For the last few months all I have been hearing about is this new Deer Hunter program which GT Interactive released under their WizardWorks budget lineup. I remember WizardWorks being responsible for some pretty decent add on products, such as their amazing D!Zone extension for DOOM a few years back. I used to spend plenty of time fooling around with the new levels, there were over 900, and it was found by me to be more than worth the 20-odd dollars I paid for it. But now, there’s this new budgetware product which is meant to simulate a true deer … Continue reading Deer Hunter woos non-traditional gamers, but not mainstream→
Interplay Production’s latest release, Die by the Sword, takes the behind the back perspective made famous in Tomb Raider and successfully incorporates it into an all encompassing sword fighting experience. The main game involves a warrior named Elric, a simple swordsman who is enjoying a peaceful evening with his girlfriend Maya. They are suddenly attacked by an army of kobolds, and Elric chases after them. Little does he know that other kobolds arrive to carry Maya away in order to be used as a human sacrifice. Returning to the area to find his beloved missing, he races to a cave … Continue reading Interplay calls on VSIM technology to push gaming envelope→
When I hear that a game that I look strongly forward to is being delayed, it puts a chill in my spine. That’s because when a game is heavily delayed, it usually means that something is seriously wrong and the final product will be a total disaster. Take Battlecruiser 3000, for instance. Here we have a product that was supposed to be the ultimate in space exploration; something in the likes of Privateer, Elite, etc. After who knows how many years of delays, what was brought to the public was an unfinished disc, complete with bugs, crashes, incomplete manuals, and … Continue reading StarCraft was worth the wait. Enough said→
A few months ago I wrote a review of Konami’s Nagano Winter Olympics 98. Still, I am haunted by the mundane graphics and just plain God-awful gameplay. Fortunately though, I tested out Sega’s answer, Winter Heat. For me, it did a good job at cleaning out the rotten aftertaste that Nagano put in my mouth. Winter Heat is the sequel to one of the Saturn’s better, and most underrated, sports games ever released: Decathlete. Decathlete was itself was Sega’s answer to Konami’s Track and Field way back in 1986. Winter Heat follows up to Decathlete’s character selection, offering eight different … Continue reading Winter Heat can help Saturn platform go out with a bang→
Force feedback was something I had always wanted in my computer game environment. I first thought I would get it with a Nintendo 64 Rumble Pak, but basically all that is, is a little vibrator which doesn’t accentuate each force independently. Lately, I was able to get my hands on Microsoft’s new Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro joystick, and let’s just say that from the pack-ins alone, I am hooked. It’s strange that a company that just got in the gaming business when they released Windows 95 has created a controller of such extraordinary abilities. A 16-bit 386SX microprocessor works in … Continue reading Microsoft Force Feedback Control is one cool shootin’ iron→
Game Review- Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith
Is LucasArts’ Mysteries of the Sith just a Jedi Knight add on? Or is it a lot more? Let’s put it this way: if more companies designed add-on packs like this, then the games they are based on would be greatly enhanced. Mysteries of the Sith takes place five years after Kyle Katarn disposed of Jerec and the Seven Dark Jedi. As he is training Mara Jade, herself a former Emperor’s Hand seen in the Timothy Zahn novels, Kyle discovers a possible location for a hidden Sith temple and is compelled to discover its mystery. As he departs for the … Continue reading Another great notch in LucasArt’s Lightsaber→
Now that the Winter Olympic games in Nagano, Japan are finally over, the NHL can resume again. That means that we will be hearing more and more about how great Dominic Hasek is, just because he led his Czech Republic team to Olympic gold. So far this season, we have seen the king of hockey simulators, EA Sports’ NHL 98, shine on the PC and on the PlayStation. Up until now, the Nintendo 64 had to make due with the sub-par Gretzky trilogy (Gretzky 3D, Gretzky 3D ’98, and Nagano Hockey 98), which basically is just the same game in … Continue reading NHL Breakaway ’98 scores for Nintendo 64 gamers→
I would like to know just what is wrong with Konami these days. I remember how it used to be about ten years ago, when their name was synonymous with quality. After all, who can forget their innovative NES series such as Contra, Castlevania, and Gradius. This tradition of greatness went on during the era of SNES and Genesis, with 16-bit releases of their classic series. That, like many other legacies, are destined to change. When Konami started creating games for the PlayStation, they suddenly obtained this new desire to make nothing but sports games. Sure there were some good … Continue reading Konami’s NBA In The Zone ’98 fouls out→
While the Nintendo 64 might be a good system for racing games and remakes of classic NES and Super NES games, fighting games seem to have been left behind. Those that are made, however, went from relatively average to just plain awful. While the Saturn had quality fighters like Virtua Fighter 2 and Dead or Alive, and the PlayStation had is superior Tekken lineup, the Nintendo 64 was left with worthless junk such as Mortal Kombat Trilogy and War Gods. It’s been a year and a half since the N64 was released, and there hasn’t been one great fighting game … Continue reading Fighters Destiny helps catch up N64 as a fight game platform→
Hybrid games usually don’t work. A game company comes up with an idea in which two different genres are combined into one game. It might be an ambitious concept, but the execution almost always falls short. Cyclone Studios decided to take a shot at this trend. They thought "What if we took the first person action of Quake 2 and combined it with the strategic elements of Red Alert?" and came up with their latest release, Uprising. In turn, not only is it an innovative idea, but it’s also a pretty enjoyable combat simulator. Rather than showing the action in … Continue reading Cyclone Studios blows standard hybrid-game idea away→
