Name: Finepix X100 (Fujifilm)

Type: Compact digital camera

Specs: Click here for full specs

Price: £999 from Amazon

Image Gallery: Click here

It may look like an analogue relic from a bygone age, but this latest snapper from Fujifilm is full to the brim with ground-breaking, class-leading digital tech that puts other compacts to shame. Is it enough to justify the Finepix X100's whopping price tag though?

The Finepix X100 has obviously been a labour of love for Fujifilm. Every single aspect of its build seems finely detailed, recalling the same retro-chic that only Lecia seem to have been able to successfully conjure of late. Mixing a powder-finished magnesium alloy body with a textured leather wrap, its as though the camera's just jumped out of the Tardis after a trip to 1960s, and it all feels nice and sturdy. Likewise, the metal control dials found on the top are solidly put together too, and even the potentially flimsy plastic control wheel on the rear feels secure to the touch. It's satisfyingly weighty at 445 grams, though it also means the X100 could hardly be considered pocket-friendly.

For all its old-skool looks however, the Finepix X100 is a decidedly modern camera under its chassis. Despite its somewhat-misleading compact categorisation, you're actually getting a ton of pro-level features and genuine innovations that a regular point-and-shoot compact could only dream of. If the £1,000 price tag wasn't enough of a clue, the fixed-lens X100 is aimed squarely at enthusiasts.

An unusual 12.3-megapixel image sensor sits inside, with an APS-C size format. It's a fair sight larger than the sensor you'd find in the majority of compacts, and sits closer to the DSLR end of the digital camera scale, allowing for great results at high ISO levels by drawing in substantially more light. To illustrate, you'll be able to hit ISO 6,400 when capturing RAW files and ISO 12,800 when snapping JPEG images.

The fixed-lens set-up here is just as strange too. Wide angle with a fixed focal length of 23mm with aperture values of f2-f16, it also allows plenty of light to reach the image, and lowers the levels of edge distortion to your pictures. It does however detract from the camera's flexibility however, as it means the camera doesn't pack any optical zoom features, which will definitely frustrate casual users.

Rounding off a trio of unusual features is the Finepix X100's hybrid viewfinder, which is in many respects the camera's crown jewel. A switch on the front of the camera allows the user to swap on the fly between an optical viewfinder as found on the analogue cameras from which the X100 takes its retro inspiration, and a 1,440,000-pixel electronic viewfinder. It's a "best of both worlds" scenario; on one hand you get the clarity of the optical viewfinder which is great for establishing a scene, but it offers less coverage than the electronic option which also allows you to overlay shot and settings data across the image, as well as getting the 100% coverage necessary for accurate framing. Used in conjunction with the rear-mounted 2.8 inch LCD panel and it's a highly efficient system.

Offering a far more detailed level of control than your average compact, it's a crime to leave the Finepix X100 in auto-mode, though doing so will throw up finely detailed snaps nonetheless. No, delving into the wizardry behind each dial is the order of the day, but as a result this is not a camera for the casual photography fan.

Aperture settings can be tweaked using a front lens ring, which while responsive, was a little too small to comfortably tweak on the fly. Top mounted dials for exposure compensation and shutter speed sit on the top. Beyond these hardware controls, most other settings can be tweaked with a scroll wheel/control pad set up within deep menus.

Once played about with, the camera offers delightful shots in most every scenario. Colours are rich and without being overly-saturated, accurate without being washed out. Digital artefacting is incredibly low for what is still "technically" a compact, while a welcome bokeh effect (putting sharp objects into relief of their softer surroundings) looks astounding. As mentioned earlier, low light shooting is great thanks to excellent response at high ISO settings, remaining noise-free. Those who like to shoot high-speed action scenarios will be frustrated by the camera's relatively slow boot time of a few seconds, though will likely find its burst shooting settings of 10 JPEGs or 8 RAW shots at up to 5 frames a second fair compensation.

Though we fell in love with the X100's quirks and charms, it did have a handful of problems that left us a little wanting. Though the addition of 720p HD video recording is a welcome one, we found its clarity here to be a little lacking in detail, and at times out-and-out choppy. Though options for single and continuous autofocus are available, we found the later of the two options in 720p recording mode a little sluggish. We were also a little disappointed with the afore-mentioned 2.8 inch LCD. Though perfectly serviceable, the 460K res screen could easily have been bumped up to an OLED for this price, and given the size of the camera as a whole, a few simply accommodated tweaks to the rear button layout could have allowed for a considerably larger display. Macro mode left a little to be desired too, with 10cm being roughly the closest that the camera could satisfyingly focus from.

Verdict:

Not quite as flexible as a DSLR, nor as user friendly as a standard compact, the Finepix X100 is a bit of an anomaly in the digital camera market. It's lovingly designed, and its hybrid viewfinder may well prove to be a sneak-peek at the future of high-end snappers, not to mention the sheer quality of the images it produces. Though it remains a niche product, those looking for a unique compact offering lots of technical control will find a lot to love here.

Name: Concept D 500 THX (Teufel)

Type: PC speakers

Specs: Click here for full specs

Price: £449

PC speakers come in many shapes, sizes and price brackets. While most of the time we'll be happy to sift through our iTunes catalogue with a respectably priced and spec'ed set of desktop noise makers, the audiophile in everyone sometimes wants a little bit more class to go along with those lossless tracks. Enter then the Teufel Concept D 500 THX PC speakers; massive in both physical size and pricing and packing THX certification, does more dough equate to more sonic bang for your buck?

Were we solely rating the Concept D 500 THX speakers on a matching price-to-size- ratio, they'd earn top marks. They're a gigantic pairing of two satellite speakers and a subwoofer (as well as a small wired remote) that will likely dwarf the other elements of your PC workstation. You're looking at 115mm x 290mm x 240mm for each satellite, and 210mm x 475mm x 455mm for the sub, with these weighing in at 1.9kg and 12.9 kg respectively. Solidly built, Teufel have sensibly kept to a minimalist approach in terms of design, with simple black gloss and matte surfaces accented by silver highlights. Despite their size, they'll fit in almost anywhere, style wise. The satellites can be supported by included metal stands, or can be free standing both vertically or horizontally, but their asymmetrical design can make them look a little bit strange in the latter orientation.

Flip the speakers around and on the rear you'll see the welcome sight of binding posts as opposed to spring clips for the cabling needed to link the satellites and sub together. It's also worth noting that Teufel don't supply the speaker cables here, just the power one; a little stingy considering the £449 price tag. As well as the binding posts, the rear of the sub also houses the power input, the connection for the wired remote, a microphone pass-through and a coaxial line-in connection. The LED-lit power button can be found on the subwoofer's front, sitting dangerously exposed to the point where it may be a little too easy to knock it off.

Taking a look at the remote itself, you'll find a handy microphone input on it, meaning you wont have to fumble around the rear of the speakers if you need to get chatting online, as well as a volume dial and dedicated bass dial too. It's a little annoying that Teufel didn't accommodate for a second audio source with another input here, if for instance you wanted to play a handful of tracks back from a mobile phone or MP3 player without firing up your computer.

The Concept D 500 THX's gigantic size gives them the advantage of being able to cram in some suitably large drivers. In the satellites you've got 19mm tweeters for your highs alongside 100mm woofers to hit mid ranges. The subwoofer pumps out from a pair 165mm drivers that, when cranked up to the max through the remote's bass dial, give you lowrider-rivalling levels of heavy bass. As such, you're going want to pair these speakers with decent soundcard; a 3.5mm laptop output isn't going to deliver the best results.

Find the right balance with that potentially over-powering subwoofer however and you're in for a wondrous performance from the Concept D 500 THX speakers, as you'd expect from a set boasting THX certification. The satellites are detailed and crisp, without sounding clinical, and drove the dialogue of Saving Private Ryan over the shells, booms and crack of gunfire from the Omaha Beach assault scene with aplomb. Likewise, you can expect similarly bombastic results if you're a PC gamer. Testing a range of music yielded similarly impressive results. The sample-heavy, summery delights of The Avalanche's Since I Left You album had a delightfully smooth feel, shimmering with the title track's flute hook and condensed vocals, while the faux-vinyl pop of the record's ambience was nearly as good as the real thing. Cranking up the bass a little for Nirvana's In Utero saw Dave Grohl's pummelling drum tracks pound around the room with satisfying snap and kick from the snare, while the high sequels of Scentless Apprentice were no trouble for the satellites. Even at ear-splittlingly loud volume levels, the speakers showed no obvious signs of distortion. Top stuff.

Verdict:

While the jump in sound quality from lower-priced, high-quality rivals to the £449 Concept D 500 speakers may only be audible to a keen audiophile, they remain a superb set of speakers indeed. Their imposing size allows for superb bass response, and a warm, considered tone, even if similar audio delights can be found in cheaper rivals. Provided you've the money and the space to house these sizeable speakers, you won't be disappointed.

Name: Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D

Genre: 3rd Person Shooter / Survival Horror

Platform: Nintendo 3DS

Price: £29.91 from Amazon

Image Gallery: Click here

What would you get if you stripped away the often-rubbish story flak from the most recent Resident Evil games and focussed purely on the baddie-blasting action? Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, that's what. The first truly adults-only game for the 3DS, can a title that began life as bonus game mode stand tall against other entries in the veritable horror series?

Unlocked after beating the superb Resident Evil 4, The Mercenaries was probably the greatest game-completion reward ever devised. A tense survival mode, it distilled Resident Evil 4's core over-the-shoulder shooting gameplay and stripped away any remnants of the story and instead challenged gamers to rack up kills against the clock, earning rewards for hitting high kill streaks and making it to the end of a round without giving up the ghost to the possessed baddies bearing down upon them. It made a welcome return in Resident Evil 5, turning its intricate levels into a series of arena-like maps. Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D could be seen as a compilation of both Mercenaries modes' best bits, with added 3D visuals added to the mix.

