Bitz; your award-winning guide to the top games of the week.

Byline: EWAN ROSS

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (Mythic, PC, pounds 29.99) The bar of online fantasy games was raised considerably when Age of Conan hit the shelves.

Not wishing to disappoint the Warcraft fans out there - and there are a lot, I know- but the Conan online epic really showed the world that massively multi-player games have to up their content to survive.

Warhammer Online is an immediate big fish in this pond. Not only did the mythology pretty much establish the Games Workshop as the new home for all of the post-Dungeons & Dragons crowd, but it has had almost 20 years of history to improve its lore.

The new online edition was the obvious next step for such an immense phenomenon, but rather than focus on the singular adventure, Warhammer has gone for all outwar on an epic scale.

Warhammer is essentially a game of race. Choosing from one of six (seven if you class the goblins from the Greenskins) you take up battle against each other.

Elves, Greenskins, Humans, Dwarfs, Dark Elves and Chaos are all required to battle it out for supremacy on the field.

The playing system's very fabric relies upon the Realm vs Realm playing system - ie: you'll be fighting up close with hoards of your enemy to gain every inch into new territory. And most of the quests usually involve such skirmishes to get anywhere in this game.

This is a good and a bad thing. For one, the exploration of the areas is difficult and quests outside of your faction are pretty much off the menu.

As such, this can close you off a little.

But there is also wisdom here - in Mythic's wish to remove the 'quiet' parts of the game and go forward fare on an epic scale.

The Realm vs Realm idea is realistic and removes a lot of the fluff often seen in fantasy games.

But this is where Warhammer, as a board game, has always managed to succeed. Chaos and humanity's Order faction have been battling each other for the last 20 years, so this move merely sees the evolution of an already well-established game structure.

Warhammer Online is good entertainment - as long as you know what you want. If questing appeals to you - try Conan or Warcraft. If Lord of the Rings style battles are your thing - you can't go wrong with this.

Rating: 7/10 - Hammer falls Monster Madness: Grave Danger (South Peak, PS3, pounds 44.99) ZOMBIE apocalypse steers its way onto the PS3 this week for the latest port from the 360.

Monster Madness: Grave Danger concerns a group of six kids who are all caught up in the nightmare which coincidentally hits any beautiful suburban town in movie-land.

After chief protagonist Zack invites his 'study' partner round to help with his maths homework, legions of the undead decide to crash the party and here's where the fun begins.

Using any piece of furniture you can get your hands on you can brain any monster in the vicinity. My particular favourite - from this game and the last - is the mantel piece marlin, which never fails to fell anything it hits.

This game does improve on its first 360 outing, but Iwas expecting a little more. Although the annoying top down view has been improved - to give more view distance - the game has still refused to shake its flat and uneventful veneer.

Rating: 6/10 - Gravedigger