zroas N64 • GameCube • PS one • PS2 • Xbox Prear caste PRO!SNO BOARDER е 2001 $4.99/$6.50 Canada “= CAPCOM'S|NEWIPS2'EVIL کک ا‎ = || nade == SINC STON TOMS = = SS 0 14024 S= || Real motocross racing with 20 pro riders on 15 MX and SX tracks Pull insane tricks in arenas and wide open environments = Backflips, frontflips, 360s ...леед we say more? Bust tons of tricks including Indian Airs, Supermans and signature moves SPORTMOTORCYCLES Set the record in the Bus Jump and Step Up Challenges 22272 / www.thg.com 4 =, PlayStation.e _ GAMEBOYADvaNcE ©) EVERYONE | www.starwars.com e WW © 2001 Lucas Learning Ltd. © 2001 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TI Lucas Learning, the Lucas Learning logo, | / Lucasfilm Ltd. “PlayStation” EDITORIAL By John Davison • john_davison@ziffdavis.com his may seem like a somewhat grandiose and slightly pompous thing to say, but in years to come we'll probably all look back on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and its siblings as some of the most important video games of all time. No, I’m not in the pay of anyone at Activision or Neversoft, and yes, | know many of you will no doubt be yelling at the magazine right now with the kind of venom normally reserved for those of you who think we're “biased” against Sega/Nintendo/Sony/SNK/ Game.com/3DO/whatever, but стоп. Think about it. The Tony Hawk series has probably helped bring gaming into the much ballyhooed “The Tony Hawk series has probably helped bring gaming into the mainstream more than just about anything. it’s crossed social boundaries, brought peopie together, and introduced compatible cultures to one another." and elusive “mainstream” more than just about anything. It's crossed social boundaries, brought people together, and introduced compatible cul- tures to one another. Not many games can claim to have done that. Maybe Pokémon. Maybe Tetris. At a push, maybe Gran Turismo. But there really aren't many that we'll look back on and say, “That’s when things really changed." The third game in the series comes at a really important time. The PS2 really needs a game like this to biperpetuate its own onslaught of the “mainstream.” There are 10 million systems in gamers’ hands around the world now, and some- how this feat has been achieved in just one short year. It took three years for the original PlayStation to reach that kind of success. But for the system to continue to grow it needs these genre-busting, culture-defying games and it needs them soon. Microsoft and Nintendo are breathing down Sony’s neck right now and мете seeing the stage set for a major system war this fall. Like you couldn’t guess that already, right? The battle is going to be nastier than anything we've seen before though. And there's one group of people that really lucks out when that hap- pens: us, the gamers. Meanwhile, in mag-related news, you'll notice we have a fresh new face in the Review Crew. Jeanne Kim —a huge fan of RPGs, anime and PC games-— joins the staff this month. Yep, she's a genuine girl gamer. And long-time readers will notice the return of a familiar face, too: Che Chou rejoins the Crew after a year in the wild world of dotcoms. Speaking of familiar faces, be sure to check back next month... EGM will have a new boss. A New York transplant, Evan worked for the Official Dreamcast Magazine and has been writing about video games for a few years in San Francisco. He is currently trying to figure out how the hell to get 2 million points in THPS2. , David Hodgson After stints at Computer & Video Games, Maximum, the Official U.K. Nintendo Magazine, GameFan, Gamers' Republic, incite and == Gamers.com, David has taken a break from his duties at Prima to track down some old-school gaming luminaries for us (see page 94). J.Ricciardi 20157855 John Ricciardi is what they call a "freelance journalist," which basi- cally means he does nearly as much work as he did when he had a real nine-to-five job, only now he does it in his underwear, and for about 1/10 the pay. ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY (SSN #1058918) is published monthly by Zif Davis Media Inc, 28 East 28th Street, New York, NY 10016. Periodicals Class Postage Paid at New York, NY 10016 and addtional mailing offices. Single issue rates: $499. The one year (12 issue) subscription rate is 52497 in the US. and $40.97 outside the US. Checks must be made payable in US. currency only to Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine, POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Electronic Gaming Monthly, P.O. 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The Canadian GST Registration number is 140496720 RT. Printed in the USA. Ast Bureau f Сент. ELECTRONIC Number 14.06 GAMING June 2001 MONTHEY WWW.2ünet.con/egm Editor in Chief (acti MR * john. davisonGziffdavis.com Managing Eso Executive Edita itor ап MacDonald + mark_macdonald@ziffdavis.com Features. ү Crispin ШУ; e crispin_boyer@ziffdavis.com News Editor Johnston • chris_johnston@ziffdavis.com 0! Chris “С Previews Edit ге! санап осмата com Senior КЕ ig Ki piens + kraig_kujawa@ziffdavis.com Associa е Editors nathan Dudlak sjonathan_dudlak@ziffdavis.com, am Kennedy • sam. KennedyGziffdavis.com Associate Editor, At ector ppe Ki Kim • Jeanne_Kim@ziffdavis.com л ЕП ry Min үш © сита сот West Cas t Edi James Micke о james_mielke@ziffdavis.com ће Chou e Che_Chou@ziffdavis.com cont utr r • dean_hager@ziffdavis.com Japanese: ere Yutaka Ohbuchi European Correspondent. Axel Strohm Senior Art Director ril Wochok e "cyril: wochok@ziffdavis.com Art Director. Mike Reisel • mike_reisel@ziffdavis.com Managin Editor orne ee es | Production Director Carlos Lugo Sank ior А Ша an Мајке larie Miguel Pre Мы lia Мапа; Us Dave McCracken Pre Media Technician e Vallas Adverse Production Coordinator len Laws. Assistant Production Manager Teresa Newson Projecti Ке GOD . rari lefebvre@ziffdavis.com ane support Ar Peter Felonk • peter | felonk@ziffdavis.com Vice EDEN Group Creative Director | Michael Stassus • mstassus@ziffdavis.com Business Director. .. Cathy Bendoff Circulation Director Joan Мсіпегпеу Circul men Director Senior Newsstand Sales Manager Don Galen SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE NUMBER: WEB SITE: PLEASE SEND ALL SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS TO: DO NOT CONTACT THE EDITORS RE: SUB. 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AND TOP SPEEDS IN EXCESS OF 190 MPH. THAT WASN'T YOUR LIFE THAT FLASHED BEFORE YOUR EYES, IT WAS A MADMAN IN A ROCKET SLED STEALING FIRST PLACE. LEAD THUMB? (8) Over-active adrenal gland? Weak or non-existent braking instinct? Problems controlling acceleration? You may be a Speed Freak. If so, Rumble Racing is the game for you. Tear through fantasy worlds sniffing out short cuts and power-ups at the speed of light. Trigger asphalt-melting nitro boosts with big-air barrel rolls and corkscrew flips. Because in this turbo-charged race, if you're not lightning fast, you're already finished. © 200 Electronic Arts Ic. Electronic Arts, EA GAMES and the EA GAMES logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the US. andor other countries. Al rights reserved. EA GANESYis an Electronic Arts™ brand. Licensed for play on the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment systems with the NTSC UC designation only. "PlayStation" and the "PS" Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. The ratings icon is а trademark of the Interactive Digital Software Association. Manufactured and printed in the US.A CONTENTS June 2001 Issue 143 105 104 104 106 106 106 107 69 74 78 72 72 64 56 103 107 107 62 75 56 108 63 103 111 76 67 108 79 78 “а 68 68 73 56 105 103 108 111 66 105 109 68 73 104 70 54 79 72 78 109 70 103 79 105 109 73 79 78 110 4X4 Evolution Aidyn Chronicles Aladdin in Nasira's Revenge All-Star Baseball 2002 Army Men: Air Attack 2 Army Men: Green Rogue Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2 Blood Omen 2 Bounty Hunter Commander Keen Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix Dave Mirra: Maximum Remix Devil May Cry Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern A ISI Ducati World Racing Championship Appearing Out of Big Air Tony Hawk's ESPN MLS ExtraTime ESPN National Hockey Night Extermination Gotham Heavy Metal: Geomatrix High Heat Major League Baseball 2K2 Ico Illbleed Kirby Tilt ’n’ Tumble Legend of Zelda: Oracle Series, The Lost, The MDK2 Armageddon Mega Man Battle Network Mega Man Xtreme 2 Mickey’s Speedway USA Monster Rancher 3 NASCAR Heat One Peace Mansion Outtrigger Point Blank 3 Pokémon Stadium 2 Quake III Revolution Razor Freestyle Scooter Resident Evil Code: Veronica X RPG Maker: Remote Control Rumble Racing Rune: Viking Warlord Sheep Raider Simpsons Wrestling, The Smuggler's Run 2 Sonic Adventure 2 Spider-Man Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro Spider-Man 2: Sinister Six Star Wars: Super Bombad Racing State of Emergency Stupid Invaders Super Street Fighter Il Advance Time Crisis: Project Titan Triple Play Baseball X-Men: Mutant Academy 2 X-Men: Reign of Apocalypse X-Men 2: Wolverine's Rage Zone of the Enders Pro Skater 3 brings new moves, bigger air and—egad!— online play to the PS2 this fall. But that's not all. The Birdman is leading the charge of action-sports athletes exploding out of Activision's new sub-brand: O2. Haul tail to page 80 for the first info on Shaun Palmer's Pro Snowboarder, Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer and Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX 2. Could Homer Kick Flanders' Ass? See how your favorite animated jesters fare when pitted against one another in the ring. Will it be an overnight success or a flop? See our take on Activision's answer to the WWF. page 104. Final Fantasy X and X-Box Make Headlines at Tokyo Game Show The biggest news from the Spring Tokyo Game Show? Final Fantasy X, baby! We played it—see what we saw and read what we thought. Also, Xbox plans to fly across the Pacific, steal a glimpse at Silent Hill 2, and more. page 24. Where are they now? Remember Pitfall!, Centipede, Street Fighter Il and Tetris? Of course you do. But what happened to the pioneering designers behind these classics? We track them down, relive the good ol' days, and find out what they've been up to since. page 94. iD pas eee 25 769.) 5.757 Zelda Game Boy Color Games Galore! There’s not one, but two new Zelda games about to hit our soon-to-be outdated handheld system — what better way for it to go out with a bang. Find out all about them in our comprehensive two- page preview of Link's new adventures. page 76. (6) Gossip @ The Final Word Departments @ Editorial 6 @ Letters 14 News 24 Find out what's brewing in Japan for the PS2 and Xbox at our Tokyo Game Show report, and get our first impressions of Microsoft’s first flurry of American Xbox games shown at Gamestock. Activision’s new lineup is turning this section into a comic-book convention. We take a look at an obscene number of Spider-Man and X-Men titles on PS, Game Boy Advance and Color. If men in tight suits with super powers aren’t your thing, then take a gander at the new Zelda GBC games. Review Crew 102 Opening Day has passed, and we tell you which of the next- generation baseball games pass muster. Also: Pokémon Stadium 2 on N64, Quake III Revolution on Р52, and a battalion of Army Men games storms PS2 shores. 