I don’t often do reviews. John says it’s like pulling teeth to get me to give him copy. I tell him that running a small publishing house is more like pulling teeth and that he should try it sometime. He then tells me that if I think I’m so smart I should review this new game, ‘Start Up 2000.’ Exit John, looking pleased with himself. Start Up 2000 is a simulation of the business world and the insanity that surrounds the world of high tech start ups. From the demands that your investors can place upon you, to the marketing, … Continue reading Start Up 2000 is tycoon training→
"Stay alone, stay alive." As a member of a rescue team to Mars, you have just crashed landed on the Red Planet and as you head for your assigned airlock, these last words from the previous mission ring in your head! TalonSoft’s recent release of Martian Gothic: Unification puts the gamer into a world full of horror and suspense. Set in the year 2019, you are one of three members of a team sent to Mars to find out the fate of the previous mission that had set up Vita Base to see if life really did exist on our … Continue reading Stay Alone – Stay Alive with Martian Gothic: Unification→
Been looking for something more challenging than Space Combat against a predictable artificial intelligence? Enjoy the thrill of mining for resources and then using those resources to fuel your war efforts? Like the thought of team play against up to six other teams at once? Then perhaps Microsoft’s new multiplayer online space extravaganza – Allegiance deserves a look! Microsoft’s new entry into the multiplayer Internet gaming community, Allegiance has elements of Starcraft and Civilization (the finding and mining of minerals and a technology tree for technology advancement), Tribes (with multiplayer only team situations) and any of a host of 3 … Continue reading Allegiance is super space combat→
Capcom has been on a roll lately. In the past several months alone, three titles have been released. First of all, we have the impressive anime mech-style Tech Romancer, the long awaited Street Fighter 3, and the much anticipated sequel to Marvel Vs. Capcom. I had a chance to try out all these titles, but for the time being I wanted to review SF3 and MVC2 because over the last few years, since the days of X-Men back in 1994, there has been a heated debate. On one side of the argument, you have the Street Fighter series that has … Continue reading Capcom loads titles on Sega Dreamcast→
Ring…Ring…Hi! This is Jonathan Ablebody the LegoLand Duty Manager. Congratulations, you have just bean hired as the new LegoLand Trainee Park Manager. Lets meet the rest of your staff. There’s Professor Voltage the park scientist and inventor of new rides, JP the parks chief mechanic, Bob Longtree the parks chief landscaper, and who can forget Rosie Brickolini a cousin to Mama Brickolini from Lego Island and the master Chef of LegoLand. The objective of LegoLand is to build a working theme park using rides, attractions, restaurants and landscapes from four different themes including LegoLand, castle, wild west, and adventure themes. … Continue reading LegoLand Reality meets Lego Game→
It was not hard to believe how clear the MidiLand S4 7100 multichannel computer speaker system sounds, or how loud it is, or even that it is far better than my high-end car or home stereo. What is interesting is that the speakers actually improved my game play both in terms of better scores and in my overall enjoyment. Forget the industry standard of four speakers because MidiLand throws another one into the mix. It makes my office seem as acoustically correct as a concert hall. An additional satellite speaker handles a specific range of the audio spectrum and also … Continue reading MidiLand S4 is symphony of sound→
When Daydream (the makers of Safecracker, one of my all-time favorite puzzle games) and Dreamcatcher (the publishers of Cydonia, one of my all-time favorite puzzle games (notice the pattern?)) got together to bring us a new puzzle game, I thought I’d be in heaven. And mostly, I was. Traitors Gate is a totally brilliant game with beautiful art, a fabulous interface, engaging sound, and best of all – ingenious puzzles. It is marred only by some loading and startup problems that I will get into later. In the game, you are Raven, an agent with the CIA. The head of … Continue reading Traitors Gate is crown jewel of two companies→
Is it too early in my GiN career to give a game a perfect score? Yes, but I’ll do it anyway for Diablo II. Just be careful when you play this game, it has a powerful nicotine-like addiction. It’s the crack cocaine of computer games. You just can’t stop playing it. It’s easy to get into, but darn hard to walk away from. Case in point: a friend of mine played straight for about 20 hours. But it gets worse"at four in the morning during his binge, he returned from the bathroom and realized that he had locked himself out … Continue reading Diablo II is devilishly good!→
Sega’s World Series baseball lineup, until now, always appeared a sure thing to me. It all started when I played the original World Series for the Genesis, which was developed by Blue Sky. This company was also responsible for great Genesis classics such as the Vectorman series. When the Saturn was released in 95, a new Japanese-based development house released their smash hit Greatest Nine to the states, naming it again World Series Baseball. It was one of the earlier launches capable of stealing some thunder from the EA Sports titles released for the PlayStation. As each year passed, the … Continue reading World Series 2K1 loses big→
Sega’s Virtual On will always have a place in my heart as one of my all-time favorite Saturn titles. It also is a title responsible for me spending a lot of money at the local Dave & Buster’s a few years ago. It is such a simple game to get into, yet a challenge to master. True one-on-one mech combat against another human opponent is now possible, and as a result, long lines were common. It was just as much fun to watch a battle as it was to play. Pictures of Virtual On Oratorio Tangram (henceforth known as Virtual … Continue reading Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram is a stupendous sequel→
