New to the FPS scene this month is Elite Force, the first new Star Trek in a while and easily the best yet, besting the average (which is better than most Trek games) Star Trek: Armada with ease. Andrew "Beatdown" Bub here at Sharky thought it almost too short an experience to be worth recommending,and I'd have to agree with him there. However, for even casual fans of the series it is an entertaining game that does an excellent job of recreating sections of Voyager, a Borg Cube and even an old Star Trek ship straight out of the original series. And with weapons like a Personal Quantum Torpedo Launcher, the Borg blasting IMOD and of course the trusty standard issue phaser, the weapons make a refreshing and simply damn fun change from the norm. The multiplayer also does an excellent job of making up for the brevity of the single player experience.

Deus Ex of course still comes highly recommended as an FPS with hint of RPG gameplay. Moreso than most other titles, you can play it how you want to play it, be that as a hacker, military hard man or a sneaky, stealthy sniper. As you're probably aware, you can also complete levels in a number of different ways, either by sneaking around through the ventilation systems, disabling the security or just blowing away any doors that stand in your way. And that's just a taste of the different ways to complete each area. The story is also engrossing and has more twists in it that a corkscrew in a tornado. Need I go on?

In an interesting and convenient follow on from that recommendation, Deus Ex developers Ion Storm are of course now working on Thief 3, the sequel to Thief 2: The Metal Age. It doesn't look like they'll be using the Siege engine that was to be used in Thief 3 when Looking Glass were still around and developing it, but I'd put good odds on them at least focusing on and revealing a little more about the mysterious Keepers, just as Looking Glass were intending to when they were developing it. In the mean time, Thief fans (myself included) can always try completing the missions in Thief 2: The Metal Age without being spotted once by the guards. Go on. Garret would be proud. Of course, if you haven't tried Thief 2 yet it comes highly recommended as one of the best games this year.

A new patch for Daikatana was recently released, bringing it up to version 1.2. In an ideal world, the list of fixes would have included:

• Fixing bad level design, including fixing killer doors
• Removing annoying robotic bugs and frogs
• Removing suicidal and intensely irritating sidekicks

However none of the above were included in the list of fixes for this patch, so I'm assuming the game is still dire.