112 Tricks 118 Microsoft raised the stakes when Sega announced 11 of their games would hit Xbox. None of the named titles were “A-List,” but it caused some excitement among the Review Crew nevertheless. E SYSTEM KEY MO Dreamcast Hi Nintendo 64 Wl == PlayStation 2 HZ Playstation M & Game Boy Color ^ Game Boy Advance Xbox Arcade COMIC MISCHIEF > SUGGESTIVE THEMES Us oF Tobacco AO Асо. e monkey.lucasarts.com ® 2001 LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC. All rights reserved. LucasArts and the LucasArts logo are trademarks of Lucasfilm Ltd. Escape from Monkey Island and its characters are registered trademarks of LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC. All rights reserved. "PlayStation" and the "PS" Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. => ® WWW.SCEA.COM Ау Offroad Fury is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. © 200) Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc Developed by Rainbow Уй. (R) | rainbow, EVERYONE ATV racing fully preserved for your enjoyment. Become a four-wheeling, mud-spinning terror when you roar off the dirt path and charge through rocky hillsides, sandy deserts, deep forests and more than 20 huge race courses on your way to the finish line. Of course, you could take your time and enjoy the beauty of the massive terrain. But then you'd lose. ATV Offroad Fury is now open to the public. Conquer the terrain! OA Uy LUI Lf PlayStation. PlayStation” andthe “PS” Fay одо ae registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment inc. Honda? the Wing® Ingo, Aide Red" and Fourtrar© are trademark of Honda Motor Co, Ltd. used with permission fom American Honda Motor Co. nc. Honda trademarks are used unde license rom American Honda Motor Co, Iac and Honda Motor Cn. Lt ко „е UE E Congratulations. You win an InterAct controller. You will be receiving a Barracuda (PS), an Alloy Arcade Stick (DC) or a SharkPad Pro 64? (N64). See page 120 for official rules. One Man's Plea To Stop Fade of Arcades Where have all the arcades gone? The consoles have overrun society. The only info | get on them is when you fine fellows at EGM do a report on an expo. My city never did have the best and most up-to-date arcades, but now they seem even further behind. They do not even have Dance Dance Revolution! First one of the greatest pinball manufacturers went out of business, and now Midway has announced that it will no longer manufacture arcade games! Are we in denial, people? Do we not even care that our only source of games will soon be consoles? | for one hope not! Although the consoles seem to be matching, if not surpassing what is available in the arcades, we must not forget the type of joy only possible from playing a game in an arcade. Or the fact that you can play a game in the arcade without having to purchase the console the game is played on. The Internet seems to have filled the vacancy left by the consoles of being able to play ts > all your que strangers (one of the great bonuses to the arcades), but it still leaves out one very important part of playing in the arcades: the experience of playing against a complete stranger face to face, attitudes and all. Recently | walked into an arcade and was searching for a game to play. | Many of us here have fond memories of arcade scenarios very much like the one you describe. There was something cool about being blown away by the latest, greatest machine that had magically appeared since the last time you were in the arcade. The gap in technology between home systems and arcade machines really heightened the experience. But like spotted Capcom vs. SNK, something Гуе been itching to play since sadly | do not have a Dreamcast. | have hardly played Street Fighter, or any Capcom fighting game seriously since Super Street Fighter |, so | was a little new to this. | popped in my tokens (tokens!), and started to play with Ken and Ryu. Then a guy walks up, an experienced- looking player and we tangle. | held my own. I played the silent type, the kind who looks and acts arrogant but is ready to pee his pants. Then it happens: | lose. | walk around the arcade awhile and come back to find some new people playing. | challenged them, kept the same guise and barely lost. Although | lost | had fun, and scared them a little before the end. Compare that to the Internet. Oh boy, emoticons! Let's try to show our personality with those things! Without arcades, people, our lives will have less meaning! Consoles are nothing without arcades! It's destroying the basis of gaming! Save our arcades people! Run down to your nearest arcade and surrender all your quarters! Forget all this PS2, Xbox and GameCube hype. ades Show the arcades you still support them, that you cannot live without them! Show the arcade owners and game manufacturers you still care! That you still want them around! Please, for the sake of humanity! Chris Sittner sittner@yahoo.com everything else, times change. That gap obviously closed long ago. Arcades can still be a good time, but the new machines have to be so dramatic to succeed, usually only the giant corporate complexes can cover the cost. Sadly the days of playing for hours at the corner pizza place or the dingy little joint in a stripmall seem to have gone the way of the Yugo, my friend. 14 • Number of letter artists using crayon as their medium of choice: 46 • Letters questioning our use of adult diapers: 1 • Letters written in defense of Gn’R: 74 • Letters defending Gn’R from people who don’t read our magazine: 62 Too Much Space Devoted To Our “Mighty Organ” | just surveyed the two-foot length of bookshelf that holds my complete collection of EGM and wondered how much more space | can afford to devote to your mighty organ. It still amuses me to look at early issues and recall the excitement of Strider and other platform marvels, but sooner or later those glossy pages will find themselves moulding in the garage and being shredded for mice nests. So why not offer subscription readers, such as myself, a purely electronic form of the magazine? Ship the text on a CD, or DVD. Save postage, conserve the world's diminishing trees, give the postman's back a break, and allow me to clear a few inches of space. It won't Suit everyone, obviously, but | can't be the only guy whose girlfriend doesn't think 137 copies of Electronic Gaming Monthly in a row is classy. Chris Baker outlaw189@lycos.com Well, your lady may not think it’s “classy,” but just think what would happen if that space were cleared, muh man. She’d start putting up doilies and figurines and the like. Next thing you know, your swinging bachelor pad looks like a craft bazaar. No, no my friend, you’re much better off with the ol’ EGMs atop that shelf. And to prevent a mass-mailing campaign, let’s make this clear: Organ is another term for a newspaper, magazine, or any regularly occurring publication. PlayStation. D. Phaystation2 JL Poysutone à Playstation 2 4 Playstation à 2 4 ТМА роц Б getintothegame.com : е LETTERS Learn To Say Booty In Nine Languages A few weeks ago | found an English- Japanese-English translator online, so | started looking up translations to game titles. Some of 'em are really weird, like these: Toki Tori — Time Bird Hajime no Ippo: Victorious Boxers= Beginning of a Step: Victorious Boxers Onimusha = Demon Warrior Kuru Kuru Kururin = Winding Winding Winding Companion Oh yeah, the URL for the translator is: http://www.savergen.com/onldict/jap. html Klummus Zero60126@aol.com Thanks for the handy translation site, Klummus. We’ve seen a lot of these over the years, some good, some not so good. This one sounds solid, but we have to be sure. By plugging in our standard list of ordinary everyday words, we should get а clear picture of how accurate this site really is: doughnut do-natsu turtleneck kame eriashi unicycle ichirinsha mullet bora bowling bo-ringu pigeon-toed uchiwani shotgun marriage shottoganmarijji nougat nuga horn horun vomiting outo Canadian canoe kanadiankanu underpants shitabaki hotpants hottopantsu pirate's pants paire-tsupantsu booty bundorihin Ascot asukottotai And now for the Japanese to English test: kojima small island ...and we're done. Uh-huh, everything checks out. This site is spot-on according to our resident Japanese experts. Oh, since the site offers many languages to choose from, let's put it through its paces in Finnish too, just to be extra sure: EGM@ziffdavis.com Send us your thoughts, your wishes, your innermost weirdness. ..or your pictures, crazy screenshots or Dhotos of bizarre game-related moments. underpants alushousut “every month Yep, there you have it folks. 100% or two | have accuracy as far as we’re concerned. to go ona Who are “we” you ask? Why three-hour ride Erekutoronikku Ichiban Gekkanshi, f of course! with my school or something, Reader Wants To сга Continue Timely always get my Servicing EGM the day | would just like to say how great hefore or the your timing is on delivering my day of my trip, subscription to my front door. About delivered right every month or two | have to go ona 1 three-hour ride with my school or to my house! something, and it never fails, but | Now that 5 2 always get my EGM the day before or great service! the day of my trip, delivered right to my house! Now that's great service! Having an issue of EGM on a three- hour ride is great for anyone! I’m going on a trip May 28, so if you wouldn't mind, let's keep the streak alive, huh? I'd appreciate it! David Galindo Odessa, TX No sweat, David. The wireless Web microcam we embed in each issue of EGM allows us to monitor the daily routines of each lucky EGM reader. We already arranged for the May 28 trip, and the September “Fall Festival Hayride” is roughly four hours away from you, so we took the liberty of penciling that delivery date in as well. Happy Trails! P.S. You might want to consider replacing the , Transformers Underoos. “ 1 They’re a little passe. May we suggest Digimon? Concussion Discussion | don’t know which is more preposterous: The fact that Mat Hoffman claims he has suffered 50 16 N64 owners: What are your thoughts about your system lately? (cough cough) getting...blurry...(cough wheeze) not much time left...(cough) goodbye cruel world...(cough) ctolpin@redwoodhighschool.org | used to play it a lot. | recently bought PlayStation 2 so the only one who plays it is my little brother, and that’s because | never let him play with my PlayStation 2. abernali3@hotmail.com Majora’s Mask, No Mercy, Paper Mario, Conker...can’t really complain. pipolchap444@hotmail.com | love it! Am | ever so happy І have it. Zelda Majora’s Mask and Conker's Bad Fur Day will keep me entertained while I wait for the GBA and the GameCube. Perez767@cs.com I'm happy with my N64 right now. | just hope Nintendo continues to make games for it. cslkgreg@megsinet.net | blew off the dust, and replaced Perfect Dark with Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Craiger303@aol.com Lately? The blasted thing has always sucked. It just collects the dust my Dreamcast blows off my PS2. No1SprGuy@aol.com lll tell ya, it's one heck of a dust collector. Gobluedevils52@aol.com Two words: Sell it. HeiMyoog@aol.com As long as Zelda Majora’s Mask exists N64 is still there! icemyst4Gignmail.com Next Month's Question of the Moment: What Sega games do you want to see most on Xbox? Send your short but sweet responses to: EGM@ziffdavis.com with the subject heading: Sega on Xbox omes with Guncon—still the — | ~ Straightest shooting lightgun Congrats [trons | 00 Re улуй Get d tight grip on your Guncon™ and be ready to pull the trigger — 0 Jot — | because in this mission, its finish or perish. And lets hope you've got a | fast aim. Time will be flying as fast as the ommo. " | пагпсо. WWW.NAMCO.COM Time Crisis Project Titan™ & ©2001 Namco Ltd., All Rights Reserved. Guncon™ and ©1996 Namco Ltd., All Rights Reserved. PlayStation and the PlayStation logos are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. The ratings icon is a registered trademark of the Interactive Digital Software Association. You can write EGM at: EGM Letters Р.