First person shooters in my view were in a bit of a rut in 2006; games like Prey and Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Battlefield 2142 were competently done (and Prey's use of portals was a neat gameplay trick) but there was little that was truly innovative from the big publishers. Enter small UK developer Outerlight which began as a mod team for Half-Life 1 that released The Ship via Valve's Steam service. This Source engine based game took the multiplayer first person shooter and turned it on its ear with its setting (a series of ships ranging from river steamboats to Titanic style ocean liners) and its mix of first person action with RPG and adventure elements. Basically your goal is to hunt other players while they hunt you on board these ships. You don't usually use firearms but rather items that you might find on board ships, like axes or even letter openers. The Ship makes you kill off your assigned target while keeping your kill hidden from prying eyes. At the same time you have to eat, sleep and even go to the bathroom on board in order to stay alive, while also keeping an eye out for a player that might have you as his or her target.

Another UK developer, Introversion Software, released their latest game earlier this year and I have to say that a week doesn't go by when I don't click on the shortcut on my desktop or laptop to play this small but hugely addictive game. In a nutshell, Defcon has you fighting either the PC's AI opponents or real people online in a thermonuclear war game with a graphical style that has more than a passing resemblance to the war map seen in the classic film Wargames. Making a game based on such an edgy premise could have been problematic for Introversion but the final result is a game that looks simple on the surface but has a ton of replayability and strategy involved.

Turn based space strategy games have enjoyed a bit of a resurgence in 2006 with titles like Sword of the Stars and Space Empires V being released this year. However developer/publisher Stardock delivered perhaps the ultimate product for this style of game when it released Galactic Civilizations II early in 2006. It's one of the few games out there that we don't mind the omission of a multiplayer mode; GalCiv 2 presents AI that keeps you on your toes as you build and expand your space empire through the choices of one of eight different civilizations. The 3D graphics and the support for many styles of gameplay (military, tech, diplomacy and more) add to the depth that Stardock has added to this game.

A World War II RTS game? Oh crikey ?did we really need another one of these products taking up space on store shelves? They have been all over the place in the past few years and most of them are somewhere between average and awful. Leave it to developer Relic, makers of innovative games like Homeworld and Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War, to make this tired genre feel like a all new battlefield (no pun intended). From the truly impressive 3D graphics that make you feel like you are there on the battleground of Europe, through the amazing AI, to the use of capturing points on the map to gain more units and resources for your troops, this game makes the once boring click fest that other RTS titles have look old fashioned.