PC: 12 Games of Christmas

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

Battlefield really started something with its enormous wars between two sides and lots of different vehicles, something so big it got both sequels and competition. Splash Damage and id Software believed the genre was popular enough to recreate its established Quake franchise, but with competition like Team Fortress 2 it was important to be different.

Initially that difference smacks as unfriendliness and will leave you feeling lost, but stick with it and persistence is rewarded. Your character will earn experience and new equipment will become available, and you will learn what on earth you are supposed to be doing rather than running off a bridge or shooting yourself in the foot. Venture further and the excellent level, vehicle, and game design will unravel before you. This is not Quake as you remember it, but it is a compelling alternative for online gamers to Team Fortress 2.

The Nerve! id's friends at Nerve Software are handling the Xbox 360 port, headed up by a man who designed The Longest Yard. Wicked.

Tabula Rasa

Richard Garriott lives in a haunted castle that he built, he recently went into space, and he has a ridiculous hairdo. He is also the reason I spent ridiculous hours of my life on World of Warcraft. Garriott created Ultima Online all those years ago, you see, which is credited with pioneering mainstream MMORPGs as we know them. And he is the reason anyone anywhere is excited about Tabula Rasa.

His role in it means I can believe he will pull off claims of blending shooter-style action with a persistent online role-playing world. I can also overlook the frankly unconvincing trailers and screenshots scattered around the Internet. I have this feeling that nothing can put me off until I see that score nestled at the bottom of our review - which I'm lead to believe will be quite high. In summary: I believe in a thing called Gariott.

Just listen to the rhythm of your: wallet.

Gears of War

It's already stolen Viva Piñata's thunder once, and now it threatens to do it again, or will do if PC gamers actually deign to care about either. Gears of War is the most brilliantly silly action game of the decade. Little more than a sequence of cover-and-fire action set-pieces, it nevertheless worms its way into your affections with its laughably gritty protagonists (all of whom have double-barrel chests, can't shave and talk as though they breathe through car exhausts), addictive mechanics and relentless blood-letting.

Violence in games is a touchy subject if you're boring, but Gears is quite the opposite of something like Saw or Hostel. There's more blood and more carving people in half here than in a Sam Raimi cheese dream, but it's more of a fight between Halloween costumes in a ketchup factory than a source of disturbance.

Add to that the fact it fills out the story a bit (with some actually fairly hard new bits, including a stupid giant turkey with a gun on its head), and that its multiplayer action is in many senses unique among PC shooters, and there's a good deal here to be excited about. The end of year plaudits will no doubt go to games like Crysis, BioShock and Orange Box, but make room for Gears of War and you might surprise yourself.

Quite an Achievement: Xbox 360 owners looking for an excuse to play it again that isn't "it has a few new levels in it" might want to pretend they don't care that it lets you unlock all the old achievements afresh to get more gamerpoints.

Viva Piñata

This arrived in the office this morning. We know it arrived in the office this morning because Tom came dancing up the stairs and then skipped through the hall singing about Flutterscotches. It's disappeared under the mountain of boxes and press releases on his desk, and he's now playing Need For Speed ProStreet like his life depends on it ("graphically, aurally and physically rubbish", apparently) so he can get back to patting down earth, sprinkling seeds and giving money to the beggar (it's worth it).

Viva Piñata, of course, is one of the buried treasures of the Xbox 360 line-up, and while its transition to PC has taken a year it's unlikely to have lost any of its magic. You take over a rundown garden, fix itup and start planting things, and then encourage visiting animals to stay and screw one another by serving them special fruit and building houses for them.

It's cute, quirky, brutally moreish and has one of the most lovely soundtracks ever. PC users with management game experience may find the first couple of hours a bit tedious, but it's worth sticking with, and makes a lovely change to all the violence and anger. Providing the PC port (handled by Climax) is up to scratch, this is well worth a bite of your Christmas bonus, and the best thing Rare's been involved in for ages.

Seriously: pay the beggar. And use fertiliser. And water Cocoadiles. And Quackberries are better than Juicygeese. And Zumbugs are rubbish. TOM GET OFF MY PC.