О. Box 3338 Oak Brook, IL 60522-3338 e-mail: EGM@ziffdavis.com concussions, or that you would actually believe and print that. Steve Young suffered four concus- sions in a three-year span, and doctors told him he would be risking grave danger if he were hurt again. Troy Aikman was forced to retire after accumulating 10 concussions over a 12-year career. Mick Foley has suffered eight, and his wife ran through all the memory-loss problems he has been having during a recent Dateline piece. Hearing that Hoffman suffered concussions five times wouldn’t surprise me in the least based on what he does for a living, so | am hoping you guys just goofed and added a *o" by mistake. | have no respect for someone who would make such a ridiculous and downright laughable claim in the hopes of hyping himself. Matt Giggey Antioch, CA What are you talking about Matt? Fifty concussions isn't that unusual. Look at Dean. He'll get up a full head of steam and level his dome at the vending machine with spectacular results five or six times daily. Sure he can't see so good anymore, and no one's denying that sometimes he thinks he's a vacuum, but his heart is in the right place. It's his passion, his gift. We don't question it, why should you? So what if he lies motionless for a few minutes— it's a small price to pay for glory. Not to mention the fact that we haven't paid for a Zagnut bar in over a year. Now don't bug us anymore or you'll be looking at the business end of a knuckle sandwich. Man Challenges Our claims 0f Diaper Use | have been reading your magazine frequently lately, and the subject of wearing absorbent devices when you are playing a game you can't let go of has been mentioned often. My question is this: Are you serious? Has anyone ever tried this wacky suggestion? | am really curious, so please respond to my letter. pigphantom@hotmail.com Some interesting nuggets worth mentioning. Is it true that Square is bringing over some old Front Mission games for PS2? Michael Witt drpx@capital.net Magic EGM Ball sez: All signs point to no. | have some PSO news. In case you haven't heard, hacked items such as God/HP God/ Ability and Devil/ Tech ARE BANNED! Woohoo! So smooth sailing for us ligit players! р5хрго5 @hotmail.com The GameShark codes that sprang up for PSO were опе of the more depressing things we've witnessed lately, but we have real doubts. how well Sega will be able to enforce banning cheaters. Clarence J. Goode Richmond, VA Congratulations! Your prize is on the way- an ASCII Specialized Control Pad for the PlayStation. It features rapid- fire controls for all buttons and slow motion for those intense moments. Please note: We reserve the right to edit any correspondence for space purposes. If you don’t want your name, city/state or e-mail address printed, tell us so (but please include your phone number and mailing address for Letter of the Month consideration). Also note: although we can only respond to a few letters each month, we read and appreciate (most) all of them. So keep ‘em coming, eventually you might see your handy work turn up here! LETTERS Tried it?! Wacky suggestion? Are you kidding? We buy those suckers wholesale. We hired an “efficiency expert” a couple years back, and he showed us how this could shave off an average of 4.3 hours a week in lost gaming time. 4.3! Well I don't have to tell you that's all we needed to hear. With our relatively small staff and high workload, we're always looking for a way to avoid leaving our cubes. Next up: George Foreman Grills at every workstation. Close, but no controller Bad luck to these guys... better luck next time. Feel free to e-mail us artwork as well. Coincidence Or Mischief? After reading the e-mail in the last issue about Mega Man & Guns п” Roses, | have noticed something kind of strange, | wonder if you’ll agree. FFIX has some strange coincidences with the PlayStation RPG, Legend Of Legaia. But why would Square do that? Well, look at this... 1. LoL world’s name: Legaia FFIX world’s name: Gaia 2. LoL’s problem in the world: Mist FFIX problem: Mist 3. How the Mist is made: generators FFIX mist: through generators 4. Name of Gala’s ra-seru: Ozma FFIX hard to beat boss: Ozma LoL came out before FFIX. Similarities? How very creepy! Krista Collins chinadoll66102@hotmail.com Not really, Krista—once you learn that Ozma is the most popular name in Japan for both boys and girls and even pets, and that generated mist is the leading cause of death over there. That Legaia/Gaia thing is pretty spooky though. Kail McKee Long Beach, NY Put your creative skills to the test by decking out a #10 EGM Letter Art E как envelope (the long business РО BOX 3338 | ese IL type) with your own unique Üak Brook, IL 60572-3338 touch. Send your letter art to: 60522-3338 Jared Kasl - (АН entries become the property of Ziff Davis Media Inc. and will not be Lincoln, NE returned!) с < ш = e © uz о ~ 5 ш о © = ED KO RI С Е e 2 Doug E. Fresh Wearing the Beret ECKO.COMPLEX ECKO ecko.com SS £ Gold ‘not available Black Animated Blood DEVELOPED BY Р Yo: A ee Animated Violence m? 4 (а М má V A LV E је ASIERRA 9 ‘Dreamcast. (62000 Sierra On-Line, Inc. Sierra, Half-Life and the Half-Life logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Sierra On-Line, Inc. Valve is a trademark of Valve, LLC. Gearbox and the Gearbox logo are trademarks of Gearbox Software. Captivation and the Captivation Digital Laboratories logo are trademarks of Captivation Digital Laboratories, Inc. Sega, Dreamcast and the Dreamcast logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Sega Corporation. “PlayStation” and the “PS” Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. - F E “THE BEST - FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER redeem All-new bonus mission: Half-Life Blue Shift! Explore new areas of Black Mesa from the perspective of a security guard. Play the game that has won more than 50 Game of the Year awards from publications around the world. Dreamcast arune: | An intense story combined with : “A, - M j new weapons, characters and effects | ||| A & custom created for Sega Dreamcast. — < | Play it now оп © Dreamcast. Coming this Fall to PlayStation®2 Computer Entertainment System. www.sierrastudios.com Sega Dreamcast screen shots, MOST WANTED #1 MOST WANTED PLAYSTATION GAME - OFFICIAL PLAYSTATION MAGAZINE'S TOP 10 CHARTS (MARCH 2001) | The most wanted man in BMX teams up with seven of the most famous riders on the planet to bring you the most wanted PlayStation® game available. Enter Mat Hoffman's world of realistic vert ramps, street courses, dirt tracks and the infamous Hoffman Bikes’ Park. You can use the custom course editor to create terrain that is as manic as Mat would want it. You can even move up the ranks in the career mode with hundreds of trick combos and signature pro moves. Finally, you can rip like the most wanted man in BMX. What more could you want? Ride like the king of BMX ~ Mat Hoffman. Pull off hundreds of trick combos in 8 levels. ESCAMILLA / HOFFMAN / KOWALSKI MCCOY//|NASTAZIO / ROBINSON TABRON /|THORNE PENNYWISE AGENT/ORANGE BAD|BRAINS OUTKAST, JURASSIC 5 RIMORE Ride head-to-head in 2-player mode. IN STORES © 2001 Activision. Inc. and its atiiiates. Ali rights reserved, Published and Distributed by Activision, Inc. and its affiliates. Developed by Runecratt, Ltd. Developed by HotGen Studios Limited, Activision is a registered trademark and Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX and Pro BMX ате trademarks of Aclivislon, Inc: and its affiliates. Mat Hoffman is a ка The ratings icon is a trademarkof the. Interactive Digital Software Association, Licensed by Sony Computer Entertainment America for use with the PlayStation game console. PlayStation and the PlayStation logos are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Ino Game Boy.and Game Boy Color are trademark: Nintendo of America Inc; © 1989, 1998. Nintendo of America Inc. Licensed by Nintendo. Nintendo of America (ас, All rights reserved, All other trademarks and trade names are the properly of fheir respective owners: Teta Playstation GAME BOY COLOR | HAWK'S PRO SKATER™ GAME ENGINE سے + WEST‏ COCK."‏ Animated Blood Mild Animated Violence ACTIVISION. Press Start By Chris Johnston chris_johnston@ziffdavis.com & Jonathan Dudlak jonathan_dudiak@ziffdavis.com The Hottest Gaming News on the Planet Janan Pockets Game Boy Advance he wait is finally over. On March 21, T Nintendo launched its long-awaited super handheld, Game Boy Advance, in Japan. While some lucky gamers (like us) managed to lock down early reservations at Lawson convenience stores throughout the country, many consumers had to get their GBAs the old- fashioned way: by waiting in line. In a frenzy not unlike that of the PlayStation 2 launch last March, hopeful gamers began lining up at game shops as early as 9 p.m. the night before, in hopes of assuring their chances of getting one of the prized systems before they sold out. And sell out they did — Nintendo shot through all 650,000 units that were available on day one in a matter of hours. An additional 450,000 units were shipped to retailers between launch and March 31, and they quickly disappeared too. Software was no slouch, either. In the first week, Super Mario Advance took the top spot, selling in excess of 200,000 copies. F-Zero did well, too, as did some of Konami's more Japan- friendly titles (Power Pro Kun Pocket 3, Yu-Gi- Oh! Dungeondice Monsters) and Capcom's Rockman EXE. But not everyone enjoyed such success. When you release 25 titles on the same day, there are bound to be some poor performers, and as a result, a majority of the launch titles came in selling less than 10,000 copies. Japan's slumping economy certainly didn't help the matter, but GBA sales are expected to continually increase as the year goes by. Without a doubt, the launch of the GBA was a smash success, and the likelihood of a repeat performance when it arrives in the States is very good. The Card-e reader peripheral attaches to the back of the GBA and can be used to read and view data held on trading cards. | ~ Japanese Launch Proves Handhelds Still Rule Eager Japanese gamers line the streets for another console launch. Even after selling out m over a million units, GBAs were hard to come by in Tokyo. GBA OWNS YOU On March 7, two weeks before all the launch madness took place, Nintendo held a special “Game Boy Advance Preview" event at Zepp Tokyo, a popular nightclub in Odaiba. It was there that the company laid out their post- launch plans for GBA, which