There are many games out there in which players from across the globe find out who is the best at pointing at someone else and clicking on them. In fact I am a strong believer in the idea that FPS titles are the purest form of adventure game. This autumn only Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 are going to get any attention in a genre that is so saturated with choice that it’s pooling embarrassingly around the ankles of the development community and making everything smell like an underpass.

The fact that some people only want to buy one or both of these titles to hit the multiplayer, shunning the single player campaign altogether, makes me a little sad. It is this focus on online play that has allowed terrible single player experiences like the one tacked on to COD: Black Ops to wriggle through the net unchecked. While I enjoyed the bombast of that game’s narrative, the whole campaign played like an on-rails shooter rather than an involving FPS.

Now the multiplayer elements of the Battlefield franchise make it a very different beast to COD. It has open-ended maps and a much more organic flow to the fight as it ebbs and swells, putting a greater emphasis on teamwork and tactics than lone wolf running and gunning.

The open beta of Battlefield 3, which went live last week, gives players just one map to tackle and the Rush game mode to experience. This involves one team attacking two objectives at a time while the other defends and attempts to whittle down their remaining respawn reserves until a winner is determined. The map consists of three distinct areas: an outdoor park, a dank, multi-layered metro and a car-strewn main road through Paris.

There is no doubting the visual fidelity of these three environments as rendered in the Frostbite 2 engine. I’ve played the beta on both Xbox 360 and PC and the console version looks pretty dashing in spite of the limited hardware. Meanwhile PC gamers will not need an over the top machine to squeeze a sparkling experience out of BF3, which is a pleasant surprise given the amount of emphasis which has been put on its graphical grunt.

In terms of gameplay it feels quite different to the last title in the series which I played: Battlefield 2. Perhaps it is because the lack of vehicles and the size of the metro map in the beta means that it lacks some of the scale of its predecessors, which is certainly going to be addressed in the full release with its compliment of additional arenas. I like the fact that you can pick out enemies at a distance based on the light glinting on their body armour. I like the excellent audio, which gives weight to your weapons as well as your footsteps. It is dynamic and, with headphones on, often exciting and terrifying in equal measure. I also like the fact that the whole thing feels very balanced. Dying is easy, but the penalty is not an excessive time spent waiting to respawn and you quickly learn to take your time and not rush into situations because death awaits the over-eager.

What sticks in my craw like an accidentally swallowed clove at Christmas is the “fucking stupid™” Battlelog system required by EA’s origin service to play Battlefield 3 online. If you haven’t already heard, this means you have to launch the game from a web browser, so you not only have Origin sitting dormant in the background but also this insane, clunky interface that makes it feel like you are playing Farmville, not a cutting-edge FPS. It seems likely that EA is implementing this convoluted system to subvert pirates, but they are clearly missing the point. A crack will arise and illegal downloaders will blaze through the single player campaign if they are not interested in the multiplayer. It is ultimately another way in which paying customers are penalised for no good reason.

To be honest the Battlelog debacle does not really dent the BF3 online experience to the point of no return. Millions will still buy this game and love it for its much needed twist on this increasingly jaded genre. Aside from the experience points, ranks and weapon upgrades, it is the gameplay that counts here and I get the feeling that MW3 is going to look decidedly last-generation in comparison with EA’s latest shooter.

Zombies have permeated pop culture to such a degree that it’s become a cliché to point this fact out. That’s why if someone were to ask me ‘Who would you kill if you could go back in time?’ I would respond with ‘Danny Boyle. And I’d also want to see if Snickers really were called Marathon Bars like my dad claims.’*

TechLand, the developer behind the Chrome engine that powers Rubbish but Fun™ shooter Sniper: Ghost Warrior, has turned its hand to the shambling animated corpse genre with Dead Island, another game that falls into the Rubbish but Fun™ category, but for very different reasons. It is a co-op first person RPG which relies heavily on melee combat over gunfights, although you do get to dispatch the dead with firearms after a first act in which they are largely absent.

Upon starting a new game you choose from one of four stereotypical characters with almost intentionally abrasive back stories. I chose the rapper because A) I wanted to hear how far the stereotype would be pushed with in-game dialogue and B) Being a blunt weapon specialist seemed like it would be an advantage in a game focused heavily on smashing zombies with blunt things. You get flung out to enjoy the tropical delights of resort-island Banoi, whose beaches are strewn with energy drinks, broken oars and clusters of survivors who want you to do little quests for them.

