Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior, developed by Kuju Entertainment and based solidly on the Warhammer series of tabletop wargames is the latest title to charge onto the console 1st-person shooter battlefield. Does it have the firepower to be victorious? Will it be another casualty in a long line of brave but defeated foes? Or will maybe concessions be made and a truce drawn up to allow peaceful co-existence under more powerful leaders?

Firstly, as touched on in our earlier preview, Kuju really have done a wonderful job of recreating the whole Warhammer 40k look and feel. All the character models are very true to the original game figurines and the general atmosphere, architecture and surroundings are exactly as you'd imagine them if you delve into any of the original source material. Any perceived "geek factor" you may have thought might carry over from a tabletop game played with little moulded lead character pieces soon dissipates as Kuju's new 1st-person game engine throws you into a whole new war-torn perspective of the intergalactic struggle.

In Fire Warrior you play a single character throughout the whole game. You are Vior'la Kais, a Shas'la (line trooper) warrior of the Fire caste of a race of aliens known as the Tau. As a little background, the noble Tau civilisation is based around a rigid caste system each relating to the 4 elements of nature - fire, water, air and earth - which dictate a Tau's particular role in society. Their rulers form a mysterious fifth caste, the Ethereal, who bind all the others together. The Tau are a young and technologically advanced race and as such are seen by human Imperials as a threat to their domination.

The story begins with the abduction of the great Tau Ethereal leader Ko'Vash by Imperial forces and it is you and your fellow Fire Warriors' job to mount a rescue mission and return him home safely. Thing is you only have 24hrs before he is tortured and the Imperial forces find out what they need from him so they can launch a full-scale assault on your civilisation. There is a certain amount of urgency then to jump straight into the mission but fear not as there's an initial training session that will familiarise you with movement and basic weapons training as well as some background info on friends and foe.

The first gameplay level in Fire Warrior starts with a very impressive bang as you and your Fire Team are being transported to the surface of planet Dolumar IV. In a similar fashion to scenes from Medal Of Honor your dropship is shaken by enemy fire while last minute checks are made before landing and beginning the mission. As soon as you land the ramp goes down and you and your team charge straight into the midst of a bloody, action-packed trench assault on an Imperial base. It is quite an impressive opening scene with mortar explosions going off, gunfire and debris flying around, comrades being hit and falling beside you and tanks and aircraft moving about above trench level. "Hectic" would best describe the scenario as you advance through the trenches with all this action taking place ducking for cover as you confront enemies and avoid the mortar explosions. Not quite as intense as the Omaha level in Medal Of Honor but very similar in a way and with the volume and sub-woofer cranked up on our stereo it all sounded, looked and felt spot on.

As the levels progress you begin to infiltrate deeper and deeper into enemy territory and the terrain changes from the open trenches to indoor environments. Then later you are transported to a large Imperial Battleship to disarm guns that threaten your own lesser-armed Tau Starship before heading to the Imperial home-planet to face an ultimate evil deep below the surface. Although you face different adversaries in a number of differing environments the action unfortunately soon starts to all feel a little samey, lacking in the kind of real variety that could have been included given the huge potential of this licence.

While level design is impressive in places especially outdoors many of them are fairly linear, the indoor environments invariably falling into the unimaginative corridor scenario we've seen done to death in so many previous 1st-person shooters. Also the action for the most part is pretty run-of-the-mill for games in this genre. Facing off against the first Space Marines you encounter suddenly throws a more decent challenge at you as they're big, tough and armed with BMF guns (We don't think translation is in order). They're definitely more what you expect to see in a Warhammer game but unfortunately it is really just a taste of something that could have been exploited further rather than the icing on the cake.

While we're talking Space Marines though we should mention that enemy AI is generally pretty good in Fire Warrior. Obviously the tougher enemies tend to be a little more evasive but even standard grunts will retreat and duck for cover to avoid fire or pursue you if they see an advantage. Often too you'll find them targeting barrels next to you to try and take you out or knock your health down so take note.

Weaponry whilst being nicely and accurately designed to fit the Warhammer theme again is pretty much just your usual generic 1st-person shooter stock in new skins. There are 17 weapons in all ranging through variations of pistols, machine guns, shotgun, sniper rifle, rocket launcher and rail gun with some grenades thrown in for good measure. Most guns also feature a secondary fire option. We liked the look and feel of some of the larger weapons but a problem with much of the standard ones is that they just seem to use way too much ordinance to take down opponents. Because of this you end up just adopting the general tactic of whittling down numbers or strength with a barrage of grenades before picking off the stragglers. Not the most tactical approach but effective nonetheless. Your brain won't be overtaxed trying to work out the puzzle elements in Fire Warrior either as they're mostly pretty straight-forward and small diversions from the main action - you know the kind, find the switch, press it, open the door, repeat. Moving right along...

