Battlefield 3

Publisher: EA

From our Battlefield 3 review:

'The infantry combat is responsive and engaging, the vehicles a grin-inducing joy ride. The fact that there are so many game types and that the maps reconfigure depending on player count means there’s a huge amount of variety in BF3’s online offering, and with more unlocks than you can shake a boom-stick at, it’ll take you ages before you’ve seen and done everything. Battle Log and Origin are awkward, but Battle Log is at least functional, making it easy to find servers with free slots or running your favourite maps.

In short, Battlefield 3’s multiplayer is a triumph, and while the single player campaign isn’t the most original, or entertaining shooter, it’s the online modes that will keep us playing for months to come.'

Battlefield 3 has garnered an almost Crysis-esque reputation as a graphical benchmark for PCs. We run the game at its highest 'Ultra' settings with the Field of View set to 70. We record the average and minimum frame rates during a ninety second on rails section in the campaign mission 'Going Hunting'. The benchmark begins the moment one of the NPCs says "plans have changed".

Dishonored

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

From our Dishonored review:

'I want to be careful not to get caught up in hyperbole; I don't want to make promises that Dishonored can't keep and I don't want to go off on indulgent tangents or speak in blithe internet memes.

But Dishonored might be one of the best games I've played in the last ten years and, if you want to cut a long story short, you should know that I'm going to finish this article by telling you to buy it.'

Although not a tour de force graphically, Dishonored is one of the best games of the last few years, and indeed the fact it isn't too graphically challenging makes it a great laptop gaming benchmark. We record a 60 second section of the game on the last level as Corvo approaches the lighthouse from the boat.