Dropping in and out of a co-op game going on online is easy enough and there are obviously parts of the game that need four people to tackle in a balanced way. However, while the zombie apocalypse as portrayed in something like Left 4 Dead needs four survivors to fight off the ravenous, running undead enemies, this is not the case with Dead Island. There is very little tension involved when playing with a party and the penalty for dying is minimal, respawning you a few feet from where you left off and taking a small chunk of your cash, which you can easily replenish.

Combat is satisfying if inconsistent. Hits will break bones or sever limbs, depending on whether you have a thick-edge bat or a blade equipped. Headshots do more damage and weapons deteriorate over time, which means you will be spending thousands of dollars at repair stations if you want to hang on to your favourite bommyknocker. The upside is that the game economy is not so much broken as entirely irrelevant. Regular money pickups from corpses and luggage as well as pay-offs for quest completion mean you are never short of cash. Which is lucky, because using the NPC traders is a pain in the arse.

I found that Dead Island makes a lot more ‘sense’ if you actually head out on your own, shunning the multiplayer element. The tension mounts because defeating larger groups of enemies or the stronger zombie variants is much tougher. In addition you will feel far lonelier in the empty streets, acting as the real hero of the piece because every other survivor is too scared to leave their fortified lodging. This is not a game that I can see retaining an enduring fanbase, although sales are probably going to do enough to result in a sequel at some point. There’s a lot that needs fixing, but for solo play a decent amount to be gained from playing Dead Island.

*In reality I would probably have sex with him.

Have you ever come in from the pub and tried to play a videogame, or, for that matter, do anything that requires hand-eye coordination and clear vision, like the ironing or intercourse? If you have, playing via game streaming service OnLive following its UK launch will feel very familiar. It seems like the gaming equivalent of pirate movie viewing. The visuals are blurred and compressed, artefacts regularly pop up on the screen and you’ll wish that you’d bought the boxed product rather than what looks like a bit of a knock-off.

For the uninitiated, OnLive works by using remote server farms to do all of the hard number crunching and graphics processing for you, removing the need for the gamer to have a high end PC or console to enjoy the latest titles. The visuals are then streamed to your computer via broadband and your keyboard, controller and mouse inputs are fed back, letting you interact with the game of your choice. In theory this sounds absolutely stunning. Gone are the days when you need to update your PC every couple of years if you want to run the squintillionth Call of Duty, Battlefield or Barbie’s Horse Orgy game. In fact you needn’t bother getting involved in the console wars either, because OnLive offers a little set top box for those not savvy enough to hook up their laptop to their HDTV. It sounds too good to be true. And of course it is.

The minimum system requirements are low and you need between a 2Mbps and 5Mbps connection to get games running at a decent lick. Or at least this is what OnLive claims on its site. I have a 13Mbps connection and yet in the first five or six days after its launch I could not play OnLive in a manner that was in any way satisfactory. I bought Deus Ex: Human Revolution for £1 as part of the introductory offer and while the pre-rendered cutscenes look OK, as soon as you get to try some gameplay it looks like someone has poked you in both eyes and blurred your vision. Many have complained about controller lag, but while it can feel like you are sliding around on a buttered mouse mat at times it is this visual degradation that really gets on my tits.

There have of course been plenty of excuses bandied about and obviously I accept that in the first few weeks of its availability the traffic to OnLive will be much higher than after the initial interest has died down. However, unlike many I had no problems connecting to the service and was able to try it out at several different times of the day. But regardless of when I logged on I always had an unsatisfying experience from the point of view of visuals. Even playing ancient titles like Oddworld: Munch’s Odyssey, where there is much less stress being put on the server hardware, did not result in improved graphics. It is clear that we are still a few years away from getting true HD graphics streaming smoothly over the internet. Oh, and multiplayer games like Homefront were hilariously difficult to play.

I wholly support what OnLive is trying to do and I’m not even a particular snob when it comes to visual fidelity. However, for the time being this experiment is not going to stop me buying games on Steam or getting 360 titles from the shops. I may be looking harshly at a product which is still in the very early stages of its existence, but I really cannot see it getting better for some time.*

*Bear in mind that BT have been working in partnership with OnLive on the roll-out in the UK. I’m a BT Broadband customer and have had no problems with my connection. I got in touch with them about the OnLive issues and, after running some checks, they found nothing technical at fault. Judging by feedback on forums I don’t think I’m the only one who’s suffering. There are some who are willing to forgive OnLive for the issues I’ve raised, but while I will keep attempting to use it over the coming months I doubt it will meet my standards for playability in the short term.