Review by: Bob Mandel
Published: October 31, 2001

After a deluge in the late 1990s, the arcade racing scene on the personal computer has been mighty sparse of late. After having been spoiled by Psygnosis’ Wipeout XL and Rollcage, Ubi Soft’s POD, Digital Illusions’ Motorhead, Beam Software’s Dethkarz, Crave Entertainment’s Killer Loop, and even Electronic Arts’ more mainstream Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed, my expectations in this most exciting racing niche have been raised to a sky-high level, and nothing coming around the bend has seemed to stack up. But now the Swedish company GRIN is just in the process of releasing the much ballyhooed futuristic arcade racer Ballistics — so are my long-unfulfilled cravings finally about to be satisfied? ( 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: Mike Laidlaw
Published: October 9, 2001

Being a kid can be tough. Other kids teasing you, the pressures of growing up, those pains in your legs when you hit your growth spurt, and, of course, that time in your life when your voice deepens and your horns grow into their full size. Admittedly, most of us don’t have to worry about the horns part, but in one village, every generation has one child who is born with nubs that eventually grow into full bullhorns on their head. This child is shunned, blamed, cursed and eventually exiled for their disfigurement, leaving them loveless for most of their lives. Such is the lot for the titular hero of Ico, SCE’s first adventure release for the PlayStation 2, but we as gamers are offered the chance to guide this young man into adulthood through a trial that most of us would be terrified to face. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: September 28, 2001

When gamers talk about anticipation, there are certain titles that have left them hanging on a larger cliff than Tim Curry’s famous lyric in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. PC gamers were salivating over Black and White for months, while Dreamcast owners were hanging by a thread before the release of Shenmue. Of course, the PS2 has no shortage of these hotly anticipated games, including the still impending Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and the now arrived Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec. Racing fans everywhere have loved this series for years in its PlayStation incarnations, and with hordes of screens from the PS2 flooding the net before its release, the hype had reached incredible levels. As much as “any press is good press,” this kind of hype can make or break a game, since it must leap from a tower of its own anticipations, and from this either soar or crash mightily amidst a crowd of knowing nods and crushing reviews. Read on to see whether this racer soars or sinks in our review of what some were considering the first “killer app” on the PS2. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: September 22, 2001

Like the summer solstice, Christmas and New Years, gamers have certain annual events circled with red ink on their calendar. Obviously, this year’s launch dates for the X-Box and GameCube are receiving special attention, and every year the media blitz makes it impossible to overlook E3, but when it comes to gaming institutions that you can use to define your annum, none of these have the permanence of the release of each year’s Madden NFL game. This year mark’s the series’ second appearance on the PS2, which puts the pressure on EA Sports to deliver a solid sophomore effort. This time out, football fans aren’t going to be wowed by pretty graphics alone, as the last version was a major leap forward for the series in that department. Thus, the designers have the momentous challenge ahead of them of trying to improve upon a series that has been slowly evolving for years. Gamers have always agreed that this series is one of, if not the premier football simulation available on Sony’s systems (Sega fans have always stood strongly by Sega Sports’ NFL 2K series), but no one would ever declare that they are “perfect” recreations by any means. Will this year’s edition finally deliver the authentic experience of the NFL, or will it merely be an update of rosters and a few minor tweaks? ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: September 1, 2001

When the ESRB was founded, it was created on the principle that gaming needed a self-regulating watchdog group. The industry needed an organization that would not limit the contents of games, but instead judge them and deem the content acceptable for specific age groups. Of the three most commonly seen levels, Everyone, Teen and Mature, the latter carries with it the most history. Typically these titles are the ones pointed out in Congress, and the ones blamed for destroying the fabric of North American culture. As a result, some developers shy away from such mature, and potentially disturbing content, but there are a select few studios that gratefully accept the Mature mantle into their hearts, and view it as a license to run wild with their ideas and concepts. Incog Inc., a group of developers who slaved over the original Twisted Metal for the PlayStation are just such a group, and their return to the series that defined vehicular combat demonstrates just how grown-up gaming can be. So forget your preconceptions about slightly silly cars and drivers, and enter the morbid and disturbing world of Twisted Metal Black. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: August 24, 2001

We’re at an interesting time in the handheld market, as Nintendo still runs the show, but their product line is in the midst of a changeover from the tried and true GameBoy Color to the GameBoy Advance. Fortunately for the handheld gamers out there, the Advance is backward compatible all the way to the original GameBoy system’s cartridges, making it a versatile beastie indeed. During the changeover, Nintendo has apparently recognized that it will take a while for the Advance to catch on, but in order to speed its introduction the company has introduced some nifty gimmicks into their last-generation GBC releases. ( 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… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: July 20, 2001

