Review by: Chris Harding
Published: November 5, 1998

Perspective is an unusual and often peculiar thing at times. Each person’s thoughts, actions, opinions, feelings, and general make-up are contrived from a multitude of factors that, when put together, give us all one similar quality — we are all unique. Perspective seems to be a big part of computer games nowadays, and in more ways than one. The most obvious connotation of perspective in games relates to a player’s vantage point. Our Editor-in-Chief Emil Pagliarulo recently looked at this issue and the plethora of third person perspective games in his editorial entitled “Gaming’s Out of Body Experience.” The other form of perspective is a tad more ambiguous, just like my experience with SegaSoft’s latest title, Vigilance.

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Review by: Craig Miller
Published: November 4, 1998

Several years ago there was an arcade game called Cyberball; it was a futuristic football game played with robots using a heavy metal ball. The game was fairly simplistic, but endlessly addictive. You had a certain number of downs to move the ball past a yard marker using either passing or running plays. As the robots got hit, they would take damage, and if you didn’t upgrade them they would eventually explode. Cyberball remains in the top five of my all time favorite arcade games. Well, the game was also a lot like Midway’s NFL Blitz, which the company has just ported over to the PC — something that should make many arcade gamers very happy people. ( read more… )

Review by: Bob Mandel
Published: November 3, 1998

Two easily confusable and closely intertwined types of games are pure arcade combat shooters and flight simulation combat shooters. While both have you blow everything you see to bits in a somewhat mindless frenzy of finger-twitching action, there is a subtle but crucial difference. The first category, best represented by Rage’s Incoming and Blue Byte’s Extreme Assault, puts you in an assortment of vehicles that are amazingly effortless to control, tend to stop on a dime, and bear no relationship whatsoever to their real-life counterparts. The second category, best represented by 3D Realms’ Terminal Velocity and Microsoft’s copycat Fury3, puts you in planes that actually present many of the complexities and challenges of flying real aircraft (not, of course, with the accuracy of a true flight simulator). The result of this seemingly small difference is huge in terms of vastly contrasting gameplay experiences.

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Review by: Pete Hines
Published: November 2, 1998

An unsuccessful attempt to colonize Mars and the subsequent discovery of a rather large gun there — pointed directly at Earth — has caused a bit of alarm in 2082. As a result the United Nations is looking for someone to provide the firepower necessary to attack Mars and take out this threat (“Earth Attacks” starring Jack Nicholson?). Robo Rumble centers around the two corporations that are vying to win this contract via a series of war games being held on Mars. Win the games and you win the contract for your corporation, and get a chance to take out the aliens. You can play the game as either Red Star Robotics or Terraflux and lead your robotic creations to victory. War is hell, business is hell, and the business of war is hell. ( read more… )

Review by: Craig Miller
Published: November 1, 1998

The EA Sports franchise has become a part of everyday life. It can be seen in movies and television series and it’s hard to find someone who hasn’t heard of the name. This is due mainly to the high quality of product EA produced in the early days. They were always pioneers in graphics, and to some extent, in gameplay. Over the years the product lost a little bit of its luster due to competition and a lack of innovation. I don’t know about the other products in the EA stable, but I can tell you that Madden is back! You will be hard pressed to find a better football game this year. ( read more… )

Review by: Emil Pagliarulo
Published: October 30, 1998

“Welcome…to Jurassic Park!” With those words (and Industrial Light and Magic’s special effects wizardry) Stephen Spielberg magically transported millions of filmgoers eons into the past, and millions of dollars into his dinosaur-skin wallet. For America’s most beloved director, the decision to adapt Michael Crichton’s best-selling novel must have been a no-brainer: everybody seems to love dinosaurs, and with the advances in computer rendering technology, ILM would be able to bring these creatures to life with unprecedented realism. That, in a nutshell, is exactly what happened. Despite the corny plotlines and lackluster acting, Jurassic Park and its sequel The Lost World skyrocketed to the top of the charts, thanks solely to the frightening, completely believable CGI dinosaurs. But that was yesterday.

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Review by: Pete Hines
Published: October 29, 1998

At a former job I used to work on a Macintosh and subsequently needed to have one at home as well. Desperate for decent computer games to entertain myself with, I browsed through the five or six available for the Mac at that time (as if that’s an exaggeration) and came across Warlords. I bought it, played it, skipped a lot of meals, spent a lot of sleepless nights trying to capture that one final city, and essentially fell in love with the whole concept. Warlords III: Darklords Rising is the latest game in this series, and expands on Warlords III: Reign of Heroes. It offers all the same gameplay as Reign of Heroes, but adds so much more, including new features and functionality. ( read more… )

