Review by: Bob Mandel
Published: January 2, 2001

If anyone is crazier than motorcycle stunt riders, it is bicycle stunt riders. Risking life and limb in situations where the forces of gravity seem to disappear, they perform death-defying tricks astride a rather flimsy vehicle with little protection. BMX bicycle stunt competition began in the early 1970s when some young hotheads began jumping their bicycles over rocks, ramps and ruts wherever they could find them. Now the sport has become more legitimate and established, with two major organizations holding major BMX competitions in the United States–the American Bicycle Association on the West Coast and the National Bicycle League on the East Coast. While today’s 20-inch bicycles are much lighter, stiffer and faster than the originals, utilizing materials like aluminum, titanium and carbon fiber, none of the technological advancements meaningfully eliminates the gut-wrenching perils involved. With extreme sports like mountain biking, skateboarding and snowboarding already having made their way to the personal computer, it was only a matter of time until bicycle stunt riding made it there as well. Thus Z-Axis has developed for Acclaim’s sports division the new release, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX.

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Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: January 2, 2001

When it first debuted on the PlayStation and the PC, the original Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen was a cult classic. While its top down gameplay had been iterated countless times, and felt vaguely reminiscent of the NES version of Willow, the story had as little in common with that fanciful tale as Kain did with the diminutive Nelwin. Notable for its amazing voice work, Blood Omen eschewed the typical trapping of a fantasy adventure game and started with your character’s violent death and equally painful resurrection at the hands of Mortarius, a powerful Necromancer. Blood Omen proceeded to weave a complex tale of revenge, anger, betrayal and madness that chronicled Kain’s growth from a newly resurrected vampire to the last, and most powerful, of his kind. After a long wait, Blood Omen’s storyline, which left many, many tantalizing loose ends open in gamer’s minds, was succeeded by Soul Reaver, the next in the series. Again a tale of revenge, this second chapter focused on Raziel, Kain’s disgraced lieutenant. Anyone who played through Soul Reaver would be quick to point out the cliff-hanger ending as one of its most frustrating aspects. Now, after a few years of rapt anticipation, our favorite anti-heroes are back to do battle again in Soul Reaver 2. ( read more… )

Review by: Jonathan Houghton
Published: December 29, 2000

Lately we’ve been hearing about nothing but Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament modified titles, including several “Star Trek” incarnations and an inventive version of Lewis Carroll’s classic fairy tale called American McGee’s Alice. One 3D gaming platform that hasn’t received much attention recently is the aging Half-Life engine, which has always been exceptional at rendering alien-looking environments while making virtually everything collapsible. In conjunction with Sierra, Rewolf Software has designed a Texas Ranger-inspired shoot-’em-up that takes place in the depths of space and uses Gordon Freeman’s favorite technology. Gunman Chronicles attempts to follow Half-Life‘s sense of drama and adventure while integrating several innovative new ideas. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: December 28, 2000

When one thinks of an “old school” RPG, the mind typically leaps to the Final Fantasy series. Those games have maintained a traditional system of tracking character levels, statistics and variable equipment without fail for nine chapters so far. At no point in the series have players been forced to cope with a radical shift in the titles’ focus, and instead there’s a constant evolution of a tried and true system. Of course, while Square’s series has been the flag carrier of this genre, other developers have delivered similar titles on almost every console. As such, the conventions of the old-school RPG are well known, except, perhaps for those who started their gaming career on the Dreamcast. ( read more… )

Review by: David Laprad
Published: December 27, 2000

I was dumbfounded when the first Frogger, released for the PC and original PS console, sold close to 4 million copies. The game was supposed to be a fizzing, bubbling tribute to the arcade classic, but instead inspired more PC-pounding rage than I care to admit. Full of bugs, riddled with unfair puzzles, and topped off with a third-person camera that had no sense of direction, I was unable to fathom how gamers had found the product entertaining. It was that bad. That said, Frogger was a tremendous success, and there was no second-guessing at Hasbro when it came to producing a sequel. Indeed, a follow-up was a no-brainer, though two questions remained: Had success blinded Hasbro to Frogger‘s problems? Or would the publisher fine-tune the all-important mechanics that separate good arcade games from bad ones? ( read more… )

Review by: Jonathan Houghton
Published: December 26, 2000

Each genre of electronic entertainment has a long running series that most players recognize as being the best in that category. First-person shooter fans have the ever-popular Quake franchise while adventure aficionados have the Monkey Island series. For turn-based strategy games on the PC, Blue Byte Software has been gracing players with updated tactical entertainment for nearly a decade. The Battle Isle series, beginning with the original back in 1991, started what would become a highly regarded group of games known for innovation and bridging genre boundaries. Incubation, released in 1997, was one of the few titles to garner the prestigious Reviewer’s Choice award here at the Adrenaline Vault. Making a courageous attempt to recapture the sense of groundbreaking work achieved with earlier titles and hoping to continue a tradition of success, Blue Byte has finished work on the newest incarnation of their long-running epic series–Battle Isle: The Andosia War. ( read more… )

Review by: Bob Mandel
Published: December 26, 2000

How many titles are there that over 12 years after their release still have companies trying to match their balanced and exciting gameplay? Outside of Atari offerings, I can think of precious few products that would fit this bill, and indeed, most of today’s releases will probably be long forgotten a decade from now. Sid Meier’s Pirates!, issued by MicroProse back in 1987, is such a classic, and the Russian developer Akella is but the latest in a long line of aspirants hoping to recapture the magic from this groundbreaking title. With Bethesda Softworks’ publication of Akella’s Sea Dogs, the hope is that would-be swashbucklers such as myself can once again experience an unparalleled pirate adventure on the high seas. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: December 23, 2000

