Almost ten years have passed since the release of Diablo II, Blizzard's fantasy based action RPG. Its successor, Diablo III is one of the moment's eagerly awaited PC games, tipped for launch over the coming year. With Diablo II's decennial on the way and the anticipation for its sequel rising, I figured now is as good a time as any to take a look at this sturdy warhorse of hack and slash gaming. Click here to read more.

The basic premise of The Chaos Engine is the creation of a machine which has the capability to manipulate time and matter. Instead of doing anything useful, like fixing pot-holes on roads or turning dog-poop into roses, the Chaos Engine begins turning people and animals into monsters and mechanical aberrations. Enter six hard nailed mercenaries for hire.

Wastelanders Journal 25/07

Got attacked again today. Not just your common, garden variety raiders either. This time it was a squad of Talon Company mercs. Nasty guys, equipped and trained to high standards ... well, relatively. I was leaving an abandoned mountain shack I had been scavenging through when I caught them in the distance. Musta picked up my trail near Arefu. Four guys against one. Better to deal with them now; I liked the odds anyway. Takin' aim with an old .32 rifle, I loosed a few shots. Range was two great to do much damage, and I just wanted to put the wind up them. Got clipped by a bullet, one of 'em musta been carrying a sniper rifle. Wish I had a pair of binoculars, but shoulda guessed anyway. Making use of the rocky cover, I dropped a few mines around the shack and retreated inside. They would come to me. My vision danced a tango as the mines detonated. Grasping a custom sword I had built and planting my feet firmly on the ground, I waited. This is my domain. Abandon all hope, ye who enter. I looted their equipment and made my way outside again. People always talk of the wasteland as a place of ruin and despair. From here, the vista is exquisite, twisted, beautiful. Rolling dunes, in supplication to great vaulting mountains, crowned by a crisp, reaching blue canvas. To me, the wasteland is home.

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Severely wounded, you sprint past the blurred concrete behemoths of Times Square, a Gray-Crow chopper in hot pursuit. With reckless abandon, the gunner sprays twenty millimetre rounds in your direction. Occasionally they hit, but mostly they just rake up the ground on which you stood just instants before. As your aerial adversary readjusts its direction, a couple of rounds veer off course, punching fist sized holes in an innocent bystander. A fresh wave of turbulent screams drift through the morning air. Up in front is a squad of infantry, preparing for your arrival. They open fire with assault rifles as you close on their position with breakneck speed. Your arm transforms into a whip and lashes out, cutting three of their number in half. Grabbing the sole survivor, you race up the side of fifty storey building like a homicidal monkey on horse steroids. You fling him into the air, as if he were no more than an old coat, and puncture his abdomen with you whipfist. The soldier's limp form slowly begins to merge with your own. Hundreds of metres above ground, Alex Mercer, in the guise of a soldier, waits for the approaching chopper.