included several big-game announcements that basically cemented what we've already known for a long time: Game Boy Advance is going to rock. First and foremost, Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's director and general manager of corporate planning, announced that the company has several franchise titles in development for GBA. Mario Advance and F-Zero were only the beginning— later this year, Nintendo wil release Mario Advance 2, which is based on Super Mario World for the SNES, and sometime after that they'll release Mario Advance 3, which is based on the NES Super Mario Bros. 3. Iwata also confirmed that ports of Yoshi's Island and Yoshi's Story are under way as well. “Each of these games will be enhanced with GBA’s characteristic features, and can be played anytime and anywhere," according to Iwata. But that's not even the best of it. Iwata 24 went on to reveal that Nintendo is working on a brand new Metroid game for GBA, tentatively titled “Metroid for Game Boy Advance." Unlike the aforementioned games, which are all ports of existing titles, Iwata stated that this new Metroid is going to be “a sequel which features brand-new elements.” We expect to hear more about Metroid at the upcoming E3 show in May. Iwata also said to look forward to games that propose “a new style of playing.” Undoubtedly, the first of these games is Pocket Music, which was unveiled at TGS. See page 28 for details. Game Boy fans pack the floors of a Nintendo-sponsored GBA event on March 7. POKEMON RETURNS NCL also revealed that they are working оп а version of Pokémon for Game Boy Advance, due out sometime in 2002. Three new Pokémon were unveiled at the event—Ruriri, Kakureon and Hoeruko (Japanese names) —as well as a young boy, who could just be the main character of the new game. According to Tsunekazu Ishihara, President of Creatures, this new game will be the origin of a brand-new Pokémon World. URN | Think again. In typical Nintendo fashion, the company has released an exclusive Pokémon GBA with a sexy metallic blue tinge, called “Suicune Blue" after Pokémon #245, Suicune. The unit features small silhouettes of Pikachu and Pichu below the screen on the front of the unit, and just like previous Pokémon-adorned Game Boys, it's only available at the two Pokémon Center (SOE! in Japan works with Card-e cards, a new type of trading card that Nintendo plans to release. Basically, the cards can hold loads of data on tiny barcodes (such as monster stats, sounds, tips, etc.), which can then be scanned and viewed using the Card-e reader and a Game Boy Advance. This quirky little device has loads of potential, and could revolutionize the way trading card games are played. No word yet on a U.S. release, but as long as the kids keep begging for Poké-anything, the Luri Luri Kakureon Ishihara also showed off an innovative new peripheral for the Game Boy Advance, dubbed the Pokémon Card-e reader (tentative name). This device, which plugs into the cartridge slot of the GBA, uses Olympus's Scan Talk technology and odds are good. The Advance hits American soil June 11, so check back next month for coverage on all the launch titles, as well as previews for upcoming games. m —By John Ricciardi Hoeruko Nintendo revealed three new Pokémon during the GBA launch, as well as an anonymous boy character that could be the hero for upcoming games. VITAL STATISTICS The GBA is the fifth edition of Nintendo’s portable, and certainly the best in terms of graphics and gameplay. Below, see how it measures up against its predecessors in other areas. SYSTEM Game Boy Old Peripherals and a New Nightmare at the Game Developers Conference The 2001 Game Developers Conference went off a lot like previous years’ shows—lots of stuff for developers and little info for console gamers, but there were a few highlights. Infogrames unveiled Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare at a private party in San Jose, which was attended by the game's theme song composer, accomplished musician and percussion legend, Stewart. Copeland. The game has some gorgeous prerendered backgrounds, but so far plays like a typical Resident Evil title. PS2 was the console of choice for peripheral makers at the show, though no one won any creativity points this year. An LCD visor for first-person shooters and a glove device for use in lieu of a controller were two of the *hasn't someone tried this before?" attractions. lomega, while not exactly flooring anyone with their Zip drive display, has made the thing compatible with the PS2, supporting 100 MB and 250 MB disks. It could be mildly handy for downloading maps and sharing data over the Internet someday. The PS2 Zip should be out at the end of the year, provided developers start supporting it, but lomega wouldn't disclose any. Xbox ringleader Seamus Blackley managed to make some waves with his keynote address. Unable to offer any Xbox updates whatsoever, Seamus filled a huge void that was supposed to contain information about Japanese support for the "box with some light- hearted return-fire at the press and lots of damn witty banter, for a Microsoft employee. For the lowdown on Gates's overseas accomplices, see our Tokyo Game Show coverage this issue. RELEASE PRICE 4/21/89 12, 500 yen 7/23/96 — WEIGHT BATTERIES & LIFE 2208 35 hours on ДАА 1258 бате Воу 8 hours оп 2АА Pocket _ Game Boy _ Light (Japan) Game Boy ` 10/21/98 | 8,900 yen Color 6,800 yen 4/14/98 6,800 yen 20 hours on 2AA _Light (Japan) Е EN 9,800yen 140g 15 hours on 2AA ` 20 hours on 2AA ` 3/21/04 Game Boy Advance Top- Selling GBA Launch Titles, March 21 - 25 Source: Daily Famitsu (www.famitsu.com) 1) Super Mario Advance (Nintendo) – 219,551 2) F-ZERO: Maximum Velocity (Nintendo) - 116,116 3) Powerful Pro Kun Baseball 3 (Konami) – 74,549 4) Dungeondice Monsters (Konami) – 61,325 5) Kuru Kuru Kururin (Nintendo) – 57,145 6) Mega Man EXE Battle Network (Capcom) – 43,048 7) Mr. Driller 2 (Namco) – 42,525 8) Napoleon (Nintendo) – 26,152 9) Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (Konami) – 22,224 40) Konami Krazy Racers (Konami) - 12,063 PaRappa creator. Masaya Matsui lectures on gaming froma cultural $e standpoint, Mr. Driller 2 Mario Advance 25 oodstock may have been about people coming together in honor of peace and harmony, but the only tune coming out of Microsoft’s Gamestock was an Xbox battle hymn. There were no joints, Winnebagos or naked hippies to be seen at this ’stock. In fact, the grassroots-themed event couldn’t have been held at a more corporate location. Microsoft's Executive Center served as the launching pad for Xbox's first big software presentation, whose informality and over-the-top, forced enthusiasm made it feel like a few of Bill Gates’ kids misbehaved and designed a game system so they could hang with the popular crowd. The project's general, Ed Fries, vice president of games publishing, couldn't have fired off the first volley with a more quirky demeanor. “We are finally ready to leave the cartoon world behind," declared Fries. *Because of the technical limitations of [consoles] in the last 20 years, the best we could do is make fancy cartoons," who then suggested that the Xbox was needed to "break out of the cartoon world to reach the mass audience." "For a technological advance to happen it takes something to push it," said Fries, who drew a comparison between this console war and the 1960s' space race between the U.S. and Soviets that pushed us to land on the Moon. "We have that epic battle [now]: You've got the world's largest software company fighting the world's largest consumer electronics company and arguably the world's largest toy company, and they're all spending millions of dollars to push these systems forward. That battle will drive innovation. It will give us a chance to push things further than they've ever been pushed before. Hardware won't be the only determining factor in this battle," said Fries, stressing the need for amazing games. "A great book, a great movie, a great play. They're about more than just Microsoft's Fire Burning Questions are Answered About Xhox's First-Party Game Lineup, but Can They Extinguish the Competition? killing time. We need to create things relevant to [gamers] and try to change how they view the world,” Fries continued, “We ask, *What kind of game is this?' But we should be asking, ‘What are you trying to say?’ ‘What do you want it to mean?'" We need to make our goal to not just create entertainment, but to create art." But the eight playable Xbox games unveiled after the keynote address were far from being considered fine art. The fledgling lineup covered many genres, but didn't seem to transcend them as Fries would like to see. None of the games appeared to be doing anything that the PS2 couldn't, but it's important to note that these are first-generation titles with over a half-year of development left to go. The programming teams haven't had the luxury of smelling a complete Xbox system yet and all of these have been created on half-powered Xbox hardware that doesn't even have a finalized sound chip as of press time. Here's a glimpse of what we saw and played at the event: ng Monthly - 26 - Electronic G NFL Fever 2002 The Skinny: A football game from the creator of the long-running Front Page Football series of PC games. Prognosis: This is one of the big disappoint- ments of the show. Unlike past early glimpses of NFL 2K and Madden for PS2 that knocked our socks off, NFL Fever's unfinished graphics didn't show a lot of promise, and the feature list seems a little too shabby. Every nuance that was pointed out to us as being a highlight (“Look at the receiver drag his feet out of bounds on the catch!”) has been done on just about every other football game many times over. With NFL 2K2, Madden NFL 2002 on the Xbox’s horizon, this football game might be pointless. dnet.com/egm RECRUITMENT INFORMATION PlayStation.e ® | Ф. www.redfaction.com À MINERS UNITE All Miners EOS Miners Unite How much longer will you put up with the abuses of Ultor? Look at the bath- rooms, bunks and living quarters. Think about the food they serve and the way the guards treat you. Who but animals would put up with this type of abuse? And what about the Plague? After all these years and empty promises from Ultor, why is there no cure? How many more must die before you take a stand? It's time to realize that conditions on Mars will not improve. It’s time to stand up and fight! We must fight for our rights, for our freedom, for our very lives! We've got the weapons, the vehicles and the technology. Now all we need is you! Be ready to strike with us. Wait for my signal. When it comes, strike hard and strike fast. We must free Mars! BETTER RED THAN DEAD FIGHT BACK We've taken out control towers with our new Geo-Mod" technology, hijacked Ultor's vehicles by ambushing supply lines, and raided bunkers to amass a huge arsenal of weapons. Check out this surveillance footage from our most recent assault. À Red Faction—Game and Software © 2001 THO Inc. Developed by Volition, Inc. Red Faction, Volition, Geo-Mod, THQ and their respective logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of THQ Inc. All Rights Reserved. “PlayStation” and the “PS” Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Mac and the Mac logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. GEO-MOD