Fantasy fix.

And what a game it is.

Final Fantasy stunned us all when it appeared (in its seventh incarnation) on the original PlayStation. Critics couldn't believe the machine was capable of such stunning visuals and the deep gameplay sucked everyone who played it into a world as rich as the eye-candy it painted on screen.

Final Fantasy on the PS2 does it all again. Sony's 128-bit behemoth is no stranger to fancy dan graphics, but this game takes us to the next level.

It oozes class. The in-game movies are wonderful (Square's guys obvious learnt a lot from the Final Fantasy movie debacle), the voice acting is spot on and even the plot makes more sense (a guy and a gal are thrown together in a battle to save civilisation from a bad guy called Sin).

Veterans of RPGs love the way these games mix strategy with action in battle after battle. Casual gamers sometimes find this system tedious and repetitive.

To answer these critics Square has overhauled the battles - upping the strategy and making the method by which your character boosts his powers more straightforward. It still ain't Tekken but newbies will find the new look more accessible.

And then there's the graphics. You'll be slack jawed the first time you see how an FMV movie segues seamlessly into real-time action. Even more impressive is the way this game animates your characters over the top of expensively-produced video action to produce the kind of impact that would have been impossible otherwise. Everything is high resolution and polished to a remarkable degree.

Final Fantasy X is the perfect repost to short-sighted critics who carp about the lack of original product on PS2. There's nothing wrong with a sequel. Don't believe me? Then consider Aliens, Terminator 2 or The Godfather Part II.

A good sequel builds and improves upon the original. Final Fantasy X is a remarkable piece of work that positively demands a place in your collection whether you enjoy RPGs or not.

To win a copy of Final Fantasy X just answer this question: How many FF movies have there been? Answers to FF Comp, Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF by July 26.

Industry Giant II. Publisher: JoWooD. Format: PC. Price: £29.99

SIM City was one of those ideas that was so right from the very moment it arrived that a sequel was not only pointless but likely to end in failure. The only way developers could think to reinvent the game was to vary the formula so city building gave way to running fairgrounds, big business and even entire planets.

Industry Giant II goes with the "budding captain of industry" theme. It starts in the year 1900 when you are a would-be entrepreneur with plenty of ideas but a paucity of hard cash.

From this inauspicious beginning you are expected to build up a business empire even Bill Gates himself would be proud to call his own. So you build farms, mine precious metals, chop down forests and throw up vast industrial complexes - all in the name of progress. Paid up members of Greenpeace probably won't approve.

At its most basic you have to follow the stream of goods - digging them from the ground, shipping them to your factory and selling them to the public. Of course you can up the profits by hiking the prices or ploughing some of those precious dollars into advertising but, if your supply chain isn't running smoothly, all of your efforts will be wasted.

And that was all there was to the original Industry Giant. The sequel takes things further. Much further. In doing so it manages to ditch the accusation that these kind of games are merely spreadsheets masquerading as entertainment and become a genuine hoot to play.

Industry Giant II draws you in slowly. Once your shipping and transportation network is set up it's tempting to sit back and what the cash some rolling in as with the first game. Try that and you'll soon find yourself back at square one.

The level maps have been cunningly designed to stretch your resourcefulness to the max. Towns are spread out and best place for creating your factories is often miles away from the most lucrative markets. There are no natural disasters or invading martians a la Sim City but at least the game gives you the option to speed things up this time around. And the multiplayer option is a real test of your business acumen.

Games like Industry Giant II don't make headlines because they don't provide an instant rush as with the Dooms and Unreal Tournaments of this world. But when you tire of shooting polygon baddies this kind of sim is just the thing for a more cerebral challenge.

Published: 12/07/2002