While some will undoubtedly bemoan the lack of a story mode, fans of the recent Resident Evil games' killer shooting action shouldn't miss out on The Mercenaries 3D. The tense mixture of quick-fire, risk-reward gameplay in timed rounds is perfect for short bursts of play on the go, with the series' now-signature tight gunplay translating remarkably well here. Guns crack off with a satisfying punch even in this diminutive handheld form, and weaving your way through each map's web-like series of passages and alleyways makes for an experience as tense as that found with any of the console versions. We found the game to be a little more forgiving in terms of difficulty than the console versions though, despite the fact there seemed to be an even greater number of enemies out for our heads. Having said that, unlock the end-game EX missions and you're in for a stomach-churningly tough challenge.

Local offline and online co-operative multiplayer modes are supported with The Mercenaries 3D. It makes the game again substantially easier, and much of the tension of facing a horde of enemies unaided becomes lost. However, it's always good fun to be able to take on monsters with pals, and it's a welcome addition that brought with it no visibly dodgy side effects, such as lag or reduced frame-rates, to the table.

Chasing high scores is as addictive as ever, but the added challenge-based medal and weapon rewards give added depth to what essentially began as a pure arcade mode. As such, each character now has a skill tree that they can upgrade as they play through the game. Three skills can be assigned to each character, offering buffs like raised attack power of health levels, upgraded through 22 levels. Long time fans of the series will be pleased to see quite an eclectic cast of characters playable in The Mercenaries 3D too. Stalwarts such as Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine join six other cast members that include Barry Burton, Albert Wesker and HUNK, who himself was a bonus reward for finishing Resident Evil 2.

It's not only by re-introducing little known characters have Capcom heeded fan's requests for the title, as there are also a number of key gameplay improvements that make the whole experience far slicker than Mercenaries modes have ever been. Once-sluggish movement controls are now improved through the addition of strafe-sidestepping controls, while the messy inventory system of previous titles is made far more streamlined thanks to touchscreen weapon swapping and item selection. Being on your last legs is also a little easier to fix thanks to the ability to quickly heal yourself with a single press of the "A" button, provided you have healing items of course. The last "improvement" may divide fans a little however; while now being able to run and reload at the same time gives you far more breathing space than statically fumbling over cartridges in the console versions, it does take away a little of the strategy and tension that topping up bullets once did.

There's no denying that the 3D visuals are a welcome addition though. Watching gangs of enemies creep ever closer is even more terrifying when they appear to be coming physically closer to the screen, and the effect also helps make it easier to judge whether or not long shots are worth the risk too. In purely artistic terms, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D also represents the current cream of the crop for 3DS games. Chunky character models animate with both smoothness and ferocity, with particularly crunchy animations reserved for the melee attacks and close-quarters finishing moves. While the environments spread over the six missions are a little bleak in terms of their colour pallet, it's totally in keeping with the oppressive atmosphere of the game, and feature highly detailed textures.

Verdict:

Though many thought that the Mercenaries spin-off game couldn't hold its own as a full stand-alone retail release, it turns out that it's exceptionally well suited to mobile play. A few key gameplay improvements over the first versions and superb visuals make this the second must-have 3DS title in as many weeks. Looks like the Nintendo 3DS is finally getting the triple-A games it deserves.

Name: OnBeat (JBL)

Type: iPad / iPod speaker dock

Specs: Click here for full specs

Price: £144.20 from Amazon

Image Gallery: Click here

iPhone/iPod docks are two-a-penny these days, but iPad docks? Even more than a year after the tablet's launch, they're still a relative rarity. JBL's latest speaker dock, the JBL OnBeat, could well be your one-stop-shop dock when it comes to blaring out music from an iOS device, thanks to a dock that supports iPhones, iPods and larger iPad slates. But is it any good? Read on to find out.

The JBL OnBeat has a rather snazzy oval shaped design, with swathes of silver edging and a peppered grille covering the speakers. Available in black or white, from the centre of the dock comes an interchangeable cradle arm. Two brackets (one for iPads and one for iPhones/iPods) are included, snapping easily onto the rotating arm that allows you to pop the iOS units into landscape mode.

While you can technically dock an iPad in landscape mode with the JBL OnBeat, we wouldn't recommend it; the arm seems designed to better distribute weight in a portrait position for iPads, and we'd imagine the arm would weaken over time. Of course, this isn't a problem for lighter iPods and iPhones.

Head around to the back of the OnBeat and you're greeted by the familiar and welcome 3.5mm aux input which will let you hook up practically any audio source that employs a regular headphone jack, as well as a USB port for firmware updates and a composite video output for pumping video content to a big screen.

A small 10-button remote is provided that offers basic playback controls (play, pause, volume up or down, track forwards or backwards, and a few menu navigation controls), and while it works perfectly well with iPods and iPhones, again iPad support causes problems. In this case it's purely down to industrial design; the iPad takes up more room on the front of the speakers, and depending on your angle in relation to the IR sensor for the remote, Apple's tablet may obstruct your remote inputs.

Sonically, the JBL OnBeat packs a punch, but no more than other docks in the £150 range. Mid range frequencies seem to benefit most of all, which leads to a warm sound that, while lacking a little in crispness, helps to prevent the dock from sounding tinny and cheap. Bass is a little lacking overall, and volume levels too high and lower frequencies distort noticeably. Treat the OnBeat then more as a casual player rather than a party centrepiece or audiophile unit and it won't disappoint.

Verdict:

The JBL OnBeat sits at the top of the iPad dock pile, but that's not a particularly hard feat considering how few there currently are on the market. Not being able to place an iPad in landscape mode safely will frustrate users looking to add a little more sonic "oomph" to their tablet movies, but it's a perfectly serviceable unit for iPod and iPhone users. If your dock must be a jack of all trades when it comes to supporting a wide range of Apple products then the JBL OnBeat is for you, otherwise your money will be better spent elsewhere.

Name: in40i wEAR earphones (Jamo)

Type: In-ear earphones

Specs: Click here for full specs

Price: £90

Jamo may be best known for creating top-end home audio speakers and home cinema sets, but this summer sees them branching out into earphone manufacturing too. Made up of three sets including the In20m and In30, we took a look at their wEAR range's premium pair, the wEAR In40i earphones. Can they match the quality that Jamo owners Klipsch's earphones regularly present? Read on to find out.

Jamo's knack for a good looking set of speakers continues here, albeit scaled down, with the Jamo In40i earphones. Available in black or white, we had a look at a white pair, finding the earphone's grey accents to be unassumingly pleasing. Comfort isn't something that really factors often into home speaker design, but Jamo have made a really snug pair here for their first earphone attempt, where comfort really matters. Nice and light, with 4 different sized oval tips to better match all ear shapes, they seal out external sound magnificently, hooking into the ear in a way that lets you almost forget that they are there.

Packaged with a small and functional nylon carry case, you've got about 132cm of white cabling to play around with, with a 3 button in-line mic/remote combo sitting a quarter of the way down from the ear buds. Designed specifically for Apple iPod players and iPhones, it'll let you skip tracks, answer calls, pause music and adjust volume without reaching into your pocket for your iDevice, and is positioned sensibly enough to be able to see the buttons should you forget which one controls what. It'll also work in a more limited way with other phone brands, letting you pause tracks and answer and end calls. The mic itself performed well, keeping voice intelligible and picking up only marginal ambient sound, making it a viable headset for handsfree callers.

In terms of sound, we were initially a little disappointed with the In40i earphones. They seemed flat and flabby, lacking the detail necessary to command a £90 price tag. However, given a few hours longer than usual to warm up the wEAR In40i earphones began to flourish.

Though hardly lacking in bass, the earphones sit a little further towards the brighter end of the sound scale, leading to a crisp and defined sound, particularly well suited to classical tracks and getting clear dialogue on top of film soundtracks. Cranking them up for the scuzzy sounds of garage rockers The Von Bondies' Pawn Shoppe Heart album, the earphones proved just as well balanced, with the wiry guitars blending well with the bass tracks and slap of the drums. Heading over to the 8-bit electro beats of the second Crystal Castles album and again the clear detailed tones shined through, handling the sharp, sparse production with distortion-free high frequencies, sounding just as great as the blues-y rock that proceeded it. The dual magnet driver design is certainly put to good use here, once given the chance to settle in a little.

Verdict:

A stellar first effort from the Klipsch subsidiary, the Jamo In40i earphones are very nearly a match for the superb Image X10i set from Klipsch themselves, despite costing less than half the price. Comfortable and light, with a warm, balanced sound if you're patient enough to wait out an initially rough couple of hours, they'll please all but the most anal of audiophiles.

Name: Hunted: The Demon's Forge

Genre: Third-person action adventure

Platform: Xbox 360 (reviewed), PS3, PC

Price: £29.99 from Amazon on Xbox 360
£29.99 from Amazon on PS3
£20.45 from Amazon on PC

Image Gallery: Click here

What would you get if you crossed Lord of the Rings with Gears of War? Something a lot like Hunted: The Demon's Forge, probably. A fantasy epic with cover-based combat mechanics and a heavy lean towards co-op play, it's quite the unique adventure. But is it a memorable one? Read on to find out.

Despite its sword and sorcery stylings, Hunted for the most part actually plays more like Uncharted or Gears of War than Oblivion or Demon's Souls. You'll take the role of one of two mercenaries, the muscle-bound baldy Caddoc or scantily-clad elven huntress E'lara. Initially out to line their pockets, the two become deeply involved in events of potentially world-destroying significance, and end up having to mow down an army's worth of orcs, giant spiders and other demonic beasties by using cover-based mechanics.

