By Richard Bell

SINCE its debut, the Oddworld series has become one of the most popular game franchises of all time, with nearly five million units sold worldwide.

The three previously released chapters have scooped over 100 industry awards for their rich mix of graphical artistry, personality, compelling gameplay and wicked sense of humour.

Abe’s Oddysee started it all, followed by Abe’s Exoddus and then Munch’s Oddysee. Now there’s a new kid on the block to add a fourth dimension to the series — Stranger’s Wrath.

Taking the role of The Stranger, you are a mysterious bounty hunter who tracks down outlaws for lots of lovely moolah. The Stranger needs to save up, you see… for ‘an operation’, details of which are only very gradually drip-fed.

Combining first and third person action with familiar Oddworld elements and an all-new graphics engine, the title delivers a rather unique gaming experience.

All the previous Oddworld games look amazing and this one takes the quadrilogy to a new level. Set in expansive and immersive environments, ranging from old western towns to thick forests and vast industrial complexes, the heart of the game lies in the first person mode and the use of shooting ‘live’ ammo. That’s ‘live’ as in alive, mind. The Stranger’s only weapon throughout is a double-barrelled crossbow which fires captured creatures such as Chippunks, Fuzzles, Thudslugs and Boombats. Each creature has a different effect on its target and various combinations allow for a variety of strategies, from stealth action to full-on mayhem. Upgraded versions allow for even greater devastation than the basic forms.

Switching in real-time from first to third person view allows you to run at top speed through the stunning settings, ramming the opposition and, with the use of the triggers on the controller, initiating combat via a head butt or a spinning/flying fists assault.

On his travels, The Stranger encounters townspeople, enemies and natives so odd that they could really only be found in the Oddworld universe. Take time out to chat to them as they are capable of revealing information important to the completion of a mission, level, or the game, through the humorous and impressive implementation of AI and GameSpeak.

VERDICT: Witty, engaging and very easy on the eye, Stranger’s Wrath is another worthy chapter in this superlative series

Four stars

By Derek Uchman

NOW you can finally bid farewell to that nasty, whirring, clunky VCR which has been gathering dust under your TV. Lite-On’s LVW-5045 is the sexier, smarter, and a whole lot more useful successor, and, naturally, it’s completely digital.

It’s split into two main components — a 160GB hard drive and a DVD recorder — which work hand-in-had in a best-of-pals sort of way.

Like Sky+, the hard drive allows you to record TV shows for playback later, but, unlike Mr Murdoch’s white box, you can store up to 198 hours of TV on the LVW-5045. OK, so the quality won’t be particularly great, but even at a decent setting you’ll still get 66 hours. That’s a lot of Corrie.

And should a particular show tickle your TV tastebuds, you can transfer it from the hard drive on to DVD — to keep forever. Yippee!

Of course, there are other boxes on the market which do the same thing, but we think the LVW-5045 stands out for two main reasons — compatibility and ease of use.

The interface is so simple even the biggest knucklehead should be able to work it out. Do you want to record to the hard drive? Click “go” and that’s it. Ditto for DVD burning. It’s difficult to imagine it any easier.

The LVW-5045 recorded onto every make of DVD (and CD) that we threw at it, and the finished product was compatible with all of our other stand-alone DVD players.

A peek at the back of the box will show you a splendid array of connections, including SCART (of course), and component video (for the best picture quality). Add to that optical and coaxial audio outputs, and you have a machine which is pretty much future-proof for the short-to-medium term. The LVW-5045 will sit quite happily at the centre of any home cinema set-up.

But the LVW-5045 doesn’t just limit itself to movies, it’ll play CDs, MP3s and even show off your snaps if they are in the JPEG or BMP format. With all that functionality, the distinction between this type of box and Microsoft Media Center PCs starts to blur.

VERDICT: A seriously-useful piece of kit, at a price substiantially lower than its competitors.

Four stars

ANOTHER survey, this time more serious. It seems most of us in the UK are unprotected from spam. Nearly 60% of home and small business users have no ant-spam filtering installed, leaving them vulnerable.

OUT today — 10 Pin: Champions Alley (PS2, Liquid Games), All Grown Up! Express Yourself (GBA, THQ), Domination (PC, Dreamcatcher), LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game (GBA, PC, PS2 and Xbox, Giant), MX vs. ATV Unleashed (PS2 and Xbox, THQ), Neocron 2 (PC, Atari), Stronghold 2 (PC, Take-Two), TT Superbikes (PS2, Jester), World Fighting (PS2, Atari) and Yoshi’s Universal Gravitation (GBA, Nintendo).

THOSE who download from file-sharing networks aren’t just at risk from irate music and movie companies. It seems spammers are after you too. Junk mailers are lurking around on peer-to-peer networks waiting for folk to give out their details. Gnutella and edonkey are particular targets.