A thing to note with weapons is that you can only carry 2 firearms and 8 grenades at one time. It is a similar feature to that in games like Halo but whereas in that game most weapons have their particular uses at various points in the game here you'll probably just want to acquire the most powerful ones and stick to them until your ammo runs out.

Controls are excellent in this game. We're still at a huge loss as to why a simple USB mouse and keyboard option is omitted from most PS2 1st-person shooter releases (seeing as Half-Life implemented it so well) and Fire Warrior is no exception as it would've worked nicely here. Movement is very smooth and performed via the left analogue stick for forward/back and strafe and the right analogue stick for turning and looking. Pressing L3 centres the view which is always a good inclusion for re-orientation. Other default controls include L1 for jump, L2 for crouch, R1 for primary fire, R2 for secondary fire, X for action (scope zoom out), circle for reload, triangle for throw grenade (scope zoom in), square for swap weapons/sheath sword or hold square to pick up another weapon, Select for infrared vision and left directional button to equip sword. There are only 2 preset configurations which may be limiting for some but should suit most players used to the tried-and-true shooter layout.

Aiming, as is usual with any controller, can be a little fiddly in 1st-person games but thankfully in Fire Warrior there is a pretty good auto-aim feature. It doesn't take over too much which is always welcome and still allows you to move the crosshair up slightly to make headshots which will take a lot less ammo per kill. Auto-aim can be turned on or off plus you can adjust movement sensitivity and invert the Y-axis for fine-tuning.

The single-player game in Fire Warrior despite having 21 levels can probably be completed by the average fragger with a decent couple of days play. There are 3 difficulty settings but you'll need to complete the game on normal to unlock hard. Considering the degree of repetitiveness and fairly scripted, linear action though we'd probably question whether you'd really want to play it through again a second time.

Luckily the game also features not only a splitscreen multi-player option but also it is the first PS2 1st-person shooter to include online play. Both multi-player options only include 3 basic game types including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture The Flag so it is a little spartan compared to other top shooters on the market. Splitscreen caters for up to 4 players using the multitap but online games can only hold a maximum of 8 players. Now we said "luckily" at the start of this paragraph but it must be said that with limited game types, only 8 players online, fairly lacklustre multi-player maps and pretty generic weapons it is just not really up there where a newly released title with such potential should be. There is just nothing new in both the single-player and multi-player games and it is a real pity it doesn't rise above the level of "decidedly average". Obviously in New Zealand we haven't been able to test the online game yet so we can only hope that it offers a few thrills for those willing to give it a go or are itching to get a Network Adaptor up and running when they finally arrive.

Visually Fire Warrior is nice overall but a little bit of a proverbial mixed bag. Don't get us wrong - production is professional and the game has been put together with a high degree of expertise but there are a few little letdowns here and there amongst the visual goodness. Level design and architecture is fantastic and there are some very nice lighting and shadow effects. The hazy effect from weapon fire and numerous particles from explosions and fires really stand out also. Framerate for the most part is rock solidly smooth and everything ties together seamlessly moving from outdoor areas to indoors and vice versa. Also nicely included is support for a full-screen 60Hz mode and a 16:9 viewing aspect ratio. Nice one Kuju!

Little things that let the side down though are the occasional time you get stuck in the scenery and the slightly jaggy look to the graphics in general. Jaggies are also more of a limitation of the hardware but a slightly higher texture quality might have been a nice trade-off. Character modelling whilst good seems a little generic for enemies with the only difference between them appearing to be uniform colours and weapons. There is a bit of variety in death animations though and character movement is quite good.

Sound effects in Fire Warrior are generally good but aren't particularly stand out and there is a bit of static noise which degrades sound quality throughout the game. Battlefield sounds when fighting in the trenches are very effective but some of the weapon sounds are a little underwhelming. The soundtrack again basically gets the job done without being anything particularly special.

Voice acting is definitely the standout feature soundwise with some nice scripting and attention to detail such as getting the alien accents to sound convincing. Talent hired for the main characters includ well-respected British actor Brian Blessed, Burt Kwouk (Pink Panther movies, Kiss Of The Dragon) and Peter Serafinowicz who played Darth Maul. Tom Baker who played perhaps the best-known Dr Who also does a good job of narrating.