The intention behind the dual-character set-up is that each has specific strengths and weaknesses. Caddoc is supposedly more skilled at close-combat melee attacks, dealing and taking more damage, but also moving more slowly than his companion. E'lara on the other hand focusses on ranged combat with a bow and is faster, but is also slightly weaker. However, as both have access to ranged and melee attacks, it more or less only leads to aesthetic differences in play styles. Caddoc's specialisation could even be considered the weaker of the pair, considering that the game's damage-enhancing skill tree opens up over-powered ranged magical attacks to both characters later on in the game.

Having said that, the overall combat is good fun. Melee attacks can err a little too heavily towards button mashing, but using a bow to headshot a goblin 50 feet away is a joy you won't experience anywhere else in gaming at the moment.

In an attempt at Diablo-style loot hoarding, downing most foes will give you new weapons to wield. Despite being a mostly linear, chapter based game, there still are plenty of excellent side quests and puzzles hidden within each level that are an equally good source of new weapons too. It's a shame then that there is very little differentiation between all the available gear. You'll likely find yourself finding one decent weapon and more or less sticking with it until the end-game high-end weaponry reveals itself. Even weapons infused with magical abilities are a little pointless as their powers deplete so quickly.

Though Hunted revolves around a heavily clichéd "end of the kingdom" storyline (and far too often embarrassingly gets its kicks out of a little elven side-boob) the relationship between Caddoc and E'lara, central to the game, is actually quite a good one. Despite appearances, the hefty Caddoc is the more grounded of the pair, weighing up the odds before wading into a fight, while E'lara is feisty and reckless. At times they make a genuinely loveable comedy duo thanks to some solid voice acting, at least when they're not weighed down by an overly predictable fantasy script.

It's a good job that the scripted relationship between the pair is strong, for if you're playing alone with just an AI partner for company you're likely to find their behaviour too infuriating to like otherwise. Though the difficulty of the campaign in single player is actually quite low thanks to the heavy beating your partner can take before falling, your AI companion never fails to act stupidly. Playing as Caddoc during a particularly tricky sequence involving a minotaur-like guard about halfway through the game, I died at the feet of my computer-controlled assistant, despite E'lara being fully stocked with health-refilling potions.

In this respect then Hunted is best played in co-operative modes. Both offline split screen and online modes are supported, but a disappointing lack of drop-in drop-out play means you'd better have a pal ready for the long haul or you'll spend a long time waiting for a fellow adventurer in online lobbies.

The game comes into its own in co-op though. The difficulty ramps up and you'll have to work an effective partnership to lure and defeat the many foes. Some of the game's more obtuse puzzles also open themselves up satisfyingly with an extra pair of eyes on the screen, though an overall lack of graphical polish and a strict adherence to established fantasy aesthetics leave the game a little wanting visually.

It's a reasonably lengthy adventure, and one that will easily extend beyond the 12 hour mark for those who want to uncover all the game's secrets. There's also a challenge mode called The Crucible, which also acts as a "lite" level editor for those who cant get enough of Hunted's combat systems.

Verdict:

The overall idea behind Hunted is a strong one; take the best elements of cover shooters and brawlers, and then give them a fantasy make-over with a few dungeon crawling sensibilities thrown in. Execution however is the problem here; an over-reliance on fantasy clichés harm the script, while the odd technical issue both graphically and in terms of AI mar the experience. Lots of fun can be had in co-op mode where the game is at its strongest, and there's an interesting relationship between Caddoc and E'lara once you cut away the fluff. It's worth a rental and maybe even a purchase if you're a big co-op fan, though we'd like to see a fair bit more refinement should a sequel ever arrive.

Name: Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium Edition

Type: PC dictation and speech recognition software

Software System Requirements: Click here

Price: £149.99







Just as the clickity-clackity sound of the humble typewriter was superseded by the tip-tap of the PC keyboard, could we soon replace even this staple PC accessory with merely the power of our voices? That's more-or-less the idea behind the Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium speech recognition software from Nuance, offering advanced dictation and hands-free PC navigation controls. Is it time to unplug your keyboard and warm up your vocal chords? Read on to find out.

Speech recognition software on the PC is nothing new; it's been built into the Windows OS for years, and saw a marked improvement with the advent of Windows 7. However few have been as fully featured or as sensitively designed as Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Premium, holding your hand while you comfortably make the transition from keyboard controls to dictation input. That's not to say your keyboard is totally obsolete upon installing NaturallySpeaking, but when using typing commands sparingly in conjunction with Nuance's voice recognition software, you're likely to see markedly faster text entry speeds.

While you can use the software straight out of the box, going through the 15 minute initial set-up process is recommended. By selecting your age, geographic location, accent (if you have one) and by reading a short test passage aloud into the supplied mic/headset combo, the accuracy of your dictated pieces should be as high as 99%. Alternatively you can sync a profile from a previous edition of the software, which will allow you to bypass the initial clunky stages of the software as it adjusts to your speech patterns. You can also allow the software to trawl your emails and stored documents to better prepare itself for your personal style of speech and writing.

99% accuracy may be a little bit of an exaggeration, but the software managed to keep up with my dulcet cockney tones surprisingly well. What surprised me however was how quickly the software adapted to my speech and the corrections I made to the resulting text. My first extended session with the software saw me going from having to make a correction every sentence or so to barely a change every paragraph, with most corrections down to odd punctuation mistakes rather than wordings. NaturallySpeaking 11 manages to adapt more quickly than previous versions by tracking not only vocal corrections, but those you manually type in too.

However, the way in which Dragon Naturally Speaking uses this new correction-logging feature can be a little over-zealous at times. For instance, there was a moment during testing that required writing a piece that made use of the word "Museum" as a capitalised proper noun. After correcting the un-capitalised word once, the software always capitalised the word museum, no matter what the context, which was quite frustrating.

The Premium version of NaturallySpeaking 11 is compatible with not only all the major Windows Office programs, such as Word, Outlook, Excel and Internet Explorer, but also Gmail, Google Docs, Facebook, Twitter, OpenOffice and to a lesser extent almost every other application that makes use of basic text entry.

Of course with so many different possible actions across so many applications, it can be a pain memorising all the different voice commands to control them with. With previous version of NaturallySpeaking you'd have to constantly refer to a quick reference card supplied with the software. While a physical reference card is still supplied, the software now has a revamped UI that includes a right-hand bar of commonly used commands appropriate to the software package you're currently voice-controlling. Having them constantly onscreen is very useful, but they aren't context sensitive, instead displayed as a scrollable list of commands. It'd be great if this toolbar was more dynamic, for instance only showing the relevant commands to saving and filing a document when you're in the process of carrying out that task.

Having this command list constantly on show is particularly useful when using the software to navigate a PC, as some of these voice activated commands aren't quite as obvious as when using word processors or web browsers. Calling up the 3x3 mouse grid to navigate the desktop isn't all that intuitive, making browsing the desktop feel more like playing a game of battleship. For those with accessibility issues or a disability that prevents comfortable mouse use, having the feature will be very welcome, but we can't help feel Nuance could have made this feature a little more intuitive.

Verdict:

While precision typists will turn their noses up at NaturallySpeaking 11, there's no denying that the software has unrivalled accuracy. The way it adapts to your speech patterns over time is remarkable, and even those with heavy accents will see good results. While some of the more advanced PC navigation controls are a little convoluted, the tired fingers of typists will approve of the software's many excellent dictation features.

Name: Livescribe Echo smartpen

Type: Smartpen with built-in audio recorder and digital note taking functionality

Software System Requirements and Specifications: Click here

Price: From £99.99 (subject to built-in storage size)

A significant step up from a trusty old Bic, the Livescribe Echo smartpen takes note taking to a whole new level by allowing you to sync audio to your scribbles and send them all over the web in just a few simple steps. But can it achieve results any more accurate than a fast hand and attentive ear couldn't manage just as well with a humble biro? Read on to find out.

Whether you're a seasoned journalist carrying out a career-making interview, or a fresh-faced undergraduate sitting in on your first university lecture, the accuracy of note-taking can make or break you. Whether it's down to poor handwriting or an inability to keep up with the information being thrown your way, it's almost always impossible to catch everything. Or at least it is if you're using a standard pen and dictaphone combination. The Livescribe Echo smartpen range is both of these items and much, much more, pulling your scribbles slap-bang up to date with 21st century tech.

Available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB sizes, Livescribe Echo smartpens are a fair bit chunkier than your average biro, and as a result take some getting used to before you're writing as fluently as you usually would. This is easily forgiven though considering the onboard storage and inclusion of a microphone audio recorder, built directly into the pen, as well as a 96x18 pixel OLED screen for browsing stored audio files, a 3.5mm headphone jack for listening back to recordings directly from the pen with a pair of headphones and the microUSB port on the flat end used for transferring files and powering the rechargeable battery.

But these additions are hardly the most impressive elements of the Echo pens. Making use of a supplied dot-paper pad, each Livescribe Echo smartpen also features a tiny infra-red camera near its tip that also records the exact handwritten notes that you are taking, making them available as a digital file. Thing get really special when used in conjunction with the afore-mentioned audio-recorder; syncing your notes and recordings with the Livescribe's software lets you view them combined as "pencasts", interactive pages that show your notes and the exact audio being recorded as they were written. Simply taking the pen and taping on your handwritten notes then allows you to clarify specific audio clips saved at that precise time of writing, meaning you can write one thing and still keep an exact note of what you may have missed being said at the moment you were frantically scribbling a separate thought.

It's a superb idea that ensures your notes can be doubly accurate, preventing you from missing the nuances of speech or atmosphere that a hastily hand-written note can. It also lets you focus more on what's actually being said to you; take only minimal notes during the interview, meeting or lecture, sync the audio being recorded and then play it back later on, fleshing out your notes and continuing to add to the real-time pencast at a latter hour.

This concept has already been used impressively in the earlier Livescribe Pulse smartpen range, but the inclusion of a £100 entry-level model here makes the new units far more affordable for the student population among those most likely to benefit from its usage.

