Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: January 22, 2003

Spielberg’s Minority Report was well worth the price of admission in movie theatres, as it blended some sweet special effects with a story more stimulating than your standard action fare. Predictably enough, a video game license was quickly franchised out, and equally predictably it was Activision that snapped up the rights to create Minority Report: Everybody Runs. This title could have gone any number of ways, but in the end the action elements are the main focus, molding Everybody Runs into a story driven, three-dimensional beat-em-up game closest in execution to Rockstar’s State of Emergency. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: January 17, 2003

Between Dead or Alive 3‘s gorgeous looks, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance‘s rock solid gameplay and the impending multiplayer opportunities offered by Capcom vs. SNK 2, there seems to be little room for other fighters on the Xbox at this point. Still, often you think you’ve seen it all when another sleeper hit comes along to surprise the heck out of you, and Kakuto Chojin could certainly be one of those titles. Boasting extremely slick visuals and promoting itself as being all about the fight, and not about fancy moves or weird powers, Kakuto Chojin could easily slip under our radar to become a gritty masterpiece. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: January 13, 2003

Midway clearly had two goals in mind when developing Deadly Alliance, the latest edition of the venerable Mortal Kombat series. Their first goal, which must have been to pervert the spelling of as many “c” words into “k” words as possible, was a resounding success. The second goal was much more ambitious: re-invigorate the respected series and capture the magic that made Mortal Kombat 2 a classic. Steadily losing its luster since those halcyon days, Mortal Kombat fans have found it harder to keep the faith with each edition, spin off and badly acted movie. Is it possible to return the soul to Mortal Kombat? Perhaps, but only by making some radical changes while walking the tightrope of fan alienation. Let’s step into the ring for a few rounds with Deadly Alliance to see how it fares. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: January 9, 2003

Vice City isn’t Grand Theft Auto 4. It uses the same engine as Grand Theft Auto 3, it employs the same basic mechanics and it progresses the story in exactly the same manner, so it’s unfair to think of it as a sequel. What it may be thought of, however, is one of the boldest expansions ever conceived. Matching the scope of the original game and expanding on the mechanics to include motorcycles and helicopters, Vice City offers everyone who loved the series’ shift to 3D another turn at the plate. This kind of release can go one of two ways, as it runs the risk of seeming stale now that the novelty’s gone. Before we’re done, you’ll know whether or not you’ll want to spend time on these sunny shores. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: December 20, 2002

Obviously, the good folks at Insomniac Games decided that there was a void to be filled, preferably by a comic duo of wisecracking action heroes with a penchant for jumping on moving areas. Adding an element of comic mayhem, and ensuring that the two heroes would work together and steadily gain new abilities so that old areas would have newly accessible segments, must have seemed equally appealing. They certainly speculated that if there were some way to work the collecting of items into the equation, all the better. Let’s face it: There’s not a whole lot we haven’t seen before in Ratchet and Clank. Mario, Jaxx and Daxter, Banjo and Kazooee – they’ve all been where we’re about to head. But is there no hope for the platformer in today’s world of non-linear, freeform exploration and expansive worlds? Chances are that our mechanically inclined pals will make you realize that there’s still hope for this most venerable of genres. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: December 13, 2002

When we first took a look at Genki’s Phantom Crash, a limited preview of some intense mech action and some of the coolest “Predator”-like cloaking effects to appear outside of Hollywood was the order of the day. There was little chance to explore the rest of the title, though promises were made about a deep storyline and an immersive career mode. Not a shabby combination, and certainly the kind of thing people are going to sit up and notice, especially with the onslaught of mech games to stomp their forty-ton way onto the market recently. Now that the final product has arrived, it’s time to take a look at the rest of Phantom Crash and see how it stacks up against heavy hitters like MechAssault.

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Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: December 6, 2002

It’s never enough when it comes to aliens. Not only do they possess advanced technology, incredible stamina and agility, and control of most of the galaxy, but they always have this burning desire to destroy humanity, and if they can do it for all of history, so much the better. Obviously, the eponymous villains from Timesplitters 2 have run across some serious resistance from modern humans, so instead of facing the wrath of powerful weapons and enhanced soldiers, they’ve simply decided to rot the core of humanity’s past and let the most depraved, disreputable and criminally insane have loads of support. Your job will be to stage a lightning raid into their time facility, capture the crystals they’ve attuned to various points in Earth’s history, and simultaneously prevent the Timesplitters from destroying the past and the future. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: December 5, 2002

