Combat arms is a first person shooter (FPS for short) game which you can download for free and play against other people online. You sign up for a free account, download the game, and then you get to choose your characters basic identity and buy yourself weapons, armour and other gadgets to help you on your way, before launching yourself into the game with the other players.

This is actually a really good game considering the fact that you don't need to pay anything for it (although you do have the option of putting some money into an account for buying new stuff for your character such as better weapons, there is nothing you can buy which you can't get eventually through earning credits by making kills, so you don't have to spend money to be able to compete if you are willing to put the time instead). Anyone who has ever played Counter Stike, one of the best selling first person shooter games available to buy in the shops will find a lot of similarily between it and Combat Arms, both in the game play as well as the general look and feel.

 Once you have created your character and your ready to get stuck into the fighting you can choose between playing in various game modes such as 'one man army', which is just every man for himself in a big tear up, or 'elimination', which involves two teams competing to reach a fixed number of kills.

You also get to choose between different maps for the location that you are going to be fighting in. If you are fighting with a sniper rifle then you would probably find it easier to play on a nice large map where you can keep your distance from other players and find some nice places hide yourself away and pick people off, whereas the smaller maps are better suited to fighting with machine guns.

 When you are first starting off in the game your priority should be to get yourself some heavy armour and a helmet so that you can survive for longer. Remember that you will be fighting against more experienced players, so you will take hits. Sub machine guns are a good beginners weapon and you can do some real damage just by letting loose and straffing the whole screen with bullets.

I wouldn't have been particularly unhappy about this game even if I had paid for it. It may not be as big as the kind of game that you would buy, and it's pretty much all multiplayer action rather than having a load of single player missions to complete, but in terms of quality Combat Arms is right up there. For a free game would give this 9 out of 10. To start playing click here