The Livescribe Echo range however also comes with an updated software suite. You can now create a standard PDF of a pencast compatible with Adobe Reader 10, and email it to pals using Adobe's SendNow function. "Launchline" features, like hand-written gesture controls, let you scribble lines back and forth across the special dot pages, and write a command above them that will then be carried out by the pen as soon as it is synced. Setting up "Launchline" shortcuts therefore can see your files instantly shared to specific email contacts, or turned into a Google Docs page, or an Evernote note, or even shared among all your Facebook pals if you so desire, the next time you sync the pen.

It's a great product, but not completely without fault. Firstly, as we previously mentioned, its size is a little unwieldy (158mm long, 19.7mm at its widest point and weighing 36 grams). You wouldn't want to be writing out a lengthy novel with one of these things, but that's not the point here anyway we suppose. The microphone also too often picked up the scratchy sound of our note jotting whilst in quieter recording situations.

Getting hold of the dotted pads could also potentially be a cause of frustration for those who don't conserve page space when writing. While these pads are only marginally more expensive than everyday stationary (a four-pack of A5 notebooks will set you back no more than £15, and you've always got the alternative of printing off your own dot-paper if you have a 600dpi Postscript colour printer) , we still wish they'd figured out a way of getting the pens to work with regular paper, if only for the sake of convenience. You're unlikely to find these special notepads on the highstreet if you misplace one at an inopportune time.

Verdict:

The Livescribe Echo is a niche product if ever we've seen one. If you're just into making quick doodles in a pad while out and about or looking to keep a personal diary, this tech filled pen is almost certainly surplus to your requirements. However, for students, journalists or those who often have to take precise notes from situations like conferences or meetings, it's an absolutely invaluable tool that will make your quotations and scribbles more accurate than you could possibly manage using traditional methods.

Name: Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale

Genre: Dungeon crawler

Platform: Xbox 360 XBLA

Price: 1200 MS Points on Xbox 360 XBLA

Image Gallery: Click here

The Dungeons and Dragons franchise returns to consoles in the form of Daggerdale, a new dungeon crawler from Atari available as a download-only title. The genre's had a bit of a renaissance of sorts with recent greats Torchlight and Deathspank delivering in spades while the world waits patiently for the launch of Diablo 3. So, is it worth dusting off your digital 12 sided dice for Daggerdale, or are tabletop gaming fans better off sticking to their pen and paper pursuits?

The first new Dungeons and Dragons title since 2007, Daggerdale uses the 4th Edition rule set that instructs the tabletop RPG games. Many gamers won't notice this at all, as the hack and slash gameplay on offer here on the surface seems more akin to a button-bashing brawler, but the reality is that behind the scenes there is a fair bit of number crunching deciding the damage dealt by your sword blows.

After opening with a generic story outlining the world of Daggerdale being threatened by a suitably evil force, you then choose from one of four classes (Halfling Wizard, Elven Rogue, Human Fighter or Dwarven Cleric), assign a few initial skills that are mapped to the controller's trigger and face buttons, and head on out into the world.

Anyone who has played a dungeon crawler before will find Daggerdale instantly familiar. Too familiar in fact; the rote mission structure of defeating hordes of baddies, casting spells, collecting loot, levelling up and improving skills is a path well trodden. This would be totally fine were Daggerdale to deliver a polished experience, with the mindless grind and loot hoarding actually part of the appeal of dungeon crawlers. But this download-only title is anything but polished.

It's been a while since I've played a title with as many game-breaking bugs as Daggerdale. Take this particular quest for example, found quite early on in the game; a distraught dwarf asked me to take out a wave of nasty undead foes in a mine, and return to him for a reward when 10 had been killed. I set off to follow the map marker and find the first five baddies and slay them, Gimli style. I then wait for the map marker to update and show me the next location for the rest of my targets. They never appeared. I ran around for 45 minutes searching for the remaining foes to realise that the game had failed to spawn them and that a full restart was needed.

This was just one of many problems. Using the Halfling Wizard's transportation-like "Blink" power often left me stuck in environmental scenery, or strangely fused with passing goblin foes; screen tearing happens at almost every turn, as does characters getting stuck out of sight thanks to the appalling camera; textures pop in and out, and the frame rate chugs at a pace slower than a half-cut ogre's wit. Graphically its a passable effort, with textures and level design at best inoffensive and at worst completely bland, while audio design features some totally bizarre choices; no-one wants to equip a weapon that creates a continuous, brain-numbing humming noise, no matter how magical it is, do they?

If any real fun is to be had with Daggerdale, it's with its co-operative modes. Up to four players can quest together online, while local 2-player co-op, so often omitted in these days of online play, is a welcome inclusion. Playing with pals adds some life to the uninspired quest and level design, and it's always a laugh to have a pal at hand to share in the fun of ripping on a game that's often laughably bad.

Verdict:

Despite having the full force of the Dungeons and Dragons name behind it, Daggerdale falls at almost every hurdle. Riddled with more bugs than an unwashed dwarf's beard, its one saving grace is the half-decent co-operative multiplayer options. Both Torchlight and the Deathspank series do what's on offer here far better. Grab those instead if you're in need of a dungeon crawling fix on consoles, though PC owners would do much better simply by biding their time for Diablo 3.

Name: DiRT 3

Genre: Rally driving sim

Platform: Xbox 360 (reviewed), PS3, PC

Price: £28.89 from Amazon on Xbox 360
£28.99 from Amazon on PS3
£27.89 from Amazon on PC

While hurtling around a narrow country lane in a rally car would fill me with utter terror in real life, everything about doing it in DiRT 3 makes burning rubber while caked in mud a total thrill. DiRT 2 was a fine game when it was released in 2009, but with all the added content on show in this sequel, it's quickly obvious that this is far more than just an incremental update.

Of course a driving game lives or dies by the quality of its in-car handling, and DiRT 3 totally nails this crucial fundamental. Cars bounce along the bumpy roads with an excellent feel for suspension, as well as dynamic feedback supplied by the rumble helping you judge just when your car may be about to lose control. Each car is pitch-perfectly weighted, with noticeable improvements between the entry-level cars and more desirable higher-tier vehicles you later unlock.

Rally games are notoriously tough, and just like previous DiRT games, DiRT 3 can be a real challenge to master for beginners. Thankfully, the game pops in all manner of helpful assisting functions that allow players of all abilities to enjoy what's on offer. From the "Flashback" rewind controls that let you go back in time and re-take a poor corner, to more direct handling assists, as well as tips from your male or female co-driver, even those with no prior experience with rally games stand a fighting chance. There's even a brand new driving line function, familiar to fans of Forza or Gran Turismo, that shows you just precisely where the best route through a track is. All these additions are of course optional, giving more seasoned players a gruelling challenge if they're up for it.

The majority of the single-player mode is made up of the DiRT Tour, which comprises four seasons across a variety of disciplines. Whilst each season must be completed in turn, the many races and challenges within can be faced in any order. All manner of off-road pursuits must be mastered, from rally cross to trailblazer across 100+ tracks. Add in reverse runs and the significantly different challenge of driving at night time or while bombarded by all manner of weather conditions and there is an immense amount of content to get through here.

Racing for different teams in the DiRT Tour unlocks a variety of different bonuses in the form of reputation points that give you access to greater challenges and better vehicles. There are over 50 vehicles to play about with including the new Ford Focus, and while customisation options take a back seat this time around, you're still able to tweak and tinker with many tuning settings for your cars.

Those looking for a challenge that's less about point-to-point racing and more about show-boating will find much fun to be had with the gymkhana mode. These are like assault courses for cars, where you pick up points for clearing jumps, doing wheel spins and donuting around cones. It seems a daunting exercise at first, but superb tutorials hold your hand through all the skills you'll need to succeed.

The influence of this thrilling and zany new mode can be found in online multiplayer too. While there are all the regular race modes you would expect online, there are also innovative party modes, including an infection/tag mode that sees the last man not to be hit by an infected car (turning the whole screen a deathly colour) crowned the winner.

It's also the first in the DiRT series to feature split-screen local multiplayer, which completely matches the performance of the single player mode despite the added strain of two players racing simultaneously. It's a mode too often overlooked these days, and there is still an undeniably more satisfying thrill to beating a real-life competitor sat in the very same room as you.

All this is presented in an incredibly slick way. From the geometric menus that fly from car wheels before each race to the damage incurred by the realistic car models, Dirt 3 is stunning. Rain reflections, falling snow, scrapes and bumps all add to the gritty feel of the game, totally in-line with the nature of the sport, while tracks themselves, dotted liberally with fleeing spectators, are so lovingly recreated that you'll wish you weren't flying through them at 100Mph. This attention to detail is carried over into the sound design; each car has it's own audio quirks, but all roar into life satisfyingly as they tear around the courses on offer.

Verdict:

DiRT 3 may have dropped Colin McRae's name from the title, but his memory lives on and with some style here. DiRT 3 refines upon its predecessor in almost every way. Catering for skilled and casual drivers in equal measure, it's a visually gorgeous ride with enough innovative multiplayer options to keep you playing long after the single-player career has ended.

Name: EH-TW5500 (Epson)

Type: Full HD DLP Projector

Specs: Click here for full specs

Price: £749.99

BenQ surprised everyone with the quality of their W1000 projector when it launched in the back end of 2009. Offering superb picture quality for under a grand, it practically single-handedly redefined the the word "value" when it came to home cinema projectors. The BenQ W1000+ is something of a sequel then, refining the features of the first model and slashing the price to an even more attractive low. Is it another bargain offering?