Review by: Bob Mandel
Published: October 28, 1998

Long forgotten in the recent flood of action and strategy games is the old-fashioned action puzzle game. Sure, there are a few 1998 releases in this genre, like GT Interactive’s Lode Runner 2 and Ambertec’s Pharaoh’s Ascent, but generally in the world of retail game releases puzzlers are nowhere to be found. Even excellent action-puzzle games from the last couple of years, such as Magnet Interactive’s Icebreaker and SegaSoft’s Lose Your Marbles, would have trouble seeing the light of day in retail outlets these days. Part of the explanation here is that they rarely need the fancy audio/visual bells-and-whistles that sell games in today’s competitive environment, and many do not even need the space a CD-ROM provides. They are by nature largely intellectual exercises, and although there are action elements, mental agility generally appears to be at least as important as quick reflexes. ( read more… )

Review by: Craig Miller
Published: October 27, 1998

The men who flew the World War I era fighter planes were perhaps the last of the knightly soldiers. They flew with a code of honor and a sense of duty in planes that were just as apt to breakdown as they were to complete the mission — all of this without parachutes. At this point in history the usefulness of air combat was yet to be established, and many of these men flew without much appreciation at all. But don’t take my word for it. Sierra has brought the era to life in Red Baron 3D, the latest installment in their popular WWI simulator series.

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Review by: Chris Harding
Published: October 26, 1998

I imagine that earlier this year when Zombie released Spec Ops: Rangers Lead the Way they knew they had something special, but I don’t think they knew it would spawn an entirely new spin-off of the 3D action genre. Spec Ops: Rangers Lead the Way was the first single-player game to incorporate squad-level tactical strategy within a 3D action game, and did a marvelous job of it as noted in our review last March. However, as noted in the review, a few annoying bugs, some poor artificial intelligence, and lack of a promised multiplayer feature kept it from being a classic. I, like the rest of you am appalled at the recent trends developers are taking. Releasing buggy games with the intention to patch them afterwards doesn’t set well with me, but I don’t expect perfect games either, and when a company stands by their product I take notice. Zombie has done just that, and has not only offered numerous patches, but upgraded the original game over the last several months as well. Unfortunately if you want to participate in multiplayer Spec Ops, you’ll have to pay for it. ( read more… )

Review by: Craig Miller
Published: October 25, 1998

[Editor's Note: Due to the fact that we were missing a vital game manual when we reviewed Grand Prix Legends, and didn't realize it at the time, The Adrenaline Vault has re-evaluated the game based on this new information.]

The FedEx driver steered his truck down the long winding unpaved road, silently cursing his bad luck in getting this particular package to deliver. It was surprisingly dark for a late afternoon and the clouds above suddenly opened up with a deluge of rain. Thunder and lightning soon followed, and a particularly bright lightning bolt revealed his destination. High atop a hill at the end of this winding road stood a dark, baneful tower. Upon reaching his destination, the driver stepped out of the truck into the muddy yard and trudged his way to entrance. Lightning now played along the upper shaft of the tower, which thrust up into the night sky. A few braver bolts teased the very tip of the tower, only to be snuffed out in a flash. ( read more… )

Review by: Pete Hines
Published: October 22, 1998

When Age of Empires (AOE) burst upon the scene, I expected big things. While it was an enjoyable game in many respects, it had a few components that I thought needed some fixing or adjusting. Still, the game seemed to be popular and the following for AOE grew to sizable numbers. Rise of Rome is the expansion for AOE that adds more gameplay and some functionality to extend the life of AOE until AOE 2 is ready next year. I know that patches have been released for AOE that addressed some problems and added features (i.e., population limits). However, for the most part I’ll be referring to what’s new in Rise of Rome as it compares to the original AOE. Those of you who have the patches know what they fixed, and those who don’t, should get them. ( read more… )

Review by: Emil Pagliarulo
Published: October 21, 1998

While it’s not the most popular or even most well known period in American history, the French and Indian War of the mid 1700s has reached a certain romanticized status, thanks in large part to the works of James Fennimore Cooper and films like the classic Drums Along the Mohawk and the recently remade Last of the Mohicans. Great books, great movies…great computer game? ( read more… )

Review by: Craig Miller
Published: October 20, 1998

The F-16 first took to the skies in January of 1974 and it has been flying countless missions for many different nations ever since. It has been continually refitted and upgraded since that day and is arguably our military’s best made and most long-lasting weapon. It is the most versatile of all fighter planes, housing more ordnance and fuel pods than any other fighter aircraft. The F-16 has a 69-0 kill ratio and average peacetime mission success rate of eighty-eight percent. ( read more… )

Review by: Bob Mandel
Published: October 16, 1998

Long-running series of computer games can go one of two ways. One direction, by far the most common, is to begin to lose the freshness and originality of the first release over time, resulting in an almost mechanical pumping out of new installments that eventually appeal to a narrower and narrower base of loyal diehards. The other direction, praiseworthy but quite rare in the gaming world, is for the designers to pressure themselves with each successive release to incorporate yet more innovative breakthroughs, so as to cement the series’ position on the top of the heap. It is indeed rare for a multiyear game series to be able to actually retain its initial position of dominance, and most commonly more aggressive competitors knock the initial “king of the hill” off of its lofty perch. ( read more… )