TECHNOLOGY Utilize Geo-Mod technology, the most sophisticated form of real-time geometry modification, which enables complete environmental destruction. Flank enemies by creating new pathways through the environment. Blow holes in the floor to stop oncoming foes. In layman's terms, DESTROY EVERYTHING IN SIGHT to achieve the goal. There are no boundaries to constrain your fury. а " hi À À N There’s no need to spend large amounts of ammo eliminating this highly armed convoy. With Geo-Mod technology, just two strategically placed blasts to the bridge from the Rocket Launcher will send them all tumbling into the abyss. № LJ No time to pick off enemies in a guard tower one by one? Blow out the base of the tower and bring the whole thing crashing down. YOUR ARSENAL Gear up with over 15 different weapons to destroy Ultor's guards and mercenaries. All the weapons have secondary firing capabilities, making them some of the most sophisticated in the solar system. Here's a sample: “wae Gh ы i Heavy Suppression Machine Gun Remote Mining Charge Sniper Rifle Flame Thrower Magnetic Rail Driver Rocket Launcher Riot Stick & Body Shield (with infra-red scope) THE VEHICLES We have land, sea, and air vehicles, each with a unique arsenal of weapons and capabilities. Submarine Aesir Fighter = E À Driller Fire homing torpedoes to eliminate subs Wield the flying Aesir’s mighty weapons and other underwater foes! to wipe out enemies below! ATV «дй Bomb, strafe, and crush foes in the Handle the Martian landscape with awesome Armored Personnel Carrier! this rugged all-terrain vehicle. Utilize the mounted machine gun to wipe out enemies! Pos FAG www.redfaction. com Join the Faction and receive the official newsletter, get the most up to date information on our next ambush, and check out our progress against Ultor. Miners unite. Better red than dead. MATURE, Violence Blood and Gr ESR volition 4 FLAMES OF LOVE “The time | burned my guitar it was like a sacrifice. You sacrifice the things you love. I love my guitar,” said Jimi Hendrix as his guitar burned at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. That moment helped the international festival become the root of future rock festivals, such as Woodstock and Live Aid. Perhaps Bill Gates should have considered a similar show of affection with his Xbox at Gamestock to get a similar impact. The Skinny: A third-person game that drops Gauntlet into a more colorful and mystical world. Prognosis: The straightforward hack-’n’-slash gameplay in this third-person action game was inviting, but the large selection of spells is what really caught our eye. For example, shooting a single fireball at an enemy caused the ground below to crackle and crumble behind the heat trail, making for some utterly delicious carnage. And that’s only a few of the early spells. The stuff we got to conjure later on nearly made us wet our diapers, so naturally we can’t wait for more. The Skinny: This high-concept, first-person murder-simulator is being pushed as a “killer app.” That is: It’s supposed to make you want to buy an Xbox on Day One. Prognosis: While computer geeks were chuckling at Halo running on a lower resolution than their PC monitor, we were marveling at the flexibility of Halo’s world. The short demo we saw allowed us to drive a high-tech jeep into enemy territory while a computer-controlled soldier in the back mowed down aliens with ease. Not many games let you find your way into the compound you're about to trash, and this is only one of the immersive designs that should set Halo apart from the usual glut of first- person shooters. The Skinny: A four-player futuristic “party” game that’s low on innovation, but high on eye-candy. Prognosis: This is another one of those titles that strings together a huge set of simple mini- games and uses a common theme as an excuse to put them all one disc. Nintendo has Mario Party, PlayStation has Crash Bash, but we're not sure that putting the letter Z into the word “fusion” will give this game the character it needs to make people care about this great- looking, “me too” party game. odename: Project Gotham The Skinny: It’s not a Batman game as the title suggests, but rather a misleading placeholder name for this Gran Turismo-style game from the makers of the Dreamcast racer MSR. Prognosis: Showing this title at Gamestock was nearly as much a surprise to the developers as it was to us, since they had only been working on the game for a couple of months. Even in its early state, this driving game looked impressive. Bizarre Creations is promising around 20 licensed “Supercars,” and lots of meticulous re- created locales that are home to over 300 race circuits. Check out our full preview on page 75 for more info. The Skinny: A young man, a heroic journey, and weapons based on fire, earth, air and water elements. This third-person game has all the makings of a cliché adventure, but maybe there's something up the developer's sleeve. Prognosis: But then again, maybe not. Azurik might as well be the living incarnation of undead Kain. His weapon has two edges instead of one, and it sparks a little bit brighter, but we got déja vu of Soul Reaver the minute we started impaling enemies with his fiery (or electric, or watery) staff. The emphasis on cinematics and story is welcome, but it'll take more than a handful of impressive real-time cutscenes to get us excited. The Skinny: A pure free-styling snowboarding game that may actually give the genre a breath of fresh (big) air with its unique perspective. Prognosis: Most sports get criticized for athletes being too self-absorbed, but in Amped, you get rewarded for it. The basis of this game isn't head-to-head competition, but rather improving your skills so you can land a new contract, a magazine cover, and anything else associated with fame or fortune. If they incorporate trophy wives, then we don't see how they could go wrong. шаа | сп M The Skinny: The long-awaited, high-concept Xbox game that was too demanding for the PS2. Microsoft is betting that you'll want to buy an Xbox to play this game, but the jury is still out. Prognosis: You know a game isn't close to being done when the creator (Lorne Lanning) has to stand in front of a wall-sized monitor with a microphone to “narrate” the character's dialogue during a demo (he did a damned good job, too). It’s not clear why this couldn’t work on a PS2, but it is clear that this is a platform game that tries harder. Solutions to puzzles involve more than hitting a switch and jumping on something—teamwork and smarts are needed to help your big-eyed character stay alive. And we assume Lanning won't be included in the box to do vocals when it ships at launch. «m -Kraig Kujawa Cold Spell Hits Tokyo Xbox the only spark at Spring TGS amers braved unseasonably cold weather and snow at the recent Spring 2001 Tokyo Game Show to view the latest the Japanese industry had to offer— which wasn't much. The show was smaller than usual, with many companies cutting costs by featuring smaller booths or no booth at all, no doubt saving their big titles for the upcoming E3 in May. But despite the show's decreased scope, there were still a few standout titles and announcements. Xbox Comes to Japan Perhaps the biggest news out of the show (and what the crowds turned out for) was Bill Gates' Xbox keynote speech. It included the first announcement of an alliance between Microsoft and Sega to develop 11 titles for Xbox, four of which were named at TGS: Jet Grind Radio Future THE BIG GAMES SILENT HILL 2 (PS2) Konami's macabre survival-horror game was shown in playable form for the first time at the show and looked great (set for an autumn release). Its graphics have a thin layer of noise, making it look like film grain and adding to the game's sinister nature. While there was really just one area to explore (a hospital), you could tell this game will deliver plenty of chills. The Dual Shock vibrates to mimic your character's heart beat. View is restricted to a single light source once again (from the flashlight on your coat), so it's sometimes hard to tell when you're approaching a monster (blank-faced, convulsing corpses) until it's in your face. Alive 3. Combatants threw each other through glass, electric Which of these high-profile games shown at the recent Tokyo Game Show was the most impressive? Final Fantasy X Source: videogames.com , Project w), (tentative title), a sequel to last year’s Dreamcast cult hit; a new Panzer Dragoon game; a new version of the racing franchise Sega GT; and Smilebit’s arcade action shooter Gun Valkyrie, previously in development for the Dreamcast. These games will, according to the announcement, premiere first on Xbox (no word if versions will be released on other hardware DEAD OR ALIVE 3 (Xbox) The best-looking Xbox demo was Tecmo’s three- minute clip of Dead or signs, columns of ice and off of buildings— all in rapid succession and in real-time, without blinking. A fantastic looking beach sequence (which apparently uses the hard drive in some way) finished things off. Considering the project’s only 10 percent complete at this point, it was damn impressive. DEAD OR ALIVE 3 Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec Dead or Alive 3 Silent Hill 2 down the road). The other big alliance announcement from Microsoft was with Japanese telecom company NTT Communications to provide broadband connectivity in Japan through ADSL. A specialized “Broadband Adapter” (little more than a large DSL modem with an Xbox-ish Continued on page 32 POCKET MUSIC (GBA) The sole new game from Nintendo in their Handheld Corner was this do-it-yourself music title. It’s your standard music game—press the right combination of buttons and directionals to “play” music. But there’s also a freestyle mode where you choose guitar, drums or keyboard and play any song you can think of, or link up with three others to form a full band. Due this summer, Pocket Music even comes with a mini- amplifier that straps to your waist so others can rock out to your jams. Songs include licensed classic rock hits like “Highway Star” and “Smoke on the Water,” plus old-school Nintendo tunes. Electronic Gaming Monthly - 28 - www.zdnet.com/egm TEM TNI E| You grow about 15% taller during your teen year: KEVIN GARNETT ©2001 AMERICA'S DAIRY FARMERS AND MILK PROCESSORS It's what you fear. It's dark, It's dangerous, and your worst nightmare has come to life. Armed with only your wits, a flashlight, and a revolver, can you unravel a mysterious island's untold secrets and survive one night of true terror? DARKWORKS jhtmare 2001. Infogr Ali rights reser у" and Game Boy" Color are trademarks of Nintendo of The originator of survival horror is back and scarier than ever. Join Edward Carnby and Aline Cedrac as they confront an epic journey of terror. Solving this mystery won't be easy. Deadly creatures lurk in the shadows. PlayStation 2 = 9 5 un > kq е. 8. www.aloneinthedark.com (tir INFOG) КУМ —— + 7 A special 24- page Famitsu Xbox (Famitsu being Japan's #1 game magazine) was given to TGS attendees. Continued from page 28 design) will be made available to consumers there who want to take advantage of high-speed connections. The partnership is designed to foster broadband options which are currently limited in Japan, and will launch in 2002. Microsoft