First things first; the BenQ W1000+ isn't much of a looker. Though the "white with silver accents" design in theory should look good, in practice it's a very cheap-looking box, with ugly ventilation strips on the side and sticky control buttons on the top. Focus and horizontal picture-shift dials sit just behind the square lens housing, with this deep recess doing little to help the projector's already messy stylings. It's much better served by its connectivity options however, packing in two HDMIs, D-Sub PC port, component video port, and USB/RS-232 control ports; far more than you'd expect at this price range.

Thankfully, the looks department is one of the only places where the W1000+ betrays its budget price bracket. Capable of throwing full 1080p images out at a maximum size of 300 inches, the W1000+ is capable of superb images despite its bargain labelling.

That's mostly thanks to the refined colour wheel used here. Though the original W1000 projector was a fine offering, it did suffer greatly from the dreaded "rainbow effect" (causing solid stripes of red, green and blue to appear) that many cheaper projectors fall foul of. With a significant speed boost and freshly optimised waveform software in the colour wheel employed here, the BenQ W1000+ has all but eliminated this unsightly problem.

The image improvements over the W1000 model don't stop with the reduced "rainbow effect" either. Colour temperature is markedly better, while the contrast ratio jumps from 3,000:1 to 3,500:1. Upon initially firing up the projector things can look a bit of a mess, but the W1000+ offers fairly robust image tweaking options. Though you're only able to tweak three preset settings (Cinema, Dynamic and Standard) before delving into the advanced menus, doing so gives you full control over minute colour detail, colour temperature, gamma and white balance controls.

Black levels are strong, with the W1000+ retaining great detail even in murkier scenes, with white levels equally vibrant. Black and white images were the worst perpetrators of the "rainbow effect", though in no way as severely noticeable as with similarly priced projectors. Colours, once fine-tuned, can be reassuringly realistic too, though red levels remained stubbornly dominant. For once, we'd encourage using the Brilliant Colour mode: though it can initially be overwhelmingly vibrant to the point of being unrealistic, use the menu screens to tone it down and you'll get a surprisingly punchy image. Fast-paced action scenes do little to rock the projectors motion capabilities too remaining relatively judder-free through a Blu-ray screening of The Watchmen. Overall, full HD images retained a clarity and sharpness rarely seen in projectors that break the £1,000 mark, let alone one that sits some £250 below it.

The projector even comes with a 3W built-in speaker. Now, a 3W speaker is of course in no way a fitting match for an epic movie screening. But in keeping with the projector's budget charms, it does make the W1000+ a far more portable prospect, allowing for modest audio playback if you're to bring this unit around to a pal's house, without the need to lug an audio system around with you too.

Our main quibble come with the auto-keystone functionality. The projector failed to find the natural oblong shape of our 16:9 source material on a flat wall perfectly parallel to the lens. It took an age to reposition the projector and manually tweak the keystone settings before the image was taper-free. Likewise, the 1.2x optical zoom and a lack of an optical vertical lens shift meant positioning the image was far more difficult than it should have been.

Verdict:

At a penny shy of £750, the BenQ W1000+ is an absolute steal. Building significantly upon its already-rather-good W1000 predecessor, the W1000+ offers full HD cinema thrills at a price so competitive it's likely to get the more expensive projector manufacturers quaking in their overpriced boots. While the keystone function and optical zoom range leave a little to be desired, the picture quality is far better than the value-price tag would lead you to believe. An excellent purchase then for the budding home theatre enthusiast.

As we approach the end of another busy week at Shiny Towers, we thought we'd earned ourselves a little back rub to soothe the muscles and ease the tension that only continuously blogging about gadgest and gizmos brings.

Here we take a look at the Home Creation's Electric Massage Chair, currently on a limited £149.99 offer from Aldi.

It boasts 6 different body points of massage, 10 levels of intensity, 10 massage modes and a heating function too, but is it really better than just sitting on the back of a bumpy bus ride?

Hit the video above to find out.

Name: Xperia Play (Sony Ericsson)

Type: Android Gingerbread smartphone with slide-out gaming controls

Specifications: Click here for full specs

Price: RRP £599.99 SIM-free

Image Gallery: Click here

After months, years even, of rumours of a mythical "PSP Phone" Sony Ericsson finally revealed the PlayStation-certified Xperia play at MWC 2011.With the handset finally touching down in the US this week, even more gamers will be able to get some Android/PlayStation hybrid action very soon. But can the Xperia Play live up to the expectations years' worth of whispers have left it with, or will it suffer the same sorry fate as Nokia's N-Gage gaming/mobile crossover?

There's no denying that the Xperia Play is a lot chunkier than we've come to expect modern smartphones to be. At 16mm thick and weighing 175g, it leaves an undesirable bulge in your trouser pocket that may well raise a few eyebrows on a cramped commute to work. The actual design of the phone however, with its silver curves and sharp 480x854 4-inch touchscreen is actually rather pleasant overall.

Its extra heft is not without good reason though; where many phones would house a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, the Xperia Play instead places a set of gaming controls. Featuring full PlayStation certification, you get a digital directional pad, Start and Select keys, two shoulder buttons, two touch sensitive thumb nubs to mimic analogue sticks and the Triangle, Circle, Cross and Square buttons so familiar to fans of Sony's gaming consoles. Though the flat thumb pads take some getting used to, all buttons are well spread out and comfortably placed; you could tap away at these controls without strain for a good few hours.

Which is a good thing, as gaming is obviously high on the agenda for the Xperia Play. Though running the Gingerbread build of Android, Sony Ericsson have made a fair few tweaks in order to make this a hybrid gaming/mobile machine, though it's a serviceable experience at best. Sliding out the controls instantly fires up the "Xperia Play" app, which is where things quickly get fragmented and confusing.

Firstly, a note on the games themselves. The Xperia Play has a handful of dedicated titles, designed specifically for use with its unique controls, ported versions of Android games that now make use of the slide-out buttons, as well as playing regular touchscreen Android games and retro PlayStation One titles optimised for the Xperia Play.

The problem is, there is no centralised store to buy them from. Depending on the game you want to purchase through the Xperia Play app, you could be re-directed to the Android Market, with purchases made through Google Checkout, or developer game store pages in the browser as is the case with Gameloft titles, which use two further payment methods to buy games; the ubiquitous PayPal or less-well known Payforit, which adds the price of the game to your monthly phone bill. Try to purchase an old-skool PS1 game and you then need yet another app, called "PlayStation Pocket" which confusingly only re-directs you back to the Android Market store anyway. To make matters worse, browsing the Android store for Xperia Play games often leads to you finding little or no differentiation between Xperia Play optimised versions of previously available Android games and their standard touch versions; it's incredibly easy to download a game thinking it's ready to be used with your new control scheme only to find you've mistakenly bought the wrong version.

This fragmentation could easily have been fixed with a dedicated Xperia Play games store that collected all the appropriate games in one place and used a single payment method, but as it stands it's all a bit of a mess.

Should you manage to build up a decent catalogue of games after jumping through so many different stores' hoops, navigating your library then becomes a chore too. The "Xperia Play" app is split between two confusingly titled areas called "Xperia Play Games" and "More Games", both scrolling to show thumbnails of available titles. Though you may not have realised, "Xperia Play Games" refers to the area where your purchased games are stored, while "More Games" brings you to the fragmented purchasing system we detailed above. Would it not have been simpler to just call them "My Games" and "Game Store", or something similar? Entering into the "Xperia Play Games" section isn't much fun either, as there is no way to organise your library, nor any way to sort games between those which are designed for the Xperia Play's controls and those that are just touch-focussed titles.

When you finally get playing, there's no denying the Xperia Play can be fun to use. Despite only sporting a 1GHz processor, games play smoothly. Pre-installed games like Star Batalion and Bruce Lee Dragon Warriors are a good laugh, and you can still get a kick out of old PS1 games like Crash Bandicoot. Even battery life is impressive, with continued gaming capable on average for around the five and a half hour mark from our tests. The problem is, even if you disregard aged PS1 games (present here as much for nostalgia's as gameplay's sake) most of the Xperia Play catalogue looks a bit rough. It's certainly no match for the recently released Nintendo 3DS, or even the original PSP, or iPhone games like Infinity Blade in terms of visuals. Games are expensive too, and £4 for a copy of Cool Boarders 2 that has been so badly ported that it still asks me to save to a PS1 memory card is a joke. Which begs the question; why would anyone chose the Xperia Play over cheaper, superior alternatives?

Arguably, as it's a smartphone too. But so is the iPhone 4, and it's again a superior alternative with top notch games on offer. That's not to say the Xperia Play, as a mobile phone, is not without merit though. As an Android Gingerbread phone you still get four physical back, Menu, Home and Search buttons, as well as 3.5mm headphone socket as handy for gaming here as playing music, a USB port for charging or data transfer and a microSD slot too, useful for storing the sizeable games, as well as a lock button that we found a little too easy to press mid-game.

Sony Ericsson's re-skinning of the Gingerbread OS is actually rather good here. The company's previous UI attempts have been atrocious, but here they bring some welcome additions. As well as being visually quite arresting with its blue colour scheme and translucent windows, you get the ability to drag-and-drop apps on top of each other to make folders, as well as pinching the screen to see an exploded view of all five of the phone's homescreens at once, which makes navigation nice and simple. With the UI now standing alone from the core Android experience, owners of the Xperia Play should also be able to get timely updates for the operating system, as Sony Ericsson will not have to tweak as much at their end first.

Though the 1GHz processor seemed fine for games, it doesn't work so well with the Timescape widgets however. These "live" sections of the phone can be used to get a quick glance at status updates from social networks and your email inbox among other things, but are so CPU intensive as to grind the phone to a halt at times.

A solid 5.1 MP camera sits on the back, that we found took crisp, bold images, with a camera UI very easy to get the best shots from. Video recording mode is a little less impressive, with often blurry results, but it holds its own with the majority of cameraphone recording options. Oh, and did we mention that it makes calls too? Well the Xperia Play does. In fact, it's one of the few areas where the phone performs consistently, with no dropped calls and clear audio quality throughout our testing period.

