Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: June 18, 2002

These days, there seems to be two varieties of combat flight simulators on the market: arcade shooters and simulations. In the arcade arena, players with little or no flight experience get thrust into a graphically-impressive fray, quickly facing off against hordes of relatively weak computer opponents that become burning hunks of Swiss-cheese thanks to the player’s self-congratulatory efforts.

( read more… )

Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: May 20, 2002

One of the prerequisites of a successful merchandising campaign for any blockbuster is to release toys accessible to as many people as possible. At one time, this meant just coming out with plush Jar-Jar dolls in addition to standard plastic action figures, but now in the era of electronic entertainment, it includes having to release video games on every platform imaginable. In the case of the successful Spider-Man movie, Activision released four versions of the video game adaptation, one for every popular home and portable console system. Luckily, computer gamers were not left out, as Gray Matter Studios offers the most graphically intense version of the batch in Spider-Man: The Movie.

( read more… )

Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: May 6, 2002

Katie Casey was baseball mad, had the fever and had it bad,

just to root for the home town crew, every cent, Katie spent,

on a Saturday her young beau, called to see if she’d like to go

to see a show but Miss Kate said, “No, I’ll tell you what you can do…”

Ever heard these lines before? Believe it or not, they’re verses from one of the most recognized songs in America, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” When you think of that familiar 7th inning ditty, you’re probably not imagining the exploits of Miss Casey and her fanaticism towards the national pastime. Similarly, when most gamers picture baseball titles for PC or console systems, in all probability they visualize a graphically-intense game, with television-like camera angles, detailed controls, and sound effects like the crack of the bat or the roar of the crowd. ( read more… )

Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: April 17, 2002

There’s something about the Middle Ages that seems to be the perfect backdrop for computer games. Perhaps it’s the heavily armored and beweaponed knights on majestic steeds clashing against their foul enemies. Maybe the wonder of magicians and sorcerers conjuring up the unknown has appeal. Or possibly gamers just like disease-laden, dirty peasants who build huge fortresses for their demanding lords. Whatever the reason, we see many titles, specifically real-time strategy (RTS) titles, that in one form or another use a spin-off of the tried and true medieval “build-huge-armies-to-raze-cities” model. The latest developer to approach this genre is the newcomer Black Cactus from England, who presents Warrior Kings, a 3D RTS following an epic story containing real-world history mixed with fantasy and mythology. With their offering, Black Cactus allows players to step into the armored saddle of a cunning warrior as he guides his troops to victory.

( read more… )

Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: October 25, 2001

The Eighties. It was a time of excess and greed, pop music and Pac-Man, home PCs and yuppies driving BMWs. It was also a time of military tension, with the ardent American president Ronald Reagan preparing his nation to face the cold war against the “Evil Empire” of the Soviet Union. Today everyone seems to be caught up in the frenzy of fighting faceless terrorism, but there was a time less than 20 years ago when the enemy was highly recognizable and more predictable. The cold war ended with the U.S. and NATO on top, but what if Soviet and American forces had butted horns conventionally before the fall of the Berlin Wall? It would have been a great contest between two equally powerful nations, and for the Czech developers at Bohemia Interactive, the scenario provides an intriguing back-story for a realistic computer war simulation. With that in mind, Bohemia and Codemasters present one of the first Cold War era combat sims on the market, Operation Flashpoint. ( read more… )

Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: October 12, 2001

It’s only a matter of time before computer and videogames become totally indistinguishable from live television. I remember playing the laser disc arcade game Dragon’s Lair many years ago and thinking its smooth graphics were the apex of interactive entertainment, but seeing the latest influx of next-generation console titles, that’s obviously not true. I point specifically towards Sega’s football releases for the Dreamcast and EA Sports’ Madden series for the PlayStation 2. I was tempted to go out and buy a console system just for the realism of these offerings, knowing that despite my computer’s comparable (if not better) hardware, sports releases for the PC always seem to lack the same playability and fun found on consoles. With EA Sports’ latest entry in the Madden NFL series for 2002, however, the company is attempting to bring back the fun console experience for computer gamers. ( read more… )

Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: October 5, 2001

I continue to be amazed with how far multiplayer game technology has gone in such a relatively short period of time. Almost twenty years ago, the big multiplayer innovation was a four-player, paddle-controlled Pong variant called Video Olympics on the Atari 2600. The interactivity was crude at the time, but the fun was undeniable. Now in this day and age of fast college-dorm T3 and cable-modem Internet connections, players need a greater fix than a square pixel bouncing between four video athletes. After online multiplayer card and board games began to lose their novelty in the early pre-Internet days, the deathmatch arena in Doom became popular, later evolving into a timeless contest known as “Capture the Flag.” This simple team-based competition, once played on the green fields of summer camps and on cracked asphalt playgrounds, was brought to new pinnacles in the digital realm by Sierra and Dynamix through a program called Starsiege: Tribes, causing an epiphany in online gaming circles. After countless frags, flag-captures, and clan matches, many players drooled with news of a Tribes sequel that could improve upon what some already considered a team-based masterpiece. ( read more… )

Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: September 27, 2001

There have been many companies in recent years trying to achieve success through today’s popular computer entertainment trend: the real time strategy (RTS) game. This particular genre seems to fit perfectly on the computer platform versus living room console systems: They often require precise mouse movements, numerous keyboard commands, and a good amount of patience and strategy usually absent on an eight-button controller operated from the couch. Some would argue that the pinnacle of excellence in RTS titles came through Blizzard’s best-selling program, Starcraft, an offering with the right amount of play balance, multiplayer action, tactics, and shoot-em-up fun. There haven’t been many programs that offer the same wholesome entertainment of Starcraft, but new developers continue to step up to the plate. Now Fever Pitch Studios serves up a fresh helping of strategy gaming with their newest release, Conquest: Frontier Wars, a title that attempts to take RTS to a new level of massive space combat goodness.

( read more… )

Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: September 21, 2001

Fantasy role-playing titles are often a predictable lot. The average “dungeon hack” takes place in a mythical time, with magical and heroic creatures squaring off against a bunch of nasty, foul-smelling beasts guarding the average damsel in distress. So you can understand my interest in Troika Games’ latest contribution to the genre when I learned they would add a twist — industrialization. It was bound to happen. No society should remain stuck in the Middle Ages forever, and in Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura, fantasy finally gets with the times. Horses have given way to locomotives, knights in armor become vulnerable to firearms, and machines powered by electricity are giving wizards and sorcerers a run for their money. At the same time, magic still remains strong, and a dichotomy begins to emerge between the traditional “magick users” and the new “technologists.”

( read more… )

Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: September 14, 2001

As I’ve mentioned before, flight simulators have held a special place for me when it comes to computer games, especially space combat simulators. They are often associated with better-than-average graphics, responsive controls, and nifty sci-fi settings. I’ve been a fan of the genre ever since Origin’s Wing Commander and LucasArts’ X-Wing series — titles demonstrating awesome gameplay and gripping storylines. Joystick and keyboard at the ready, I spent countless hours enjoying my control of a powerful, futuristic combat vessel, unconstrained by the boundaries of gravity, fuel, and ammunition. My one regret with these games was their linear nature: you could never really go and do your own thing outside of your mission requirements. That changed with Elite and later Origin’s Privateer, one of the first space combat sims that let you go freelance across the galaxy on piracy and cargo running missions. No titles have really attempted to pick up from where Privateer left off — until now. Particle Systems, a company based in Sheffield, England, presents their latest space combat and piracy sim that tries to make popular the notion of lasers, eye patches, and the space-faring expression “arrg,” Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos. ( read more… )

Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: September 12, 2001

“It was a sight one could never forget. Over the range of hills, as far as eye could see, crept a darkening hem, ever longer and broader, until the shadow spread across the slope from east to west, then downwards, downwards, uncannily swift, and all the green herbage of that wide vista was being mown as by a giant sickle, leaving only the vast moving shadow, extending, deepening, and moving rapidly nearer.”

