After months of hype, Digital Anvil\'s Brute Force arrives on the XBox. But is it everything it\'s supposed to be? Not quite. Questionable teamwork, glaring holes in multiplayer modes, and some gameplay issues keep Brute Force from being the game we hoped for.

After months of hype, Digital Anvil's Brute Force arrives on the XBox. But is it everything it's supposed to be? Not quite. Questionable teamwork, glaring holes in multiplayer modes, and some gameplay issues keep Brute Force from being the game we hoped for. Click here for the whole discussion.

Aaron\'s still frothing at the mouth for some Star Trek: Elite Force II goodness. Now only days away, this sequel to one of the best Star Trek games ever created is set to blow us away again, and this time in a sweet ST: TNG setting. Set phasers for fun! Click here.

Xicat Interactive brings us another military-based tactical first person shooter, and it feels a lot like Counterstrike except bad. US Special Forces: Team Factor has pitiful graphics and terrible sound. The single player mode is pretty cruddy, and the multiplayer is hindered by the fact that nobody wants to play it. Click.

Dana Bruno runs the one-woman-show, The Bruno Report (www.brunoreport.net), which has been getting more than a little notice recently due to her high profile involvement in the Search 4 E. Search 4 E (www.search4e.org) is a project underway from True Crime Press to utilize Websurfing civillians to help solve the mystery of what happened to the even more mysterious "E" (Ed Sobian, Eric Sobel, or Emil Sobiak, take your pick). Currently there is reluctance in the law enforcement community to take up the missing persons case, largely due to the fact that it is hard to determine whether E was kidnapped or ran away, so in a move spearheaded by James Pitt (the well-known author) and True Crime Press, private investigators have been brought in. The allure of large amounts of money and valuable items found by professional and amateur investigators researching the case has helped generate serious interest.

Majesco and Rage have teamed up to create Mobile Forces. This is a fairly basic first person shooter title with low system requirements. But Mobile Forces mixes up the action by throwing vehicles into the fray. Scooting around in a Hummer or APC is just the thing for whacking bad guys. Click here.

Here at Gamesfirst! we like to talk about games--interactive art, we'll tell you, and the future of art and storytelling”a force more powerful and more frightening than its parent, the movie, or its grandparent, the stage”both terrifying in their own way, in their own time. But did you ever wonder where the word "videogame"came from? "Video" meets "game"--it sounds like a pretty straightforward etymology to get to the word that brings us all so much joy, but what we have here is a strange union between two ancient words who's roots stretch across recorded time”and further, in fact, into the dark night of prerecorded time.

BAM! has been making a good showing of late, and their latest offering, Dropship: United Peace Force, is another title that comes in just shy of great. Featuring some of the best missions we\'ve played in a long time, Dropship nonetheless suffers from some issues. Jeremy does a great job spelling it all out for you. Check the review.

Another installment in the Starfighter series, Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter manages to make some good additions to the franchise but doesn\'t really make this one feel like an entirely new game. Sure, there are cool Force powers and new ships to fly, but it all feels very familiar. Thank goodness for the cooperative story mode. Click.

Activision brings us the sequel to the popular Elite Force, creatively titled Start Trek Elite Force II. Expect more FPS action, with an emphasis on story, as well as much prettier graphics and a possible foray into Next Gen territory. Go get you a Borg -- click here.

Microsoft and Digital Anvil have teamed up on a squad-based combat game that should have HALO fans wetting their pants. Brute Force allows you and up to three friends to play a cooperative story mode or just deathmatch the heck out of each other. Great visuals and lots of cool details make it one to watch for. Click!

Welcome our newest GF! member, Todd Allen, to the fray. He gets things kicked off with a very nice review of Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. Slangin\' lightsabers and flingin\' force lightening never felt, looked, or played so good. This has been the PC hit of the spring (pre-GTA3 of course), so check it out. Click here.

While there were many points of interest at E3 this year, the most consistently really crowded booth was Nintendo's, where gamers flocked, nay swarmed, to see the GameCube. For those skeptics out there who think the general mediocrity of the N64 experience has soured gamers, witness the intense interest shown for the new system. Let's face it, the N64 has suffered from a general lack of titles, and some companies have released really terrible games for it, further causing pain to gamers who have been forced to pursue the "any port in a storm" strategy (Big Mountain 2000 comes to mind, er, flashes painfully across my memory). However, there have been some very good titles, and it's no mistake that the best titles on the system have been made by Nintendo and it's 2nd party developer, Rare. Nintendo is, in many ways, the Disney of the gaming world “ they have created and continue to create incredibly popular and lasting characters, who appear in all sorts of games and have firmly lodged themselves in the hearts of mainstream USA (as well as mainstream everywhere else).

Keiko Randolph is the CEO of PetFish Company, and the driving force behind one of the most unique and technically impressive virtual pets out there. Via the PetFish website, http://www.petfish.com, users can download a huge variety of fishes for their enjoyment and companionship. But the product has an interesting background and exciting future plans. Keiko chatted with us about the past, present and future of PetFish.