Verdict:

On paper, the Xperia Play sounds like a master-stroke of device covergance, branding and usability, but in practice, it leaves a lot to be desired. While the chunky size necessitated by the controls would be more than justified if the gaming aspects lived up to expectations, it's nowhere near as slick an experience as a dedicated handheld console. And while it performs fairly well as a smartphone, it's hamstrung by its size and the premium price its novel design results in. Though there is still potential for Sony Ericsson to turn around the system's failings with software updates, it may be too little, too late for the legions of fans who have waited years for the fabled PSP phone to arrive. Ambitious, but ultimately highly flawed.

Name: Cloud Touch (INQ)

Type: Android Froyo smartphone

Specifications: Click here for full specs

Price: £239.99 SIM-free

INQ's Cloud Touch smartphone takes bare-bones Android Froyo and packs it full of Facebook widgets, a pre-installed Spotify app and an intriguing Wi-Fi hotspot database. Is the budget-friendly Cloud Touch bolstered by these additions, or bloated to bursting point?

Though available in less-garish black and white hues too, the INQ Cloud Touch's red-casing variant, so removed from the usually demure look of Android devices, seems the one best suited to its particular take on the smartphone scene. Perfectly pocketable with a 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen, it's doing things slightly differently by leading with a heavily customised version of Android Froyo, putting Facebook and the cloud-music service Spotify front-and-centre.

The Facebook elements of the Cloud Touch come in the shape of a live widget that takes up the majority of the main homescreen. Signing into both Google and Facebook accounts when you first boot up the phone, the widget constantly throws the latest updates and images from your Facebook contacts to the centre of your homescreen, ready to be checked with a glance or replied to within a few presses. Events, Notifications, People and Places tabs at the top of the screen can then be used to delve deeper into to the social network. The phone also uses Facebook's Social Graph Data to highlight your five most contacted pals, meaning you don't have to trawl lengthy lists to get to the friend you need quickly.

All in, it's an intuitive and slick design, taking many of its cues from the look of the Facebook web version to make it as familiar as possible. It wont be for everyone, but Facebook fans need never fumble for a dedicated Facebook app again with the Cloud Touch. Up to five homescreens can be used and customised in the regular Android way, removing the Facebook elements altogether if you chose, but that would totally undermine the point of buying the INQ Cloud Touch.

Spotify, the music streaming service currently causing record executives the world over headaches is unusually the default player of choice here. If you're a regular reader of Tech Digest you'll already know that we adore Spotfiy. For £9.99 a month, it gives you unlimited access to millions of songs, accessible anywhere where you have a data connection, as well as letting you download playlists for offline playback. It has a great user friendly UI, and over the course of its short life has been improved to allow locally stored tracks to be included in your personal Spotify library, making it a true iTunes-beater. You can use the app for free too if you just want access to your own locally stored tracks, or use an entirely different music player with the INQ Cloud Touch if you so choose, but we think Spotify is well worth the monthly investment for its full feature list.

As well as packing three backlit soft-touch buttons (Menu, Back and a Home key that takes it's inspiration from the INQ logo) the Cloud Touch also sports two unusual hardware buttons. First up is a dedicated Spotify button that sits on the lower-right edge of the phone. Long pressing this fires up the app, while short presses pause and play tracks. If you're a paid-up Spotify fan it's a welcome addition, but if you favour a different music player this button becomes pretty much useless as it is only compatible with Spotify.

More useful is the Info button found on the left hand side of the device which, as its name suggests, fires up a screen packed with info on your phone's current state. Here you'll find handy colour-coded stats on connectivity, volume profiles, battery life, alarms, storage space and more, including a nifty tab for checking how many minutes worth of music playback you'll be able to squeeze out of the phone before your next recharge. We found this a particularly quick and easy way to micromanage our use of the Cloud Touch, and would be a welcome addition on many menu-heavy smartphones.

The Info screen also has a dedicated area for Wi-Fi management, particularly useful as INQ have introduced a novel Wi-Fi hotspot database. The Cloud Touch not only logs Wi-Fi networks you've used in the past, but their GPS location as well. The smartphone will switch on and off its Wi-Fi connectivity dependant on whether or not it can find any GPS data on Wi-Fi networks you've connected to in that locality in the past. Any open hotspots you've used will then be added to a database that other INQ Cloud Touch users can also tap into. It's a smart, battery saving idea for those who don't closely monitor their power-sapping connections, but as GPS connectivity itself can be a fairly big drain on your power levels too, having to leave that connection constantly on seems to undermine the point of the feature. You can of course manually manage the Wi-Fi settings as well.

While an acquired taste, the INQ Cloud Touch gets a lot right on the software front. With the budget price firmly in mind, it's the hardware side of things then that inevitably let the phone down.

First off is the screen itself. Though bright, its HVGA (320 x 480 pixels) display wasn't very sharp, leading some text to be a little fuzzy and leaving a few colourful apps a little muted. The 600MHz processor onboard too is showing its age in this era of dual-core phones, and while navigating the Cloud Touch was speedy enough, opening large PDF files or playing back video was a little sluggish.

In a nice touch, the 5MP rear camera can be fired up from the phone's lock screen (by dragging its icon to the unlocking position), but you're unlikely to get much joy from the images it produces. Though touting auto-focus, it's a hit-or-miss affair at best, failing to identify the focal point of most of our frames. Low light shooting is particularly poor, with no flash to aid the detail-lacking snaps. We're grateful that a phone with such strong social networking credentials allows you to post the images to Twitter and Facebook straight from the camera UI, though you may be a little embarrassed with what the phone manages to capture.

Lastly, battery life isn't great too. Despite INQs attempts to intelligently switch off power-hungry services, you'll be unlikely to squeeze a working day out of the Cloud Touch with even only moderate use. In this respect perhaps the Facebook-focus is a double-edged sword; the phone encourages continued use of its data and Wi-Fi connections through its constant stream of Facebook notifications, with your interactions in turn hardly giving the phone a moment's rest. That's sure to test the life of any smartphone battery we suppose, but the Cloud Touch's "always-socially-connected" emphasis seems to actively encourage battery-draining practices.

Verdict:

If you're a total Facebook addict with a Spotify premium account, the INQ Cloud Touch will likely tick many of the boxes you're after from a smartphone purchase. It's affordable and, while by no means jaw-dropping in terms of specs, quite uniquely styled compared to the de rigueur black squares most phones look like. Having said that, if you're just after a cheap Android fix and don't care much for Zuckerberg's network, there are plenty of older handsets, such as the HTC Desire with the Sense UI, now plummeting in price that do a much better all-round job.

Name: AirTies 4420-TV

Type: Wireless networking/ media streaming kit

Specifications: Click here for full specs

Price: £89.99 from Amazon

A powerline alternative, the AirTies 4420-TV is perfect those with Internet connected TVs experiencing Wi-Fi woes.

Though everything from Freeview boxes to televisions now house online, networked components, very few offer Wi-Fi connections, and those that do regularly suffer from weak signal connections. As a result, trying to stream online video content from catch-up TV services or networked media can be a real stutter-filled chore. While you could feasibly run an extra long Ethernet cable from your router to the web-connected device in question, with so many items requiring consistent web connectivity your house would quickly begin to look like a spider's web of wiring.

The AirTies 4420-TV, built with internet connected TVs specifically in mind, offers a solution. Comprised of two discrete black boxes, two short, separate Ethernet cables are connected to the rear of both, with one then attached to your internet router and the other to the port on your television. A simple press of each unit's Airtouch buttons sees both boxes paired, and you're quickly boosting the connectivity capabilities of your TV over the 802.11n standard.

Thanks to the ability to use the AirTies within the less congested 5GHz spectrum, we found far less interference affected our web TV streaming playback. Just like the recently reviewed BT Home Hub 3 router, the AirTies too also dynamically searches the Wi-Fi spectrum for sources of interference, and changes channel according to what will give you the most consistent connection.

However using the 5GHz band does bring with it its own problems. The 2.4GHz spectrum may be crowded with other Wi-Fi devices, but it also has better range due to the lower frequency's ability to pass through solid objects easier. Use the 5GHz setting and you wouldn't want too many walls between the two AirTies boxes. Thankfully, both 2.4GHz and 5GHz options can easily be switched between, meaning you can decide what works best for your set-up.

Each AirTies box also features a USB 2.0 port. Plug a USB hard drive in and you have the potential to use the AirTies boxes as networked media hubs. With UPnP/DLNA support, you can easily share music, video and photo files across the network.

Verdict:

Affordable and a breeze to set up, the AirTies kit will keep your living room free of unsightly wires, while also ensuring your iPlayer playback is stutter free. It'd be great to have a little more help when it comes to tweaking some of the more advanced settings, but its hard to argue with the ability to create consistently accessible networked storage at the this price.

Name: Galaxy S II (Samsung)

Type: Android Smartphone

Specifications: Click here for full specs

Price: £509.99 from Amazon, SIM-free

Super slim, super light and super fast, the Samsung Galaxy S II is quite the smartphone. Is this the Android handset to finally make Apple fanboys turn their backs on the iPhone?

Upon first picking up the Samsung Galaxy S II, you'd be forgiven for thinking that you're merely lifting some dummy model, or an empty chassis; it's that light. Its 116 gram weight is complimented by its remarkably slim design, with a thickness of 8.49 mm making it one of the thinnest smartphones on the market. Though we'd usually frown at the use of plastics over metal casings for our phones, here it makes sense, keeping the device so light that it's easy to forget it is sitting in your pocket at all. While the silver edging and central home button apes the iPhone design somewhat, we're fans of the textured effect on the rear, giving the wafer-thin handset some much needed, grip-saving, friction.

