Games: Xbox live <br></br>Resident Evil Zero <br></br>Vexx <br></br>Bubble Bobble Old and New

Xbox Live starter kit, Microsoft (Xbox) £39.99

For consoles, online gaming is undoubtedly the year's most significant event. The potential enhancement this brings to the gaming experience can only be appreciated fully by those who experience it first-hand.

With Nintendo's and Sony's strategies still undisclosed, Microsoft is first out of the blocks with the official launch of its broadband-only Xbox Live service this Friday. Its confidence is no doubt boosted by the success of the trial version the company has been running since November.

The starter kit includes a headset (voice communication features heavily in Xbox Live games), installation software, a year's free subscription and a demo disc with playable levels of the superb MotoGP racing game (above) and Whacked!, though six Xbox Live-compatible games are also now available for purchase. All you need is a broadband connection.

Resident Evil Zero, Capcom (GameCube) £39.99 ****

A graphically stunning prequel to Capcom's long-running, hugely popular "horror survival" games, Zero's contribution is the ability to switch between the two main characters throughout the adventure. Aside from that (admittedly masterful) addition, Zero differs little from previous titles. This, as anyone who has jumped out of their chair only to blow an offending zombie to fragments will tell you, is no bad thing.

Reducing Resident Evil games to such a level is unfair, of course – the titles engage the intellect as much as the instinct.

Vexx, Acclaim (PS2, Xbox, GameCube) £39.99 **

Any three-dimensional platform title comes up against considerable competition these days. It faces not only rivals among the supremely accomplished examples issued by the other games companies, but also the demands of a games-playing public that possesses a thorough understanding of the entire genre and has expectations to match.

That Vexx borrows most of its structure from the seminal Super Mario 64 game will not surprise anyone – the majority of such platform titles do. In its favour, the game displays an uncommon level of inventiveness – which is quite an achievement within such a heavily subscribed video-gaming category – but it then manages to trip itself up with an odious camera system that renders it almost unplayable. This, together with the fact that there are so many better choices around, makes it difficult to recommend.

Bubble Bobble Old & New, Empire Interactive (Game Boy Advance) £29.99 ****

A 1986 arcade classic, Bubble Bobble has made several appearances on home consoles, but its arrival on Nintendo's handheld is welcome for the variety it brings to that machine's software catalogue.

The premise is simple: dinosaurs Bub and Bob must clear 100 increasingly complex levels of enemies. The latter are disposed of by trapping them in bubbles (blown by our protagonists' prehistoric mouths) and then, predictably, bursting them.

The bright aesthetic masks a fiendishly addictive and delightful experience.