Ever have “one of those days?” Ever feel like your head’s about to explode because things just keep piling up on top of one another? Ever been seduced by a vixen in a red dress, or escaped from a hostage situation while trying to get home for your mother’s birthday? If you answered “yes” only to the first two of these questions, then Titus and Polygon Magic have teamed up to make you feel much better about the overall quality of your daily routine with their offering Incredible Crisis. ( read more… )

Review by: Jonathan Houghton
Published: December 22, 2000

When the minds behind the FPS revolution, that occurred with Doom and Quake, were busy thinking through specifics of gameplay, it is doubtful that they ever could have imagined anything quite like Hitman: Codename 47. The genre that gives Hitman its definition actually has very little in common with the gung-ho action sequences of relentless killing found in earlier entries. Though stories of assassination and silent murder are quite common in the electronic entertainment industry, few companies have ever opted to make a game based solely on making Mafia style hits for profit. In releasing Hitman, Eidos Interactive has taken a bold step towards the redefinition of action titles with the amount of thought that is needed in actually making a kill. Whereas most action offerings encourage you to jump out in the middle of a corridor and unleash a barrage of rockets or plasma-energy, Hitman requires you to carefully plan out your strategy before sneaking around that corner. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: December 21, 2000

One of the most enduring series of roleplaying games ever, the Final Fantasy series has already survived several platform transitions with minimal difficulty. With Final Fantasy IX, Square is again preparing to leap free off their main system, and thus this offering is the last of the series to appear on the original PlayStation. ( read more… )

Review by: Jonathan Houghton
Published: December 20, 2000

Forms of entertainment reach out far beyond our own small world of video gaming. Before Nintendo or Atari ever graced the electronics industry and the monster conglomerate of television networks began airing their sitcoms, one of the favorite pastimes shared by people worldwide was reading. Be it fiction, historical, science fiction or fantasy, people have been enamored with the written word since the days when basic education became available to the masses. Words in the hands of a great author can manipulate the reader’s emotions around in many different directions, taking them from the heights of ecstasy to the pits of despair. Some of the best and most original ideas in our society sprang to life from words written by literary geniuses like Jules Verne and H.G. Welles. Our industry of video gaming has made many varying attempts to adapt famous stories for the optical and magnetic mediums of interactive entertainment. To call the results, ‘mixed,’ would be gracious.

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Review by: Bob Mandel
Published: December 19, 2000

What does a developer do if it wants to fashion the last release in a long-running series? Often you would want to put in elements that remind faithful followers of earlier installments, and yet introduce a few new wrinkles without straying too far from the spirit of its predecessors. You have to keep those who have played every release enthralled, while at the same time not leave those having their first exposure out in the lurch. In the end, you would want to make it the most memorable game of all. Looking specifically at Tomb Raider Chronicles, this is the fifth major installment in the famous series that began back in 1996; and while this is not the very last such offering ever to be released, it is clearly — as stated by the developers — the last one to be issued based on existing technology. So the question is: Is this a worthy finale?

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Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: December 19, 2000

EA Sports has certainly given its stamp of approval to the PS2. With updates of classic franchises such as NHL 2001 and Madden NFL 2001 setting the pace, Sony’s new system has been enthusiastically bombarded by the developer. NASCAR 2001 follows this trend by making its leap to the PS2 this year, and expectations are high that the Emotion Engine will provide a new level of realism to the NASCAR circuit. ( read more… )

Review by: Jonathan Houghton
Published: December 15, 2000

The Jetfighter series is one of the longest running in all of video game history. The original was released at the end of the 1980′s, when VGA graphics were just beginning to appear in titles like Epic’s Jill of the Jungle. Since then Jetfighter has been given three incarnations. I was first introduced to the series with Jetfighter 2, a product that was remarkably easy to play even without the help of a joystick. Since the second version, the Jetfighter series has evolved along a very separate path from many combat sims. Military simulators often keep staunch realism at the forefront of the gameplay, introducing real combat data from companies like Jane’s, who have access to many technical details of world aircraft. Microsoft’s Combat Flight Sim 2 is one such game, highly dedicated to providing players with a realistic experience. Such devotion oft times comes with a high price; and the cost of heavy realism in flight simulators can be measured by how difficult the offering is for novices to pick up and play. The Jetfighter line has never been focused on unerring detail and realism, instead choosing to center around the endorphin spiking action inherent to Top-Gun style dogfighting. Jetfighter IV: Fortress America continues the tradition, providing players with an experience heavy on action while still including a flight model that is sufficiently difficult to keep prospective pilots on their toes. ( read more… )

Review by: Jonathan Houghton
Published: December 13, 2000

The design team at Microprose faced quite a vexing dilemma when work began on the sequel to Civilization 2. Many people felt that the quality of turn-based strategy had waxed beyond its utmost limitations. How could it be possible to create a successor to the legendary Civilization design without the brilliance of Sid Meier to guide its development? When Sid left to form Firaxis, he left the rights to the Civilization series with the publisher, Microprose. With an understandable desire to continue the great success enjoyed by Civilization 2, work was begun by Activision (after some legal wrangling) on a game entitled Civilization: Call to Power; something which took the franchise’s heart and tried to add some interesting elements. Though it was met with mixed feelings from the community, Call to Power was nevertheless a solid strategy title. Activision, still in possession of the rights for the Call to Power, has listened to player complaints stemming from the first release and developed Call to Power II, taking the empire based strategy formula to a new level. ( read more… )