Though thin and light, the Samsung Galaxy S II is also a large smartphone, measuring up at a width of 66.1mm by a height of 125.3mm. It may be a sticking point for those not too comfortable holding bigger devices to the side of their heads, but the size is not without good reason. Samsung have slapped a gorgeous 4.3 inch super AMOLED screen onto the front of the phone, which is a real joy to view. Though its resolution isn't quite of Retina Display standards (coming in at 480x800 pixels compared to the iPhone 4's 640x960), we felt that its colours and contrast ratio were superior. Fantastic brightness levels not only bring photos and videos to life, but also make use in strong sunlight more palatable than with many rival handsets, as well as having a superbly wide viewing angle.

The Galaxy S II is also as fast as it is light, bright and thin, thanks to the inclusion of a dual-core 1.2GHz processor. It can't be stressed enough how great an effect the chip has on the overall premium feel the phone has; it's by a country mile the silkiest Android phone we've had the pleasure of playing with. Swiping through Android's multiple homescreens is swift and responsive, while the usual sluggish effect of running multiple, system intensive apps at once is all but absent here. Flash content for instance, usually a testing drain on Android phone's usability, is handled with ease, even when embedded within a busy web page. Likewise, playing 3D games like Gameloft's N.O.V.A was akin to playing with a dedicated handheld console. The dual-core makes the sometimes flaky nature of the Android OS feel far more polished overall.
It's a shame then that Samsung's tweaking of the core Android 2.3 Gingerbread experience is a bit of a mixed bag then. Version 4.0 of the company's TouchWiz UI sits on top of the standard Android interface. Some additions are genuinely useful; a pre-loaded Task Manager application lets you easily keep tabs on apps running in the background, while Polaris Office is very useful if you need to do some light editing of Word, Excel or Powerpoint documents on the go.

However the four Samsung Hubs that are central to the 4.0 version of TouchWiz are a hit-and-miss affair. The Social Hub is a nice way of pooling all your networks and contacts into one feed, though you're unlikely to favour it over dedicated social networking apps for Facebook and Twitter or the native email client. The Gaming Hub offers a handful of free titles, but much better stuff is already available on the Android Market store, and much of that also free. The Music Hub uses the 7Digital platform to sell you MP3s, but is no match for iTunes in terms of the breadth of the catalogue nor its presentation. The Reader Hub is probably the pick of the bunch therefore, offering book downloads from Kobo, newspapers from PressDisplay and magazines from Zinio, in a slick library interface. There's also a totally unnecessary Samsung Apps store to go alongside the regular Android Market; stick to Google's offering for both a wider range and higher quality of apps.

Some light motion controls are also available when handling the Samsung Galaxy S II thanks to the TouchWiz UI. Holding the screen with two fingers and then tilting the device to activate the accelerometer will see web pages and images zoom in and out, as well as certain thumbnail views tapering and tilting. You can also organise homescreens in a similar way by holding down an app and then tilting the handset to drag the icon to another location. It works very well, with the dual-core again preventing any lag. It's hard though to see much of a practical application for the motion features present here over the regular tap and swipe controls.

An excellent camera is also on hand with the Samsung Galaxy S II. The 8MP snapper sits centrally at the top of the handset's rear side, and also features an LED flash. A clean interface with plenty of picture modes makes it a breeze to set up a picture, with an autofocus as good as any we've seen on a smartphone. Again, the dual-core means that the camera app fires up almost instantly, meaning you'll have no excuses for missing a precious moment. It's even more impressive when shooting and playing back 1080p video, producing sharp, judder-free images. While not a match for a dedicated digital camera, the Samsung Galaxy S 2 is more than a match for all other smartphones in this regard, baring perhaps the Nokia N8.

Verdict:

It's genuinely hard to find fault with the Samsung Galaxy S II. Though Android and Samsung's own TouchWiz UI still aren't quite up to the sleek standards of iOS, the hardware on show here makes this not only the greatest Android device we've seen so far, but a definite equal for the iPhone 4. Its zippy processor and deft handling of Flash content may even make it the better of the two devices in some eyes. Samsung have really raised the stakes here. Steve Jobs and co are going to have to pull something really special out of the bag with the iPhone 5 to top this offering.

Name: Epson Stylus SX525WD (Epson)

Type: Inkjet printer/scanner/copier

Specifications: Click here for full specs

Price: £89.99 from Amazon

Boasting class-leading print speeds and a robust feature list that includes duplex printing and Wi-Fi connectivity, the Epson Stylus SX525WD sub-£100 all-in-one is certainly an attractive proposition. But have any concessions been made to hit this value price bracket, and can it really meet those super-fast print speeds?

Sturdily built, the SX525WD measures up at 455x359x164 mm. It's fairly chunky therefore, but makes itself more desk-friendly by featuring a front-rather-than rear loading 150-page feed tray. A 6.3 cm screen sits on the front of an angle-adjustable control panel. As the screen is not touch sensitive, you get a sensible array of control buttons on the panel, allowing you to print without hooking up to a PC should you insert an SD, Memory Stick or xD storage device into the front-facing card slot.

Thanks to an in-built Wi-Fi connection and rear Ethernet port, connecting the SX525WD to a wireless network is a cinch. The printer quickly found our network and within a few minutes all devices in our house were hooked up. Connecting the printer via USB however was an unexpected chore, with the printer repeatedly failing to pair with our PC.

The Espon Stylus SX525WD has claimed print speeds of 36ppm in both black and colour modes. Though this spec is quoted from draft speeds, we still found a discrepancy in how fast it churned out our pages. Five pages of black text showed print speeds of closer to 8.9ppm in print mode and 9.9ppm in draft mode; respectable, but a far cry from the 36ppm that Epson are touting. The figures don't seem to take into account the time the printer takes to process the pages before shoving them out, which obviously leads to a dramatically different speed when compared to real-world usage. Print a longer document and the SX525WD picks up the pace slightly however, once it's warmed up a little.

Full colour pages were produced at a slower speed than the marketing suggests too, with just a 1.5ppm real-world speed in our tests. Printing photos was again clocked at a fair speed (between 1 minute and 2 minutes 10 seconds depending on the quality), but didn't match up with the specs. Overall these are reasonable speeds though, and we can't fathom why Epson decided to open themselves up to criticism when the actual speeds would have been more than worthy.

Print quality is above average too. Though black text over colour images could muddle colours slightly, overall full colour images were solid, and text not overly jagged. Photo prints (at a rather good resolution of up to 5,760 by 1,440dpi) seemed to result in a slightly raised contrast ratio, which had a pleasant effect on some of our snaps, but washed out some of the deeper hues in a handful of evening outdoor shots.

Moving onto the scanner, it's of the CIS variety, A4 in size with a 2400 dpi resolution. It produced previews of pages in a little over 12 seconds, managing a 300ppp scan in 11 seconds. These aren't ground-breaking specs by any means, but more than a match for this price bracket, and more than enough for most home usage scenarios. Scanned images looked a little smoother than the pin-sharp originals, though barley noticeably to all but a highly trained eye. Colours however were a tad less vibrant. Copies on the other hand were nice and fast; 8 seconds for a black and white, 26 seconds for colour.

Where the SX525WD really shines however is running costs. Two cartridge capacities are available, and using the larger one resulted in page costs of 6.5p for colour and 2.5 p for black and white sheets, including the price of the paper itself. It's not quite a match for the value of Kodak printers, but manages to beat the majority of rivals in this regard.

As a closing point, we wouldn't recommend using this printer too regularly around flatmates or work colleagues, as it can get pretty noisy. Though it's hard to quantify the noise levels as I wasn't prepared for them and thus unable to take a reading, suffice to say it was annoying enough for a nearby pal on the phone to leave the room.

Verdict:

Though noisier than we would have liked, and Epson have exaggerated a little on the print speeds, the SX525WD is a solid all-round performer. With low running costs, above average print quality and print speeds, Wi-Fi connectivity and duplex print modes, it's a great value domestic printer that should meet all but the most demanding of needs.

Name: AVerTV Volar HD A835(Aver Media)

Type: Digital TV tuner for PC and Mac

System Requirements: Click here

Price: £18.99 from Amazon

With most of the functionality of a fully-fledged set-top box, the AVerTV Volar HD A835 digital TV tuner for PC and Mac has a lot going for it. But is it relevant in this age of catch-up TV and high-definition television?

The AVerTV Volar HD A835 unit consists of a set-up software CD and a USB drive, which a supplied TV antenna can be plugged into. Considering the USB stick has to accommodate a chunky aerial connection, it manages to stay fairly slim, though you may have trouble squeezing in other USB devices should your ports be closely bunched together. The aerial itself is little bigger than a thumb drive too, housing two telescopic, rotatable antenna and comes with two mounts; a suction pad and a clip for sticking the unit to the top of your monitor.

Once the quick software installation is complete and the AVerTV Volar HD A835 USB unit is plugged in, a surprisingly fast and accurate channel scan will have you watching Freeview channels and listening to digital radio within minutes. Though image quality will depend somewhat on the quality of your monitor, we were pleased to find our viewing session to be clear and free of noise. However, despite the HD suffix, you wont be able to get any high-definition Freeview channels; though it supports H.264 transmissions, which are widespread in Europe for high-def shows, it isn't compatible with the DVB-T2 transmission system Freeview HD is based on. An update has been promised for some time, but we were unable to access the channels during our review.

Though here you negate the need for an internet connection in order to watch shows, it's also worth noting that in this age of streamed catch-up TV on computers, we've forgotten how frustrating trying to pick up a good TV signal is. The AVerTV Volar HD A835 had us standing with the aerial over our heads in order to maintain a decent image. A quirk of our tuner or simply the fact we're in something of a coverage blackspot, it's worth remembering before committing your cash.