- from Carl Stephenson’s short story, “Leiningen Versus the Ants”

“This is the ant. Treat it with respect. For it may very well be the next dominant lifeform of our planet.”

- from the 1977 cult film “Empire of the Ants”

Ten years ago, Maxis released a strategy title unlike any of its kind. Players controlled the destinies not of cities and people, but of thousands of common ants living in a microcosm known as someone’s backyard. Although innovative for its time, SimAnt never really caught on like its cousin SimCity, but it no doubt captured the imagination of the French developers over at Microids. In an unusual entry to the real-time strategy genre, Microids presents a computer game based on the 1991 Bernard Werber book of the same name, Empire of the Ants. Totally unrelated to the 1977 cult film, EOTA gives players a chance to apply their myrmecological strategy-gaming prowess to various insects in an epic campaign that will determine the fate of a tiny, yet mighty empire. ( read more… )

Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: September 5, 2001

Can you imagine what it must have been like fighting in World War II? Picture the nervous anxiety of being a common soldier involved in intense, large-scale battles. What about being a vigilant tank commander in control of a massive, tracked steel beast on the blasted plains of France? Or better yet, how exhilarating and terrifying must it have been to fly a propeller-driven fighter through deadly 350 MPH dogfights? Now, in what would have been considered impossible just a few years ago, gamers and war enthusiasts alike can have a chance to reenact the battles of the Second World War with thousands of others players simultaneously from their personal computers. Using the power of the Internet to literally link worlds together, Cornered Rat Software and Strategy First present one of the most ambitious wargaming titles to date: WWII Online – Blitzkrieg.

( read more… )

Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: August 31, 2001

Vikings. You’ve gotta love these guys with their longboats, horned helmets, and big opera singing women. There’s a rich sense of history and importance behind the Norse people of long ago, so it seems natural that an interactive PC title would emerge to revolve around them. Up to the plate steps the German developers at Funatics, who decided to create a real-time strategy game with Vikings in mind. Rather than focusing on the real life pillagers and berserkers, Funatics went along the cartoony Asterix route, designing cute and hardy little characters that players could care about as they live out their virtual existence. Calling their product Cultures, the Europeans present us with an opportunity to build and control a virtual civilization in a patient, lighthearted manner.

( read more… )

Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: August 29, 2001

People rarely think about Iceland, a land curiously named by the Vikings to confuse explorers about its lush habitat versus its icy neighbor, Greenland. Yet in an alternate future, this small European nation becomes the flashpoint of a vast global conflict when the Russians decide to play hardball with the West. Preparing for such an attack, a union of European nations unveils its newest and most advanced fighter craft — an airplane capable of speeds past Mach 2, with up to eight tons of weapons and fuel, and full radar capabilities. This aircraft is the Eurofighter Typhoon, and while the real-life version is still several years from full deployment, flight enthusiasts can have a chance to fly a simulation of it today to help turn the tide of a virtual war.

( read more… )

Review by: Josh Horowitz
Published: August 24, 2001

If there ever was a game genre that has undergone massive evolutionary steps, it would have to be the first-person shooter. The popular genre’s roots date back to primitive computer RPGs such as Wizardry, where players would wander down screen after screen of square 3D hallways and corridors fighting pixilated monsters. Later releases like id’s Wolfenstein 3D added new levels of realism to this concept, incorporating real-time movement and fighting as well as digitized sounds and graphics. The bar was raised once again with Doom, the first 3D first-person shooter (FPS) to utilize realistic bitmapped textures and break the bonds of square hallways by presenting a truly believable environment. With Quake came the first true polygon-based 3D environment in a FPS, and later, Half-Life set the standard for its eye-popping graphics and immersive storyline. Now, over 15 years after the genre’s awakening, Finland-based Remedy Entertainment presents what it hopes will be the next step in 3D Shooter greatness with a game that took four years to develop: Max Payne. ( read more… )