Microsoft; XBox; £39.99; www.microsoft.com

By Richard Bell

PICKING up the somewhat unfathomable and largely irrelevant storyline from where the previous game left off, third-person perspective action/shooter Lone Wolf deposits you on planet Dante with only one brother and a sister in arms for company.

Things begin to look up though, when, from the exploded head of a prototype Ragnarok BattleMech, technology wizard Lieutenant Foster excises a weird type of data core and then proceeds to transform it onto a new weapons system.

Things begin to take a turn for the worse, however, when a mysterious stranger crash-lands nearby.

From then on, it’s a breeze to completely forget about the carefully constructed web of intrigue and layers treachery as you do what a Mech pilot does best, namely blow things up — people, buildings, bases, other Mechs, everything that moves, the rest that doesn’t.

Sure, the missions are familiar, taking in the classics like escort, defence and good old guns blazing assaults, but, thanks to the new BattleArmour developed by Lieutenant Foster, it’s never been so much fun.

Much more than merely a protective shell, BattleArmor gives the wearer the ability to hijack enemy Mechs, climb buildings, tear through infantry squads and annihilate enemy armour.

BattleArmor-equipped players can even hitch a ride on Take Off and Landing crafts (VTOLs) for a quick airborne assault on enemy positions.

And gameplay-enhancing upgrades don’t stop there. No longer limited to life within a single BattleMech, players now get to pick and choose from a roster of combat vehicles including Tanks, VTOLs, and, of course, BattleMechs,

The right vehicle choice is the key to mission success and, when it comes to the BattleMechs, there’s no shortage of tasty flavours to choose from.

The light Mechs are fast and nimble, ideal for scouting missions and hit-and-run tasks. Considerably more robust and a fine combination of speed and power are the MediumMechs. Somewhat slower, but more than compensating for it in the firepower and defensive departments, stride the HeavyMechs. And top of the heap are the 100-ton AssaultMechs, lumbering, down on defence, but boy do they pack a wallop!

Players also are spoilt for choice when it comes to weaponry, with mortars, a pulse laser, particle projectile cannon, gravity cannon, machine gun, autocannon, gauss rifle and a range of missiles available for dispensing destruction.

The single-player campaign is a hoot, a two-player, split-screen, head-to-head a blast, but things really get interesting when you hook into XBox Live and wage war between clans from across the globe.

VERDICT: Robot Wars on steroids, Lone Wolf will have you howling with delight.

Four stars

Microsoft £99.99 www.microsoft.com

By Derek Uchman

THE Optical Desktop with Fingerprint Reader is a strange product to review. Consisting of a mouse and a keyboard which has a fingerprint reader, you’d be forgiven for thinking this would be a great device to protect files and desktops from prying eyes. Well, you’d be wrong. Although the fingerprint reader will give most people the impression of being just the dab for the security-conscious, Microsoft point out that it’s NOT up to this task.

They say that if you want to keep files private, then you’d be far safer using a trusty, well thought-out password (always a good idea). So what’s the point of the fingerprint reader, then? Well, it’s supposed to make your life easier when surfing the web. Instead of constantly keying in usernames and passwords to protected sites, you simply program the bundled software to remember your username etc, then, a touch of the finger on the reader will tell the PC to fill out the details — and you’re in! It’s best used on sites which you visit frequently, and does make the whole process simpler.

The keyboard itself has a slightly cheap feel to it, not the quality we have come to expect from Microsoft. Along the top, though, are five My Favourite buttons which can be customised to store access to websites and files. We also like the dedicated buttons which take you straight to My Documents, My Music, My Pictures and so on. Also supplied is a cordless mouse with optical sensor. The scroll wheel has a neat trick up its rubberised sleeve — it allows you to scroll horizontally and vertically through pages and documents.

VERDICT: It’s good as far as it goes, but £99.99 does seem a tad steep for a device that simply remembers passwords.

Three stars

The Mac mini computer goes on sale in the US on January 22 and represents Apple’s first foray into the budget desktop PC arena, which has been largely confined to personal computers that rely on Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

Smaller than even some stand-alone external computer drives, it lacks a monitor, mouse and keyboard. The 40-gigabyte Mac mini will cost £275 and an 80-gigabyte model £330.

It ships with Apple’s latest operating system, Mac OS X Panther, as well as the newest version of its iLife suite of digital media software programs.

Apple has also introduced a mini music player, the iPod Shuffle. While holding far fewer songs than Apple’s hard drive-based music players, the Shuffle seeks to build on the company’s heady success in the portable music business.

The Shuffle is smaller than most packs of chewing gum, weighs less than an ounce and is a third of an inch thick.

Apple is sellimng two versions of the iPod Shuffle. The smallest-capacity model will have 512 megabytes of storage, which holds up to 120 songs, and costs £55 in the US. A one-gigabyte version, which holds up to 240 songs, will sell for £80.

THE big cheese at Sony, Ken Kutaragi, has said its handheld console, the PSP, will probably be released in the UK this March. Although there have long been rumours about a March release, this is the first confirmation.

STAYING with the PSP, Rockstar have announced that its top-selling franchise, Grand Theft Auto, will be released on the console. It’ll be a brand new game, and is expected to be launched at the same time as the PSP.

A SECURITY firm has warned that hackers can exploit flaws in Internet Explorer, even if you have Service Pack 2 installed. They have found three gaps in the software, and say code to exploit one of them has already been published on the web.