The software accompanying the drive is full of functionality, including a full EPG, timeshift modes and a number of recording and scheduled recording options. We particularly liked the fact you're able to record in iOS compatible formats, meaning getting your favourite shows direct from the telly onto your Apple mobile media devices won't be a problem. It's a shame though that visually the software is very bland, with a design more like shareware rather than a retail product.

Verdict:

With most of the major Freeview destinations now having robust video-on-demand services backing them up online, TV tuners for PCs are beginning to feel a little redundant. The AVerTV Volar HD stick makes itself more useful than some by offering video recording modes directly compatible with iOS devices, but a bare-bones software interface and lack of Freeview HD channels, paired with the frustrations of picking up a decent signal, ultimately let it down. Having said that, it's a cheap and small solution for those watching the pennies our with little space to play about with, so it may find an audience with students or backpackers.

Name: LA Noire

Genre: Third-Person Sandbox Adventure

Platform: PS3 (reviewed), Xbox 360

Price: £34.99 from Amazon on Xbox 360
£34.99 from Amazon on PS3

Image Gallery: Click here

Played from the perspective of the law-makers rather than the law-breakers, Rockstar's latest epic is a far cry from the destructive hi-jinks of the Grand Theft Auto series. But is LA Noire a "hardboiled thriller", or more like a hardboiled egg?

Despite potentially warranting its own entirely new genre classification, LA Noire initially seems very familiar. Using a sandbox setting from which to springboard its more complex game mechanics, LA Noire offers up a lovingly detailed recreation of LA, circa 1947, for you to explore. Nailing the architecture, the fashions, the music and the wiseguy speech patterns to a tee, you're more or less free to explore the city in its entirety, jumping in cars, bombing it down Sunset Boulevard at breakneck speeds and hunting down collectables hidden across the vast map.

So far, so Grand Theft Auto.

But that of course, is only half the story, for LA Noire is a very different beast altogether. As an LAPD detective, the action here is played out by the strong arm of the law, rather than that of the lowlifes that usually take centre stage in Rockstar's games. Our protagonist, war veteran Cole Phelps, therefore has a very different agenda, and by extension a very different set of tasks to carry out compared to GTA IV's Niko Belic or Red Dead Redemption's John Marsten. While certainly you'll still need to settle a fair few disagreements with a pistol, the majority of the game requires your patience and that you exercise your brains whilst you do some good old-fashioned detective work.

Split into more than 20 episodic missions, or "cases" if you prefer, you'll have to trawl crime scenes for clues, interrogate witnesses and finally accuse a suspect based on the evidence you've gathered. Each of these elements takes the shape of different gameplay mechanics, some familiar, some technologically ground-breaking.

For instance, investigating a crime scene will feel instantly familiar to any fans of old school point-and-click adventure games, albeit played from a fully 3D, third-person perspective. Think "Broken Sword" as written by Raymond Chandler; a hit-and-run victim lies mangled in the road, examining his pockets reveals his wallet, a name, address, and a motive for his murder in the shape of a life insurance policy. Though clearly hit by a car, searching a nearby trash can finds a bloodied butchers knife, which may be a vital clue or a red-herring. Noting all the details in your journal, you'll feel like a real-life copper, slowly piecing together elements of often gruesome mysteries. The investigation then moves on to LA Noire's showpiece; the interrogation mode.

With all the clues gathered, you approach witnesses and potential suspects, posing questions based on the evidence gathered in your notebook. But this is not simply a matter of picking from branching dialogue trees. LA Noire was in development for more than seven years, and here's where you'll clearly see why. The game employs a new facial mapping technology called MotionScan, able to recreate human faces more accurately than in any game you've played before. With lifelike expressions, gulping Adam's apples and stretching muscles visible beneath digital flesh, it's a level of realism gamers have until now never encountered. As a result, you'll instantly recognise Cole Phelps to be Mad Men's Aaron Staton. It's unnervingly realistic and adds a genuine cinematic weight to both cutscenes and witness questioning. Dialogue and the actors' and actresses' facial performances therefore become not merely key to plot development, but also to the success of your investigations. With every facial muscle accurately mapped, missing a subtle tick or twitch during an interrogation could be the difference between reprimanding a criminal or letting a lying murderer walk free.

Or at least that should be the case. While a visual and cinematic delight, the interrogation modes can also sadly be wildly frustrating. For starters, it's all but impossible to fail a case; though you can fail a mission by not catching a fleeing suspect or by being shot, criminals never go unpunished, no matter how poor your questioning, due to your quick-witted partner guiding you back onto the right path once a suspect has wriggled out of a sticky spot. Though your end of case report score may be lower than if you'd forced a confession from a suspect, you'll eventually get the culprit regardless, meaning you always feel as if you're being guided through the adventure rather than actively shaping it.

More frustrating is the way in which Phelps questions suspects. Despite constructing a mind-bogglingly complex facial mapping system, you only ever have three responses to witnesses' and suspects' statements; Truth, Doubt and Lie. It totally undermines the subtlety of the stellar performances on show, and prevents you from really pushing the theories that otherwise seem plainly obvious. Likewise, it's often difficult to tell which part of the sometimes-lengthy statements that Phelps considers truthful, doubtful or a full-on lie, and it's a pain to be penalised at moments when this isn't clear. At any time you can use an Intuition Point, earned by successful investigations, to guide you to the right accusations (or alternatively to find every hidden clue in a crime scene), but this power-up seems only an admission of the system's failings rather than a vital tool.

If this sounds harsh, it should only do so when in comparison to the excellence exhibited elsewhere. Interrogations are by no means broken, just not as polished as the superb visuals used to portray them. It can still be fun to grill a squirming murder suspect, and truly exhilarating when on a roll of well executed questioning. It's just a shame that too often it'll feel like the system leaves you shooting questions in the dark rather than from a sleuth-like flash of inspiration.

Verdict:

It's not without its faults, and the interrogation procedure in particular is sure to infuriate as much as it will captivate, but you can't help feeling that the bar has been raised dramatically by LA Noire, at least in terms of presentation. We'd find it hard to sit through an RPG full of waxy-faced characters phoning in their dialogue after witnessing the wonders of the MotionScan tech. Also, the core free-roaming elements are easily a match for the likes of GTA, in a world perhaps even more lovingly realised than that of Liberty City. It doesn't quite match the heady heights of expectation surrounding it, but LA Noire remains a damn fine game, with a blueprint that will undoubtedly spawn a masterpiece follow-up and countless imitators in the years to come.

Name: Musiic Party: Rock the House

Genre: Rhythm/Music

Platform: Wii

Price: £17.99 from Amazon

The latest in the ever swelling category of rhythm/music games, Musiic Party: Rock the House looks to charm you with its cheap entry price, not needing plastic instrument controllers in order to play. So does it "rock the house" or hit a few too many bum notes to warrant your attention?

Musiic Party: Rock the House will feel instantly familiar to anyone who has played either the Guitar Hero or Rock Band games on any of the many consoles they've appeared on. Staring as a caricatured cartoony hopeful rockstar, you're tasked with playing along with a series of increasingly difficult tracks in order to attain super-stardom. In order to do this, you have to rhythmically match on screen button prompts in time with a backing track which trigger the right guitar notes, or in the case of the drums, have you matching motion gestures to the beat. Do well enough and you'll trigger a special ability called Nova Mode which multiplies the number of points you earn and works your fanbase into a frenzy, but make too many mistakes and the gig will fall apart and you'll lose the song.

The main differentiating factor here is that the entire game, including drum modes, can be played just with the regular Wii Remote and Nunchuk combo. In fact, you can play nearly the entirety of the game with just the remote alone, though it's more awkward than fun to do so. In other words, you wont need to buy expensive peripherals like drum kits to get the most out of the game, with just the regular Wii controllers doing the trick.

In guitar modes, players fret the guitar by pushing the analogue stick on the Nunchuk in different directions whilst waving the remote to strum stings. Drums use the remote and Nunchuk like, well, drum sticks, with the odd need to hold down the B or Z button to hit different drum notes.

While each configuration works relatively well, it's nowhere near as accurate as the dedicated controllers from rival games are. Be prepared from time to time find the strums or drum hits failing to register. Nor, for that matter, is it as fun. While guitar shaped controllers are now accepted gimmicks, you'll feel like a real idiot truly air-guitaring your war through Musiic Party. Drum controllers on the other hand are genuinely useful tools in helping budding drummers increase their skills, and as a result are genuinely missed. Sure, paying half the price for the game is a benefit, but not at the expense of half the fun.

The game feels half-baked in other departments too. Visually, the avatars representing your band are far less inventive than the designs seen in Rock Band, let alone the mad cap Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock characters. There are far less ways of customising your character in the single player campaign too. Gig settings themselves feel lifeless aswell, with often sparse stagings made little better by the Wii's general lack of graphical heft.

But if there is one major failing of Musiic Party: Rock the House, that's its song list. While on the face of it the 30-odd tracks available here sound compelling, with songs from the likes of Razorlight and Motorhead featuring, you'll be sad to discover not one of the tracks is performed by their original artists. Though some are serviceable, many lack the energy or quality of the originals. It's like playing along with a pub band. It's most obvious in the Motorhead "Ace of Spades" cover; no-one can replicate the gravelly tones of gruff lead singer Lemmy, and only a fool would try. Musiic Party employs that fool.

Verdict:

The music-rhythm genre is looking very tired indeed, and Musiic Party: Rock the House does little to revive interest in it. Though not needing to have expensive instrument peripherals will be a bonus to those who are watching the pennies, it also sort of sidesteps the whole point of the genre too; to make you feel like an axe-wielding rockstar. And while the cover versions here are sometimes serviceable, you have to wonder who'd choose them over the fully licensed originals in rival games. It does try to add a unique stamp in a few small areas (such as autograph signing and guitar tuning mini-games), but Rock the House is not only late to the party, it's an unwelcome guest.