Up until this point, first-person shooter fans were somewhat limited in their selection. Deathmatch oriented titles were readily available, but despite excellent graphics and great gameplay, they weren’t necessarily satisfying. Part of the problem lay with the limitations of the PS2, as its lack of Internet support forced players to split their screen or deal with bots. This isn’t to say that they were inferior games, but they could have been better with the proper hardware support. Sony owners who preferred plots and intrigue in their shooters were left out in the cold for a while after the system’s launch, but now Volition, a studio which is quickly making itself a name as a multi-talented team, has decided to give gamers an alternative with their new release, Red Faction. The question is, is it better to be out in the cold, or trapped in the dark recesses of a Martian mine? ( read more… )

Review by: Rick Weindel
Published: June 14, 2001

If you’re like me, you feel the same way about the flood of RTS games on the market as I do about politicians. There are a lot of them already out there, a lot more trying to get your vote, and they rarely, if ever, live up to their hype and promises. So, when I heard about Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, and took a look at some of its screenshots, I pretty much wrote it off. I guessed it was another clone, trying to ride the coattails of all the other RTS titles before it. Soon after it came out, message forums all over the net began to fill with hundreds of messages about Kohan. I wondered, could it be that someone had breathed new life into a stagnant genre? ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: May 25, 2001

Japanese history buffs and fans of anime alike will find plenty to enjoy in Capcom’s newest spin on the survival horror genre. Set in feudal Japan, Onimusha Warlords tells the story of one Samanosuke Akechi, a masterless samurai who witnesses a pivotal moment in his land’s history. On his quest to conquer all of Japan, a warlord known as Yoshimoto is attacked and slain at the hands of a rival named Nobunaga. While celebrating his rival’s defeat, Nobunaga is caught unaware by an archer’s bolt and collapses with his throat punctured and blood fountaining from the wound. Having observed the battle, Samanosuke leaves and puts the matter out of his mind until a distressed message from Princess Yuki, of the Inabayama clan, begs him to investigate disappearances of her palace staff and rescue her from the terrifying situation. As is always the case when Capcom turns its attention to the horror genre, things are not as they seem in the lands of Inabayama, and those looking to uncover the dark secrets need only fire up their PlayStation 2 to join in the adventure. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: March 17, 2001

No matter your opinion on Sega as a company or as hardware developers, you really can’t accuse them of standing still. Whether they succeed or fall flat on their face, their corporate philosophy seems to be one of innovation and progress. Take, for example, the gutsy decision to ship the Dreamcast with a built-in modem. While it took a while to bring the games up to speed, one can’t deny that it was Sega that blazed the trail to the promised land of online gaming for console systems. Given their adventuresome spirit, it’s compellingly appropriate that Sega will also be remembered as the first developer to release an online RPG for the living room crowd as well. Building upon an established and critically acclaimed lineage, Phantasy Star Online is the latest evolution of a series that first appeared in Japan in 1987. ( read more… )

Review by: Nick Stewart
Published: March 15, 2001

The time was 1492, and Europe was split up into various superpowers, each with its own unique identity and motives. It was a time of change, in virtually all possible realms: politics, culture, the economy, as well as religion. It was a time where England, Spain, France, Austria, Russia, and others were looking to expand their respective empires, hoping to build upon the various foundations that had begun to crumble under the heavy weight of endless war and the Black Plague that had stricken more than a hundred years previous. Hoping to increase trade without dealing with the Ottoman empire that sat in their way, countries such as Spain and Portugal set out to sea, running with the possibility of arriving at economically-rich India via a more direct route. Discovering America, the New World, would eventually spark a unique set of problems of its own, as the struggle to control this vast and potentially rich land incited countless conflicts. This was the beginning of a time where artists such as Michaelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci would make their indelible mark, where Machiavelli would write one of the most defining doctrines of “realpolitik,” and where Martin Luther would change the face of religion. It was the beginning of a period that would shape the face of history, and it’s the exact realm that you have the opportunity to enter, mould, and control within the epic Europa Universalis. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: March 3, 2001

Growing up and learning to drive in rural Ontario, I have a low-level understanding of the difficulties faced by Rally drivers. My summers included regular trips to neighbor’s farms, the vet, and other exotic locales, all of which involved many kilometers of travel on loose gravel roads. Winters required a whole new set of skills, as unpaved roads were either completely covered in snow or coated in an even more treacherous layer of mud. Needless to say, one quickly learned the same skills used by the Rally driver: speed control, smooth slides and careful steering. ( read more… )

Review by: Mike Laidlaw
Published: February 28, 2001

The art of fighting with one’s fists has been a part of just about every culture in history. There are indications that the Ancient Egyptians treated pugilism as a sport; with leather thongs wrapped around the participants’ knuckles and wrists, the activity was added to the ancient Greek Olympic program in 688 B.C.E. In the 1700′s, England gave rise to a codified set of rules that came to roughly resemble the sport we know today, including the division of fights into rounds and the introduction of “mufflers” or gloves for the combatants. ( read more… )