Living in today’s world amidst the threat of economic crisis, depleting oil reserves, terrorism, global warming and the possibility of a worldwide catastrophe that could change the entire world as we know it, it’s hard not to imagine what would it would be like if something truly bad were to happen to our little planet. I’m sure pretty much all of us (especially being gamers) have imagined what it would be like to survive a nuclear holocaust or a zombie apocalypse or an economic meltdown. Fallout 3 lets you experience what it would be like to live in a world totally ravaged by nuclear war.

The year is 2277, 200 years after a global nuclear war has devastated the entire world. Only a few survivors remain scattered across the globe along with others who have spent their entire lives underground in “Vaults”, large nuclear shelters with all the basic needs for human survival, safe from the harmful radiation and dangers of the outside world.

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A few of us paid a visit to the Indian Gaming Summit 2008 exhibition at Nehru Centre in Mumbai on Sunday. We were completely oblivious to the existence of this event up until Saturday, so we didn’t quite know what to expect.

We’ll have a complete round up of the expo a little later, but here’s something that caught our eye at the Zapak stall. A game titled ‘Zombie Shooter’ priced at Rs 49 has characters from Valve’s Left 4 Dead on the cover. And the copyright infringement extravaganza didn’t end there. The background poster in the stall also had characters from Left 4 Dead on it.

Now anyone who has bought pirated games off the street would know that the people that sell them don’t pay much attention to details such as cover art. But this is Zapak, part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, and surely they should have enough common sense not to blatantly steal intellectual property from other games. Obviously they don’t.

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A couple of weeks ago, we got the opportunity to visit Milestone and spend some quality time with the latest entry in Capcom’s survival horror series - Resident Evil. The build we played was the same one that was presented at this year’s Tokyo Game Show. The demo featured two short levels and also gave us the first glimpse into the newly introduced co-op mode.

As you may know, one of the biggest changes in Resident Evil 5 is the inclusion of co-op. For the first time in the Resident Evil series (Outbreak doesn’t count), you can play through the campaign co-operatively. The second character introduced is Sheva. The campaign can be played either online, split-screen or via system link. In case you don’t have anyone to play with, the game will take control of the second character. The friendly AI that controls Sheva does a wonderful job; she’ll constantly heal you, provide you with different items (ammo included) and most importantly, she can hold her own when surrounded by enemies.

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As a fan of racing games, I am offended by Need for Speed: Undercover. Having seen games such as Burnout Paradise, Grid, and Pure this year, a substandard effort such as this barely deserves a second thought. However, Undercover is the latest installment in the most recognised racing game franchise, and by that virtue itself, it is a game that demands every gamer’s attention.

So while every new Need for Speed game is worth your attention, is this one worth your time? Short answer - No. Undercover is a technical mess, but we’ll come to that later. With this game, Black Box have attempted to make the player feel like the star of an action movie, complete with live-action cutscenes with supposedly Hollywood-level production values and “professional” actors, including the star of the game – Maggie Q. She’s even on the cover; and here I was thinking I’m the star.

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Despite the success of the PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2, Sony never really had a shooter that they could call their own. Killzone was supposed to fill that void but it could never live up to its potential. It was PlayStation 3 launch title Resistance: Fall of Man that gave Sony its first big in-house ‘Triple A’ shooter. Resistance was set in an alternate 1950’s timeline where World War II never happened and humanity faced a far greater threat against a force known as the Chimera. Resistance was a solid launch title that went on to sell 3 million copies worldwide.

Two years later, developers Insomniac are back with their latest and much more ambitious offering - Resistance 2. Featuring a single player campaign spanning across the United States, an eight-player co-operative campaign with its own separate story and a 60-player online multiplayer, Resistance 2 is all set to deliver the definitive shooter experience for PS3 owners this holiday season.

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