also showed the smaller Japanese Xbox controller, and revealed that their Japanese first-party game group has 10 titles currently in development (although none will include online connectivity). Microsoft illicited mixed impressions from gamers at the show. Despite a few big announcements (mostly the Sega games, Silent Hill X from Konami, and Dead or Alive 3 from Tecmo), other developers seem to be taking a Nintendo promoted its just-released Game Boy Advance at the first Tokyo Game Show the company has attended. Crazy Taxi PS2 As the fifth best-selling DC game in the U.S., it's no wonder that Acclaim's first DC-to-PS2 port, due in May, is Crazy Taxi. What we were surprised to hear, though, is that Acclaim is handling the development in- house. Given their spotty past, who's to say what could happen? To be fair, though, the early build we've got looks good. Previously there were rumors about a five-game deal between Sega and Acclaim. While we can't confirm that, we do know that Acclaim will be bringing 18 Wheeler to the PS2 at some point. The name Zombie Revenge has been thrown around too, but Acclaim says not to expect a U.S. release. An ad for Xbox seen at restaurants near the show. 4 TOKYO GAME SHOW 2001 REPORT Sega’s Tetsu Kayama tells the crowd about the alliance between them and Microsoft. “wait and see” approach to the Xbox, either making smaller titles or signing on as a developer but with no specific games in the works (like Capcom, although producer Yoshiki Okamoto did reveal that their Xbox game was something from “a big series”). The lack of playable games at Microsoft's booth and the large size of the console were other concerns among the Japanese audience. Not a Lot of New Games Even the major companies didn't have much to tantalize consumers. Sony had about a half- dozen first-party titles on show for PS2, including a fantastic and finished-looking Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec and a mosquito simulator called Ka (Mosquito). Announced but not shown were Hot Shots Golf 3 and Ape Escape 2. PaRappa 3 and Ico were MIA. + Isao Okawa, the man who helped keep Sega afloat in recent years, passed away on March 16 at Sega.com dedicated its the age of 75 i due to heart front page to Okawa's failure. A memory. leading proponent for the advancement of technology and a kind philanthropist whose Okawa Foundation donated grants to worthy academic recipients, he founded CSK, Sega’s parent company. Without him, Sega would most likely not be where they are today. Imagine a world without Sonic, or other cherished Sega icons and you can understand why Okawa-san will be missed. 32 Xbox banners took over the train station near Makuhari Messe. DEVELOPER PROFILE Year founded: 1991 Location: Redmond, WA Web site: www.bungie.com # of people: 50 Previous games: Oni, Myth 11: Soulblighter, Myth: The Fallen Lords, Marathon Infinity, Marathon 2: Durandal, Marathon, Pathways Into Darkness, Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete Current projects: Halo and “secret” stuff Halo is called Halo because: The original title, “Big Floaty Circle Of Death In The Sky,” did not test well. Second attempt, “1 Know What You Did On That Abandoned Ring Structure In Deep Space Last Summer,” had trademark problems. Reason why our games usually have one-word titles: |п fact there are only three titles in the Bungie canon with a single word as the title —all the others have two or more words, often separated by punctuation. Much like proctologists, Bungie fans see a lot of colons. Difference between making a game on Xbox and on РС: Less wailing and gnashing of teeth. Concepts we thought about putting in the game, but won't make it: The jeep's in-dash boomin' stereo system and a large collection of literary classics on CD. During late-night programming sessions we: code and yawn. Music that inspires us around the office: Grieg's *Hall of the Mountain King," *Hot for Twinkies" by the Go-Nuts, “Knuckles the Dog (Who Helps People)" by Killdozer, and the Slinky theme song. Story behind our name: Early in life, one of Bungie's co-founders had to rob a grave as part of a fraternity hazing. The name of the corpse was Eduardo Roderigo Guantanamo de la Bungie. True story. ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFIC SOLIN MCKAY KICK FLIPPING INTO THE 20 FOOT TALL DC SUPER RAMP. Ано rearunep cous БОШМУН © E oo: TEKRON @ ACTION LEATHER, NUBUCK OR SPLIT SUEDE UPPER @ PAL АВ2000 POLYURETHANE-COATED LEATHER TOE CAP (€) RUBBER HEEL AND TONGUE PULL TAB AVAILABLE AT YOUR (o) ULTRA LIGHTWEIGHT EVA MIDSOLE LOCAL SKATEBOARD SHOP. (€) LIGHTWEIGHT BREATHABLE MESH WITH INJECTED TOFIND A LOCATION NEAR YOU, SEE THE LATEST NEWS, Ра LEURS POSTERS AND INEO SEND Se coU. CURRENCY ON TEAM INFORMATION AND SHOES, VISIT OUR WEB SITE AT 8 TEU STRUCTURAL RBS f су ONLY) TO < De STICKERS, 770 SYCAMORE ЛЕЛЕКИ OPTIONAL HIDDEN LACE LOOP! Р WWW.DCSHOECOUSA.COM TPR RUBBER LACE DOME 8. s DEALER INFO 800•886•8225 +" А TOKYO GAME SHOW 2001 REPORT A first peek at Square’s next mega RPG is shaping up ou mean, besides Final Fantasy X?” If you asked anyone at the Spring 2001 Tokyo Game Show last month in Chiba, Japan, what games they liked at the show, that was most likely the first thing out of their mouth. After so many years and so many Final Fantasy sequels consistently raising the bar for the role- playing genre, it wasn’t that surprising that part X played and looked fantastic. But judging from the long lines for the playable demo at the show, that didn’t mean everyone wasn’t still excited for a hands-on peek at the first PS2 Final Fantasy adventure before its release in Japan this July. Rather than the cartoony, deformed designs the last Final Fantasy (IX) and most of the early series followed, part X marks a return to the more realistic style of FFVII and VIII. In fact, if the characters remind you of those from either of those two games or Square’s The Bouncer, there’s a simple reason—character designer Tetsuya Nomura worked on them all. That means characters with normal-size heads and feet, eyes (more or less) proportional to their faces, and a hero with tousled hair and a large necklace of some sort. Check, check and check. The graphics, of course, have received a major facelift: The prerendered backgrounds of the past are gone, making way for fully real-time settings that nevertheless still feature astonishing amounts of detail and awesome Although most of it looks as good in real-time as the full- motion video from previous games, yes, FFX has FMV cutscenes as well. Square showed a good amount of sections from these impressive movies (shown at right, everything else is real-time from the game), including the scene pictured here of Yuna walking on water and casting a spell, plus an epic Braveheart-esque battle featuring a chocobo-riding army that took our breath away. Once Yuna summons a Guardian Force monster, she greets it (here snuggling with the new griffon beast Velfare and on the shoulder of everyone's favorite fire devil Ifrit), then stays behind while her new friend fights it out with enemy monsters. The second boss in the demo was this giant blob—notice the new battle meter in the upper- right corner displaying the order of upcoming attacks (the B stands for boss). effects. (Although you don’t have control of the camera as you wander through the fully 3D dungeons, there is a handy map that appears in the corner of the screen to help you keep your bearings, as well as keep track of other items such as treasure and save spots.) Tropical trees and even blades of grass sway in the wind, waterfalls cascade lazily down from towering heights, and eerily real fog drifts in and out of focus. Bright colors also abound, more like the vibrant Crono Cross than the somewhat drab FFVII and VIII. Overall, just from the short demo we saw, FFX looks easily as good as the best the 34 next generation of PS2 titles has to offer (Gran Turismo 3, Metal Gear Solid 2). Another big innovation is all the voicework— even though in-game dialogue appears in text along the bottom of the screen as usual, all characters actually speak their words as well. No confirmation yet on who will be handling the voices for the U.S. version of the game, but given the lineup of big-name stars Square signed up. for the FF movie, we have high hopes. Other changes become obvious only once you Your first encounter with the feline beast-man Kimari doesn’t go so hot—you fight each other until you realize you're both on the same side. enter battle. Random enemies still attack as you wander the dungeons, shattering the screen and sending you into combat, but with boss battles the transition is more subtle. In the demo we played at the show, a Short real-time cutscene played out before each major showdown, setting up the boss fight just how it would appear once menus popped up. Anyone familiar with the series will recognize most of the terms once battle begins: Hit Points, Magic Points, attack, defend, use items, cast spells or summon monsters— often also called Guardian Forces (GFs). The difference in FFX is these summoned monsters are more than just fancy one-shot special attacks: Once GFs like Shiva or Ifrit appear (they're both back in part X, along with some new beasties), you control them as you would any other character: You can have them attack hand-to-hand, cast any of the magic they know, or use their special attacks—and they don't disappear after just one move, but stick around until they die or you call them away. Although you usually have the now- standard three characters for battles (only one remains to babysit when you summon a GF), you can now Swap other party members in and out during combat with a quick press of a shoulder button. Lastly is the new battle meter. Replacing the Final Fantasy staple Active Time bar, this new chart in the upper-right corner of the screen always makes it clear exactly whose turn is next. Less complicated than the Grandia meter but similar in some ways, it shows pictures of characters in order of upcoming turns. If someone is affected by haste or slow spells, for example, now you can tell exactly how often they will get to move in the future. The battle meter seems to display other info as well, although at this point we aren't exactly sure what it all means. Despite this quick peek, many questions still remain— what is the overall theme of Final Fantasy X, and how exactly do all the characters relate to it? Where's the big, central villain? What about the overworld and mini-games? Seems like the only thing we really know for sure is how bad we want to get our hands on the final version. + All of Final Fantasy X’s cutscenes, real-time (as pictured here) or prerendered, feature real voicework for all of the game’s dialogue—a historic first for the series. Final Fantasy Il and Chrono Trigger on the way to USA RPG fans would say these two games should have been re- released a long time ago, but late is better than never. After much tribulation, Square EA is planning to release Final Fantasy IV and the much-desired Chrono Trigger for the PS one this July under the blanket-title “Final Fantasy Chronicles.” While fans might argue that FFIV should have been packed with FF Anthology and that Chrono Trigger should or could have been packed with Chrono Cross, for continuity’s sake, the