Review by: Pete Hines
Published: June 27, 1997

Lord of the Realm 2 combines real-time combat, like in Warcraft II, with turn-based strategy and movement, like in Civilization. You begin the game with your own piece of turf, complete with loyal subjects. Making sure your peasants stay fed, happy, and productive is crucial to your success. Doing so means you become more powerful and can build armies to overtake other shires (sections of the map). Your goal is to become king (or queen) and master of all you survey. Then it’s on to another map and more challenges. ( read more… )

Review by: Jim Brumbaugh
Published: June 24, 1997

The news is not good: the Bions have survived. You thought that you had destroyed them in Fury3. Apparently, a few slipped through the final eradication of the planet Fury. Now the Coalition of Independent Planets is calling upon you again. Through all the years you were in exile, you had always wondered if the Bion threat had been completely eliminated. As soon as you heard the Ambassador’s voice, you knew the answer to your question. ( read more… )

Review by: Pete Hines
Published: June 18, 1997

Enemy Nations is Windward Studios’ entry into the highly competitive real-time strategy game market. The story in Enemy Nations centers around a race for control of a planet — the last uninhabited planet in existence. As a result, all 12 of the alien races involved (including the humans) are desperate to be the first to gain control of this invaluable piece of property. Your task is to lead the race of your choice to victory by establishing a colony, effectively managing your resources, expanding your control, and eliminating your opposition. ( read more… )

Review by: Shawn Quigley
Published: June 18, 1997

Sierra’s long running baseball simulation series Front Page Sports: Baseball is back this year with its ’98 incarnation. With all the hype in the industry revolving around 3D modeling, Sierra’s popular baseball simulation takes one more step forward instead of a leap into the future. Although FPS: Baseball Pro ’98 has not taken on more advanced graphics, it has made strides towards making a perfect baseball simulation model. ( read more… )

Review by: Brian Pipa
Published: June 17, 1997

The economy is in the throes of a deep recession. Flames of riot rule the cities. Gas is expensive and scarce. Crime is rampant. No one seems to care. This is a time for vigilantes. So begins Activision’s Interstate 76 (I76). ( read more… )

Review by: Pete Hines
Published: June 16, 1997

All of you “Minnesota Fats-wannabes” have one more way to test your stuff with Head Games’ ProPool 3D. The game comes with an amazing amount of customization, and lots of choices to keep things interesting. Fifteen different tables, four playing environments, and eight game types give gamers a seemingly endless number of options and combinations for playing pool.

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Review by: Brian Pipa
Published: June 16, 1997

Ahh, the olympics. A coming together of the best athletes in the world to compete for fame, glory, and the pride of their countries — or not. Gooch Grundy’s X-decathlon takes the whole olympic theme and turns it on its ear.

Compete in ten wacky events like Hippo Push, Crazy Climbing, Nice Doggy Jump, and Full-Contact Figure Skating, to name a few. You have a choice of six characters for your on-screen persona: a brutish he-man type, a kangaroo, an ape, an Amazonian woman, a space alien, and Gooch Grundy himself. Gooch Grundy is your typical couch-potato, athlete wanna-be — slightly overweight and dressed like a geek.

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Review by: Jim Brumbaugh
Published: June 13, 1997

The hunt for treasure can be a maddening adventure full of frustration and disappointment. Many have searched for the lost treasure of King William, but these riches have never been found. Some say that there is a dark power which coexists with the loot, but no one really knows for sure. Now, it’s your turn. You are in the City by the Bay, historic San Francisco. Your search will provide you with historical visions of the city and show you the legends of San Francisco, as you attempt to solve this mystery which spans across the 19th and 20th centuries.

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Review by: Pete Hines
Published: June 11, 1997

Versailles 1685 is a mystery/adventure game from Cryo and Interplay where you must uncover a plot to destroy Versailles. As Lalande, a trusted valet, you will have only one day to find out who is behind this scheme before it is too late and the palace is laid to waste. You will have to search throughout the grounds and interact with dozens of individuals to find the clues needed to solve the mystery and win the game. As you will see, the game and its objective are relatively uncomplicated and straightforward. ( read more… )

Review by: Pete Hines
Published: June 10, 1997

Well, if you didn’t get your fill in Heroes of Might and Magic 2, New World Computing and 3DO have served up an expansion pack that will definitely get your attention. As if you did not lose enough sleep playing the last go around, get the Jolt Cola or the coffee ready, because you are in for a long night. New campaigns, heroes, artifacts, and other additions are included in this expansion pack. ( read more… )

Review by: Jim Brumbaugh
Published: June 9, 1997

“This is one of the most frustrating sectors of space I have ever been assigned to,” thought the Commander as he reviewed the latest, grim battle statistics. “They dump me out here in this remote sector of space and limit the resources at my disposal. How can they expect me to harvest the resources of this planet and maintain my fleet while repelling the military attacks of six different races?” Just as he finished his thought, ominous sounds of gunfire and explosions could be heard over the communications system. “Commander! We’re being attacked!” a hysterical voice shrieked from the other end of the comm system.

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Review by: Pete Hines
Published: June 4, 1997

When we last left this trio, they had just finished dispatching of the evil Tomator. Now, those three goofball Vikings from The Lost Vikings are back again in Interplay’s Norse by NorseWest, The Return of The Lost Vikings. Olaf the Stout, Baleog the Fierce, and Eric the Swift have slipped through the fingers of the evil Tomator (again) but are now lost somewhere in time (thanks to Baleog’s bumbling). In this combination action/strategy/puzzle game, you must use the skills of each hero and the help of friends they meet along the way to get them back home. With skill, brains, a little luck, and a good sense of humor, you might just make it. ( read more… )

Review by: Brian Pipa
Published: June 4, 1997

Reloaded is the follow-up to the hit console game Loaded. I have never played the original, but I had heard good things about it. I was looking forward to reviewing Reloaded since it promises non-stop, bloody killing — sounds just like my kind of game. Unfortunately, the hype is all talk, and no substance. ( read more… )

Review by: Shawn Quigley
Published: June 2, 1997

Every now and then we gaze up into the sky to wonder what might be out there. If we could only see farther into space, we might find a battle that is raging between two alien races, the Ovon and Reptons. Until now, the Ovon race was winning the war. But that is changing because of the Reptons’ new tactics, those tactics focus on recruiting beings from other planets, planets like ours! Darklight Conflict is loosely based on an alien abduction theme where the primary character is a former earthling (a fighter pilot) who has been genetically restructured into an alien.

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Review by: Brian Pipa
Published: June 2, 1997

Just in time for that big dinosaur movie by that Spielberg fellow comes Pyrosaurus, a strategy game like no other. Think T. Rex is a pansy? Would you laugh in the face of a ‘Raptor? Create your own dinosaur that could have ruled the Prehistoric Age. Try your hand at creating and training your own team of dinosaurs to fight it out against teams created by other players like yourself. ( read more… )