The Discovery: Gene Wars
2000-01-20 Staff | Just like every show on the Sci-fi network, you discover we are all taking part in a hidden battle for the future of mankind. This battle pits movie reviewer Gene Siskel against movie reviewer Gene Shalit. You have to choose sides and make sure your Gene wins. It is the classic haves vs. the have-nots. Siskel with his balding head vs. Shalit's bizarre whiteman Afro. Don't think for a moment that Siskel's death was a victory for Shalit because we are pretty sure Shalit is dead as well. We just can't find anyone who cares enough to verify this information.
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Dukes of Hazzard: Racing for Home (Playstation)
2000-01-20 Staff | Bo & Luke lose a target audience.
The game plays like a game for the youngin's. My 8-year-old niece and I solved it in 5 hours and she was able to complete all but a few missions on her own. One problem. She had no idea who these hicks were. The cut scenes are slightly fun for people who remember the show but the rest of the game is tedious at best for anyone over 8. Watching hicks ramble on about cars and moonshine just doesn't have the same impact on kids after they see these same hicks admit to sleeping with their own parents on The Springer Show.
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Urban Chaos
2000-01-03 Staff | Fun. Big Fun. Think Tomb Raider without the boring pacing, boring game play and child molesting. There is no in-level save. But if you stick to the required mission only, most levels can be solved in under 15 minutes. The problem is that with so much to interact with, it is hard not to take the time to explore. You can look for power-ups, get dissed by people on the street, arrest guys for urinating in public or just get into some fights. The demo does not do this game justice.
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Barbie Generation Girl Gotta Groove
1999-12-11 Staff | Do you remember when the blacks were all up in arms about Jim Neighbors stealing their music? (Back then African Americans were known as blacks and my dad was a dumb Polack, I am just trying to be historically accurate.) I think it was Jim Neighbors, but it could have been Elvis - anyways - They were mad about someone white and stiff stealing their music. So the powers that be gave them some music of their own in the form of Little Richard (If there is something bothering you about Little Richard but you can't quite put your finger on it, may I suggest you research the "shocking revelations" of George Micheals or Liberace.)
Barbie® Generation Girl™ Gotta Groove is this generations answer to the Japanese Dance Dance Revolution. They are making simulated dancing games safe for white suburban girls. I think we should give the Japanese the Japanese metal band Doom in return.
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CFL 99
1999-12-11 Staff | Canadian Football? What next? Are they going to start selling games based on football leagues my friends and I make from NFL2K? This is not football.
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Coleman Camping
1999-12-11 Staff | Camping with Gary Coleman! Just when I was ready to give up on games based on midget minority actors from 80s sitcoms, this game saves it all for me. I was disappointed with this years earlier release "Spelunking with Webster." It seemed rushed and just out to capitalize on some fading fame. Coleman Camping changes all of that. This gritty cinema verity look at what a child star faces on the streets of NYC is moving and yet fun. Think Space Ace for the homeless. An example scene: You walk down the street and come upon a sewer grate. Joystick up takes you onto a cold night and endless taunting of "what you talking about Willis?", a quick push down and you are spending a warm night basking in the warmth of steam rising off the raw sewage pipes. This is a sure buy game for the holiday season.
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Messiah
1999-11-20 Staff | Were you worried that with all the new games coming out you would not have time to spend with your family this holiday season?
Shiny sends down the messi
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Driver
1999-10-16 Staff | Midtown Madness meets Grand Theft Auto without any annoying British slang for the word fuck.
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Total Annihilation: Kingdoms
1999-10-13 Staff | You get to be one of the members of Earth, Wind & Fire or the "ex-4th EW&F member"; water.
What a bunch of mucky shit. A campaign mode that makes you switch sides midstream? The original Earth, Wind & Fire never changed sides, and they had enough sense to drop the band member that could dominate all their water based shows, brothers just don't like the water.
Also Earth Wind & Fire at least introduced something new to pop ridden jazz music, the kalimba. T/A K offers nothing new, and does nothing special with the old. Try Homeworld or AOE:II before trying this.
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Homeworld
1999-10-11 Staff | With the release of Homeworld, C&C II officially becomes the Shogo of this season. Sure it will sell some copies, but if it had been released a few weeks later no one would have bought it. AOE:II wins on the traditional resouce management front, and Homeworld takes us to a new place in RTS games.
There is a demo for this game, but don't play it. The demo just doesn't live up to the game. Trust us on this one.
One side note: the ever fruity Vangelis of "YES" does the score, but thankfully there are no lyrics.
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Rage Of Mages II
1999-10-11 Staff | What happens when you have Russian programmers meld with Monolith for a sequel to an already crappy game? You get mission pack bitches selling their mission packs at full price. The only plus side for buying the game is you keep Igor employed one more day, and that is one more day he isn't selling nuclear arms to Islams like Mike Tyson.
