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I imagine it happens something like this: a group of developers want to make a game in a particular, successful genre. Unfortunately, everybody else is making the exact same game, and despite their titanic efforts in the areas of gameplay and graphics, they know in their hearts their title will not stand out from the pack. Rather than admitting defeat, our brave heroes fall to thinking up a gimmick that will differentiate their baby from the pretenders, and titles like U-Wars, a third-person shooter that sees the action raging on land and underwater, are born. Games journalists everywhere then rejoice at the slew of easy punning opportunities that arise.

Coming from Russian developers Biart, whose previous credits include the scuba-sims Diver: Deep Water Adventures and Check Dive, U-Wars has already made a splash under its previous title, Underwater wars, when it took out the equivalent of "best upcoming console game" award at one of Russia's top games industry events a few years ago.

The player dives into the role of a Navy SEAL and takes part in various missions that make up a storyline apparently including the threat of nuclear war, three simmering global powers, and terrorists. just about the whole check list, then. Gameplay is tactical and squad-based, with multiplayer promised for the Xbox 360 version, and draws on an enormous pool of weaponry and gadgetry, both real and imagined, including jetpacks and submarines.


I'm really not sure where we're headed with this one, since the announced destination platforms vary from source to source and from month to month, but currently (did you get that one?) we're expecting to see it next year on the slightly odd mix of PC, PSP, and Xbox 360. If you want to dip into U-Wars, you can find a number of damp screenshots and trailers on the mirror. There! I think I was rather restrained, really.