If you owned a Dreamcast, you knew about Shenmue. As one of the largest Sega releases, you couldn’t escape it. It wasn’t universally appealing, as its goal of creating a real world in a console adventure framework led to some repetition. For the adventure loving crowd and those who enjoyed a good story, though, Shenmue was a breath of fresh air that let them explore freely without rush or constraints. It also managed to be a successful hybrid between an adventure, action and fighting game, making it unique – a rare thing in the console world. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: December 2, 2002

Some time has passed since the original uprising that placed players in the role of Parker, a miner turned rebel and figurehead of the corporation-busting Red Faction. Fast forward to the sequel and we see that the series’ hook is still there in full force: GeoMod coding for the walls and floors that allows you to deform the landscape with your weapons. Knowing full well that we can dig our way out if we get lost, let’s head back into the mines and see what’s become of the Faction in the past year. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: November 27, 2002

Hitman: Codename 47 was never ported to the consoles, but its sales were obviously high enough to justify a multi-platform sequel. It’s no surprise that the mysterious contract killer would make the leap to the next generation platforms, as Solid Snake had already paved the way for smart espionage action titles. If anything, interface would be the main concern, as many people found Codename 47‘s to be tricky to master and unforgiving, making it hard to imagine the process needed to shoehorn it onto a Dual Shock 2. Still, IO Games and Eidos seemed willing to give it the old college try, and Hitman 2: Silent Assassin was the result. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: November 21, 2002

As is the current standard for console RPGs, you needn’t have played the original Legaia to appreciate its sequel. A new storyline and extensive tutorials ensure that you’ll be able to pick up Legaia 2: Dual Saga from scratch and jump right in. This is certainly a good design decision because the series can’t claim anywhere near the universal appeal of the Final Fantasy games or even a general sense of familiarity, for that matter. For many PS2 owners, Legaia 2 will be the first they’ve heard of the series, so we’ll start from the beginning, examine the details and figure out if this follow-up is a pleasant surprise. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: November 18, 2002

In the dying days of the PSOne, a little game called X-Men Mutant Academy and its sequel managed to perform surprisingly well, largely due to the fan base created by the concurrent release of the film. A solid arcade fighter, Mutant Academy appealed to a less dedicated crowd than might have gravitated toward Virtua Fighter or the SNK releases. With flashy mutant effects and some neat combos as its primary draw, prospective students of Charles Xavier’s school generated solid sales numbers, and we were virtually guaranteed to see a sequel appear on the next generation of systems. Appropriately enough, that title matches the hardware, and the next crop of mutants can be found in X-Men Next Dimension. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: November 14, 2002

Rayman has an easy time laying claim to his title of everybody’s favorite limbless hero, since he’s the only one in the business. A composite body without all the unnecessary connecting bits, Rayman has appeared in 2D and 3D platformers, generally receiving accolades for smart level design and lush visuals. Now, the franchise expands with the addition of Rayman Arena, a party game featuring the majority of the cast from the previous titles, all competing in, essentially, two different competitions. Racing and combat options are readily available, and native four-player support should be enough to grab the interest of Xbox owners, but with competition from the online enabled Whacked! out there, does our hero have a leg to stand on? ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: November 8, 2002

BattleTech could easily be considered the license that just won’t die. One of the more storm-tossed intellectual properties, it’s weathered lawsuits from the Robotech camp over Mech designs, transitions in ownership and even the collapse of FASA as a leading role-playing and tactical gaming company. Now a property of Microsoft’s FASA Interactive, at least on the electronic side of things, the BattleTech license steps forward again, this time as a premier Xbox Live launch title. MechAssault shares a distant kinship with the MechCommander tactical games for the PC and a closer resemblance to the first-person MechWarrior simulations, but still stands apart from both. Microsoft had to satisfy hardcore fans while not letting the series bog itself down in the myriad controls, balances and Mech options that would frighten away newcomers. A delicate task, we’ll see how MechAssault holds up under fire. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: November 6, 2002

Tony Hawk can be credited with many things. He was the first skateboarder to pull a 900-degree rotation, and it was his easy charisma that brought skateboarding into the limelight again. His name also single-handedly defined a genre of trick-based sports titles, and while Activision has hold of the “Pro” license, it’s not too hard to imagine that every game in this mold has drawn some inspiration off of the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Into its fourth installment, this groundbreaking series has pretty much encapsulated the world of skateboarding. Well beyond the purely innovative stage, the later Pro Skater titles have set about refining the genre further. A fourth edition runs risks, as there’s always the temptation to rely on what has gone before. Before we’re done, we’ll have examined what sets Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 apart from its previous editions and its growing field of competition. ( read more… )