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Drakan
1999-10-05 Staff | We would like to thank the fruity avatars of programming at Surreal for the free content they provided us while promoting this game. While we have yet to play this Lara wannabe, we are excited to try it. We found out that in Surreal's never ending quest to make this game family friendly they have added a whore lockout. This brings us the same thoughts we had with Kingpin, if there is a violence lock out there must be a ton of violence. So with Drakan, if there is a whore lockout, there must be a ton of whores. I only hope they look more like Lara than Rynn.
Did I forget to mention this game features orcs? Wow, I think this may be the first game to use this great middle earth monster. What next spiders?
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System Shock 2
1999-10-05 Staff | I cannot lie. I hated System Shock. Fuzzy graphics and stupid cyber space killed it for me. I almost like System Shock 2. Almost.
How much skill does it take a trained marine to shoot a shotgun? It seems every 5 year old kid can shoot his friend with daddy's gun while playing, how come your skilled marine pretends he has never seen a gun? The game turns into some bizarre cyber-upgrade management game. Even the simplest of tasks need 2-3 upgrades before you can handle them.
The game does have its moments. It has a creepy feel and made me jump more than once. But it also made me fall asleep waiting for the "Quick Load" to load. I doubt I have the patience for the loads to finish this one.
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Age Of Empire II: The Age Of Kings
1999-10-05 Staff | What in the hell is going on at Ensemble Studios? Didn't they get the memo? They actually released a game that works out of the box, and feels like someone actually listened to the play testers.
There are enough small touches in this game to make Command & Conquer 2 look like it was play tested by Corky from Life Goes On. AOEII is a perfect mix of all that was right in Myth plus all that was right in C&C or Warcraft. From your troops going into a logical formation on their own, to great path finding. This game blows away any other resource management / strategy game out there. Tie up your enemies archers with a feint of footman to catch them off guard with a flanking move by your knights, great stuff.
There is one downside. I have learned from the real men in the strategy newsgroups that a tutorial takes away from any strategy game. It lets people who do not make their imaginary friends call them "General" learn the game in a few hours. So points off AOEII for a great tutorial.
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Darkstone
1999-09-16 Staff | Why is a random level generator good? Why not just go play Telengard? I guess this game appeals to the crowd that hates story lines in their games and just gets off on seeing their stats rise? If this sounds good to you, I have a game for you. Next time your mom drives you to the mall, watch her speedometer. Your mom's mileage stat just keeps rising! Watch out, if it rises too high, she might cast the "Help pay for gas" spell on you.
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Star Trek Trivia
1999-09-13 Staff | Question #1: Who is cooler?
a)An original Star Trek Fan
b)A Next Generation Fan
c)A Voyager Fan
d)A Deep Space 9 Fan
Please answer the above question and then argue among your "friends" for the next 3 hours. In absence of friends, an argument between your right and left hand does count.
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Re-Volt
1999-09-13 Staff | You race a Radio Controlled (R/C) car.
What is wrong with people? Are we that addicted to sitting in front of a computer that we must play everything through a computer? For you non R/C car racers, you can enjoy regular R/C car racing in the same manner you can play video games. You sit on your ass, drink beer, and hold a control device in your hands. There is only one difference. You can sit quietly in your home and play Re-Volt, but every neighbor in the world is going to call you fruity if you stand in your front yard and "play" with your R/C car. Life is just not fair.
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Braveheart
1999-09-13 Staff | In Mel Gibson's Braveheart a bunch of fruity Scottsmen take on an even larger contingent of bad toothed Brits and win. That will not float in this great strategy game. In the video game version of Braveheart, it's all about numbers. More of anything is better, regardless of how they are armed or armored. Considering Mel graces the cover of the box, the game could have at least included his decapitation scene.
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Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun
1999-09-13 Staff | The original C&C is probably in my top 5 games of all time. When I first booted it up, to when I called in sick the next day, I was hooked.
Tiberian Sun offers more of the same, but with more of the crap that has been added to the genre since the original C&C release.
It is no longer enough to build bases and fight enemies. RTS's are filled with Myth style missions. One major problem. They do not have the Myth interface nor the Myth tactics. How many times in the single player missions do I have to search around for the one "strategy" that will solve that mission? Hey wait, I guess it does have something in common with Myth...
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World of Combat 2000
1999-08-30 Staff | Someone finally takes a stab at simulating combat in the futuristic world of 2000 AD. Robots riding on hovercraft fight each other for batteries and bare patches of the radioactive wasteland. The human "creators" are just a distant, guarded memory of the CPB - the central processing being! Scary fun for fans of speculative fiction.
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