story goes deeper than that. With Final Fantasy IV, there were issues with Tose, the original localization team, for FFIV (FF ll in the States). Legal matters held up the localization of FFIV, which is now being handled internally at Square. As for Chrono Trigger, the reason boils down to the immense fan support Square EA received requesting that the game come out for the PS one in the States. Guess your vote does count after all! With the RPG market for the PS one looking pretty barren for the next six months, Square EA has decided now would be a great time to unleash these two classics to the public in optimized, fine- tuned form. Chrono Trigger features some added sequences that make its connections with its sequel, Chrono Cross, more evident, and a revamped localization of the text. Final Fantasy II will also include some text changes and other elements (like the stripping dancing girl, no doubt) originally edited out of the U.S. Super NES version, plus an added dash feature, FMV sequences and improved balance for increased difficulty. So why don’t they just call it Final Fantasy Anthology II? Apparently Sony no longer permits volumized game titles. Personally we could care less what they call it, we're just happy those two great games are coming back. Final Fantasy IV (aka 11) „а “ліп ur Einnetze Power КОМАМ! ® Your decisions during combat affect the outcome of the story. | to use in «30 environ ¥ Y тт сч i The controls of a fully armed, giant, mechanized, prototype robot are in — Immersive story follows characters as $ ; н d Lombat s stem allows both close-quarter hi À у q they, examine tie meaning of life and Meath М weapon attacks and long-range laser attacks. ComputemAl reacts to and learns fromyour actions, helping you minimize civilian causalties. H ZONE OF THE ENDERS'", METAL GEARG, METAL GEAR SOLIDG and SONS OF LIBERTY™ are either registered trademarks or trademarks of KONAMI CORPORATION. Konami® is a registered trademark of KONAMI CORPORATION. ©1987 2001 KONAMI CORPORATION. All Rights Reserved, ® PlayStation" and the "PS" Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. The ratings icon is a trademark of the. Interactive Digital Software Association. E onmes ULEME о ЕУ ин аи 152 | -=1 = аи S = ва ЕР: TACTICAL ESPIONAGE ACTION METAL GEAR SOLID"? “Certainly one of the most exciting games we' ve ever seen, and it plays like an absolute dream." r Official PlayStation Magazine Missions change when re-played. ZONE T H-E ENDERS Fast-paced battle sequences with multiple enemies in full 3D environments. || MATURE Animated Blood | p E animated Violones Produced by Hideo Kojima vf, esas N T. ~, = 4 COMETE m © ET It’s been a year—where the hell is Bleemcast (you know, the PlayStation emulator for Dreamcast)? Good question—we were wondering the same thing. Despite Internet rumors proclaiming the company’s death, bleem!’s Will Kempe told us that they’re still alive and that Bleemcast is still on the way. When? They won't say. Will they have an E3 booth? No. Anything to show us or for preview? No. That can't be good. Play Nintendo Games On Dreamcast* *and other cool stuff hobbyist programmers are doing on the DC дедови. You can find the hobbyist-programmed DC applications at www.dcemulation.com. Even as Sega announced they’d stop producing new titles for Dreamcast by 2002, a growing number of fan-programmed applications for the system have popped up on the Internet. We saw the first signs of homemade life in mid-2000, mostly in the form of MP3 (DCMP3) and MPEG movie players (Gyplay), and the Dreamcast Nester DC Author: Ken Friece Comments: Plays NES ROMs in full-speed without sound. With sound turned on, the games slow down. That gripe aside, Nester DC is still the best NES emulator you can find for Dreamcast. Author: Per Hedbor, Marcus Comstedt and Peter Bortas Comments: 2 Slow but stable Super NES emulator. It may lack sound, but there’s just something undeniably cool about playing Castlevania IV with a DC pad. hobbyist-development scene exploded from there when the first emulators (software that allows you to play games originally created for other systems) arrived. Now it’s possible to play Genesis, Super NES, NES, NeoeGeo Pocket, Game Boy and Sega Master System games on the DC, just to name a few. The majority of these titles were created using a freely available programming library called LibDream, which hobbyist programmers compiled by studying the Dreamcast hardware. But before you run off to download it and make your own games, bear in mind that most of the people behind these projects have years of programming experience under their belts, in intimidating languages like C and C++. (If you're hellbent on doing your own DC thang, dive into the Sites to the right for some how-to help). When downloaded and burned to a CD, these applications can be played on any older-model DCs sold prior to January 2001 (these models are capable of playing CD- Neopocott Author: Brian Peek, Bob Thayer, Julien Frelat (original) Comments: Perfect way to play NGPC games (without sound) on your TV. It’s a lil’ slow, but it’s great to play these games on a big screen. Author: Titanium Studios Comments: It's Quake | on DC with Quake III DC-style joypad controls, plus keyboard/ mouse support. Character animation is choppy (like it was on PC) but it moves fast! 38 zdnet.com Electronic Gaming Monthly - LINKAGE Dreamcast Programming: http://mc.pp.se/dc/ DCDev: http://dcdev.allusion.net/ Dreamcast Development: http://www.julesdcdev.com/ Kamka’s DC Programming: http://www.barcode- search.com/kamka.htm RAMTronics VMU Development: http://vmudev.dcemulation.com/ ROMs). While it’s perfectly fine to create, own, and operate the emulators themselves, to actually play any games you'll need the game ROMs, which are illegal to download and distribute. Many in the emulation scene argue that because most of these titles are no longer commercially available, the only way you can play them is via emulation, so where's the harm in that? Also, those in the DC-development community want to make it clear they don't consider what they're doing as promoting piracy, and they don't condone the copying of commercial DC games. "Writing an emulator is a hobby that most do for free," Ken Friece, author of Nester DC, told us. “We don't write emulators to hurt video game companies; we write emulators because we love their hardware and games." Besides, emulators aren't the only projects hobbyists are taking on for the DC. Australian developer Titanium Studios brought Quake I to Sega's system to prove how easy it is to port a game from PC. Unfortunately it ain't exactly legal, and Titanium told EGM they don't support its distribution. Other original tech demos and games are appearing as well (check the links above for examples). They may be incredibly simple (don't expect Shenmue) but you have to respect the devotion of these garage developers. + Dan Potter’s Ghetto Pong Some games shown are rated for mature audiences. о — ЖЕ о 3 E _ — ANY OF THESE VIDEO GAMES (BEST : © PlayStation 2 - Onimusha Dreamcast - Resident Evil 2 Спан tigen E Tarn Onthe Fury J BestBuy.com” CASHIER INSTRUCTIONS: Verify product qualifies. Scan UPC (if you have a tracking bar code). Highlight item. © 2001 Best Buy + | Press “Item Discount.” Press “Tab.” Enter "500" and press “Enter.” Place coupon in register. МИЛИ Ае ; 2 for video game & computer software game rating information. CAPCOM’ © 2001 Best Buy » coupon per customer. Limit one 55 discount per ay on, per title. No dealers, please. Coupon must be presented at time of purchase. No photocopies or facsimiles accepted. See store for details. Good at Best Buy stores e , Certificate value is 1/100 of one cent. Not valid with any other coupon, discount or promotional offer. Quantities (and titles) vary by store. No rainchecks. od 4/30/01. ATARI 7800 1986-1990 2 million 1.79 MHz custom 6502C (8-bit) Same as 2600 Backward compatibility Few if any stellar titles INSIDE ATARI'S 8-BIT LATECOMER The year 1984 was a very crucial time for video games. The public was convinced that the industry, rooted in late-'70s diversions like Pong and Spacewar, was over after the crash of "83. Skeptical hardware developers scoffed at Japan’s Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES), citing its joystick-less control pad as just one of the reasons jaded American gamers would reject it. To give the biz a jump- start, Atari hammered out a follow-up to the Despite high hopes at Atari and the console’s raw power, the 7800 never had the backing it needed to succeed in a competitive market. There are no limits. ASTEROIDS DELUXE Remade from the 2600 version, this space-combat title is still a solid buy for shooter fans. FOOD FIGHT Get to the ice cream across the room by chefs. Tasty. wingin' grub at psycho 5200 flop—the 7800. Developed in 1983 by seasoned game maker General Computer Corporation, the 7800 was a powerful console in its day. It met or exceeded some of the NES' specs and was backward- compatible with the huge library of 2600 games to boot. It also featured an encryption key which kept any unlicensed developers from putting product on the console (one of the 2600's biggest problems). If the system and cartridge keys didn't match, the system would stay in 2600 mode. Atari also developed a keyboard and storage cart for high scores, the latter of which was only recently released to the public. But innovative or not, the 7800 would never escape the looming shadow of its dying corporate parent. Under new direction from Commodore founder Jack Tramiel, the company shelved the 7800 before its planned retail debut 1800 CHOICE CUTS MIDNIGHT MUTANTS One of the weirdest games on the console, this impressive adventure title features Grampa Munster as your ghouly guide. Need we say more? 40 | Consoles tend to slim down as time goes on (with the | possible exception of the Xbox), but despite its age, the | Atari 7800 is just about the size of the modern PS2. While | not all that impressive by today's standards, it was a huge | improvement over Atari's mammoth 5200 console of 1982. to focus on home computers instead. In late '85, soon after Atari's fateful decision, the NES hit the states and took America by storm. As Nintendo spread into U.S. living rooms with unprecedented popularity, Tramiel saw a chance to get in on the resurgence of video games. In 1986, Atari polished up the 7800 and sent it into the market with six games. But it was too late. By that time Nintendo had 80 percent of the market and the games that every kid wanted. All Atari had to offer was a redesigned joystick, a few uninspired titles, and the ability to play old games. “It’s not a bad little system,” MSNBC reporter and The First Quarter author Steve Kent recalls, “but people who saw the 7800 playing 2600 games immediately said, ‘Why would | want this?’ The 7800, especially with the software created for it, just did not look like it could measure up to the NES and [Sega's] Master System." The 7800 controller was a vast improvement over the flaccid 5200 stick, while a keyboard opened the system up to BASIC programming, and a memory cart let you store high scores. In other words, kids wanted Mario and Zelda, not Ms. Pac-Man, Centipede and Pole Position ||. "Although the graphics on the 7800 and NES were comparable, everybody and their neighbor were buying NESes," recalls video game historian and author Leonard Herman. "Pity the poor kid who had an Atari 7800 when all his. friends had an NES." The 7800 began losing retail support in the early ’90s. Though offered for a short time by Atari online, the system didn't outlast the onset of the 16-bit revolution. The 7800 quietly faded into video game obscurity, where it's remained as a fond memory of the Atari era for nostalgic gamers everywhere. “1 remember being at a bar mitzvah. | mentioned the Atari (7800) to a group of 13-year-olds and none of them knew what it was,” Herman reminisces. “It's a shame.” Ф СНЕ P A Sos de Фе МИ www.ebgames.com DT IM (KEIVANG BO ME: worm Jim Rumble 2 Shu Rocke y 9 frr a store near, you call NN | Shop by phone 800:800:515581:800:800:0032 Pieces ant oles hay Von Canada: S9147 PIIN SQU8jOIA pIIW £ МЕ سے‎ envy BU s 100 JOE ЕЕЕ Б 3 PlayStation.c Шы a = À Get up close and personal in the first-person perspective with over 10 weapons of destruction! Go. online with up to 8 players on your Sega Dreamcast. Or play 2- or 4-player split screen for in your face intensity. Experience dazzling graphics and.a multitude of | maps and weapons – all їп а frame rate so fast it’s Unreal. Unreal" Tournaments fast and furious, online multiplayer experience comes to life on Sega Dreamcast?" Lead your team of virtual teammates against the deadliest gladiators in the galaxy. Mind-blowing realistic 3D graphics. High- octane gameplay. Totally Unreal combat action. Just be sure not to lose your head. T Import Pick of the Month: Sega and Sonic Team’s update of Phantasy Star Online is sure to appease fans hungry for more online RPG action. The big question is, will there be a U.S. release? PlayStation 5/24 Tear Ring Saga, Enterbrain (RPG) | 6/7 Dance Dance Revolution Extra Mix, Konami (Music) PlayStation 2 April Gran Turismo 3 A-spec, Sony СЕ! | (Racing) May Endonesia, Enix (RPG) 5/2 Harvest Moon 3, Victor Interactive | (RPG) | Picture Boy 2, Irem (Misc.) Phase Paradox, Sony CEI (Shooter) Guitaroo Man, Koei (Music) Maken Shao, Atlus (Action) Final Fantasy X, Square (RPG) 5/17 5/24 June June July Dreamcast 5/17 Phantasy Star Online Version 2, Sega (RPG) Sega Extreme Sports, Sega (Sports) Crazy Taxi 2, Sega (Action) Gundam Battle Online, Capcom (Action) Confidential Mission, Sega (Action) Sonic Adventure 2, Sega (Action) 5/17 5/31 June 6/14 6/23 Game Boy Advance 4/27 Bomberman Story, Hudson (Action) 5/25 Final Fight One, Capcom (Action) July Breath of Fire, Capcom (RPG) July Street Fighter Il Advance, Capcom (Fighting) Nintendo 64 4/14 Animal Forest, Nintendo (RPG) *Schedule subject to change without notice. Consult your local import game store for the latest release information. *We think [Duke Nukem's] just amazing. An American ass-kicking James Bond who saves the world from aliens, gets the girl, and is an all-around good guy. But he's also a bi i-bar babe-lovin’, Jack Daniels-swiggin’... American kinda redneck guy." -Threshold Entertainment CEO Larry Kasanoff, on the company's just- announced Duke Nukem movie Quartermann - Game Gossip & Speculation i-dee-ho Quartermaniacs. 'Tis I, the humble-yet-uproarious Q-Mann, your host for the evening. The space get to deliver you the juiciest, freshest rumors has shrunken further this month (damn you, Newsies!) so let's get to it: ...Ol' О and my cadre of spies are scratching their noggins right now over Microsoft's online strategy for Xbox. At first, Mr. Bill's gang in Redmond said we'd see games with online support at launch, but they've since begun waffling. Most confusing thing is, because the Xbox features a built-in ethernet port, there's nothing to technically keep developers from including online support in their games—they just need to run their own servers. But Microsoft is discouraging that. Instead, they want all games to run on their own proprietary network, and right now it's doubtful it'll be ready for the fall launch. Damn, now I’m gonna hafta play Halo on the PC if | want netplay. Cuz it looks like the Xbox version will be released without it. Nooo! Oh well—there’s always LAN...or (shudder) split- screen...Cincinnati-style! .. Speaking of online, we're finally starting to hear about big goings-on inside Sony's PS2 camp. Rumor has it that Sony is prepping two first-party games for online play — and one of them may be none other than Twisted Metal: Black! We don't know what that means for the game's release date (it's supposed to be due this summer), but we sure hope the rumors are true. The only third-party P52 game we know of that supports online play is this month's cover boy, Tony Hawk 3. -..A Couple bits real quick. Looks like Sega is considering farming out'a lot (and | mean, a LOT) of its older franchises to outside developers to mess u—| mean, “port” to Game Boy Advance. Why, Sega, why? Remember Sony's Japanese PS2 RPG Popolocrois 3? Well, it may be the first of that series to come to America (wahoo!)...sorry dude, that Duke movie sounds lame... and that's all for this month, folks. Remember to send all your love, hate and rumors to quartermannGziffdavis.com — see ya in the aisles at E3... METAL GEAR SOLID 2 WATCH -TheQ 2 Has MGS2 been delayed? When's it coming out now? What the hell am I supposed to do with my life until then? ! Contrary to reports circulating over the Internet, MGS2 has not been delayed in the U.S., and is still scheduled for a November release. Until then? Um...why not play all the older games again. Or play the demo some more. Or learn a trade, like refrigerator repair. Hell, we don't know. ? What of Metal Gear Solid X, the game Konami announced late last year for the Xbox and hasn't said a word about since? Is ita version of the original Metal Gear Solid (after all, Microsoft published the game for the PC) or is it a combination of Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2 (as some Internet sites have been reporting as fact)? ! Neither! According to Microsoft (Konami PR in Japan and the U.S. both had no comment), Kojima and his team “intend to go beyond what they will deliver in Metal Gear Solid 2 for the PS2” in Metal Gear Solid X, although they wouldn’t comment if Electronic Gaming Monthly - 46 vw.zdnet.com/eg that means it will be a version of MGS2 with extras or an entirely original game. We'll be sure to ask Kojima himself next time || we talk to him. ? Bored with the MGS2 demo already? Get the Big Boss rating every time with your eyes closed? Tok, but have you seen Snake make his “O” face? Head to one of the lockers with the girly posters and stare at it in first- person mode for a while, then quickly call Otacon on the Codec. Down boy! Down! ? I got a question about Metal Gear, how do | get it answered? ! E-mail it to us at EGM@ziffdavis.com, subject heading “MGS2WATCH” START The Top 20 Best-Selling Games of February, 2001 Nintendo continues its dominance of the sales charts with strong Game Boy sales, though Paper Mario debuted at number one, ahead of all those little 11 ATV Offroad Fury Poké-buggers. Meanwhile there's a gaggle of PS2 titles primed to move in for _Sony С CEA the kill for the second month in a row, if only the GBC market would slow down an n. 4 ~ a little bit. Of course, mainstays Tony and The Rock are still strong on the 12 Driver 1 charts, not to mention the return of games like Spec Ops and Gran Turismo 2. Infogrames Surprises? How about the Blue Bomber clocking in at 15? Or Phantasy Star 5 EZ Online keeping the DC dream alive for gamers across America? 13 Donkey Kong Т 1 Paper Mario We то 87 о wi Nintendo Nintendo ET! Gran Turismo 2 опу 95 9095 gg —M—— ын ш ый ; 15 Mega Man X5 2 ате Silver E ЕЕЕ nen 16 Phantasy Star Online r 0 = 1] Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3 mantle Gold Activision intendo = ——————— ‘Bee tes Spec Ops © 95/85/99 ER mp Әй. 0 4 Mario Tennis 19 Super Mario Bros. DX Nintendo E 4 Nintendo - O O OÈ Ф. 85 85 8.0 7 20 Tekken LS У ж ' j COLOR Namco bd 5 NBA Live 2001 un nn Ans nre biete арын non Ыар EE 2 80/10/50 = ri === ЈАРАН ТОР 10 6 Madden НА 2001 пеев Arta Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden p Kew ne ee = Banpresto Ф 9.0 9.0 9.0 a кш == xi in Japan the last week се Il 2згез inMarch. Out of 25 1 Star Wars: Starfighter LL C сен Тєш launch titles, only LucasArts 9 Super Mario Advance САМ Nintendo's own Nintendo games landed in the 1.5 1.0 15 == јез ч 4 Dragon Quest Monsters 2 ee ш Maree Ё | Enix isn’t on the schedule 8 Knockout Kings 2001 5 World Soccer Winning Eleven5 —= —— for a U.S. alkeen (brt Hectronic Arts Konami ЈЕ it supposedly will be gy Coming to Europe). ж 1.0 | 8.0 | 7.0 = | F-Zero for Game Boy Advance GAMI The sole DC same оп к TTT the list is from Sega's | io Hazard Code: Veronica Complete popular Sakura | 9 WW SmackDown! 2 Capcom rupe Taisen series. | Kuru Kuru Kururin ges i А 8.5 | 9.0 | 9.0 p Nintendo = ЧУ ш ~ Gallop Racer 5 Ў | 10 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 == = À =ч Activision 1 ER = 1 ete Taisen 3 © Kuru Kuru Kururin Ф 10 10 10 +. | p. - “in ы Weekly Famitsu, week ending 4/1/2001 PlayStation.2 Also available on PlayStation® www.989sports.com Face Off Against NHL® Heroes Authentic NHL* Commentary All 30 NHL* Teams & Players Intense NHL® Action & Realism PRESS START Compiled By Jonathan Dudlak jonathan_dudlak@ziffdavis.com Coming Soon — June 2001 — May Commander Keen —Activision Adventure Disney's Atlantis — THQ Adventure Hercules— Titus Adventure Kirby Tilt ‘n’ Tumble — Nintendo Misc. Legend of Zelda: Ages — Nintendo RPG Legend of Zelda: Seasons— Nintendo RPG Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX—Activision Sports Max Steel — Mattell Action Portal Runner—3DO Action Razor Freestyle Scooter—Crave Ent. Sports Spider-Man 2— Activision Adventure Xena —Titus Action X-Men: Wolverine's Rage—Activision Action PlayStation Batman: Gotham City Racer—Ubi Soft Racing Blaster Master—Sunsoft Action Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX—Acclaim — Sports Deep Sea Fishing—Acclaim Sports MLB 2002—Sony CEA Sports Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX—Activision Sports Point Blank 3— Namco Action Ronaldo V Soccer— Infogrames Sports Roswell Conspiracies — Ubi Soft Adventure SeaDoo Hydrocross 2001—Vatical Ent. Racing Sheep Raider— Infogrames Action VIP—Ubi Soft Action PlayStation 2 Adventures of Cookie & Cream —Agetec Misc. Cool Boarders 2001 — Sony CEA Sports Dark Angel — Metro3D Action Dark Cloud — Sony CEA RPG Gauntlet: Dark Legacy — Midway Action Gundam: Journey to Jaburo—Bandai Action Jungle Book R&G — Ubi Soft Misc. Motor Mayhem —Infogrames Racing Red Faction — THQ Action Rumble Racing — Electronic Arts Racing Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero—Crave Ent. Racing Viper Heat— Titus Racing Nintendo 64 Mario Party 3—Nintendo Misc. Dreamcast 18 Wheeler— Sega Racing Commandos 2—Eidos Action Confidential Mission —Sega Adventure Crazy Taxi 2—Sega Action Dragon Riders — Ubi Soft Adventure Gorka Morka — Ripcord Action Legend of Blade Masters — Ripcord Action Shrapnel: Urban Warfare — Ripcord Action Spider-Man — Activision Adventure System Shock 2 — Vatical Ent. Action Worms World Party — Titus Misc. June Army Men: Advance—3DO Action Castlevania: COTM — Konami Adventure Chu Chu Rocket! — Sega Action Dodge Ball Advance—Atlus Sports Earthworm Jim — Majesco Action Fire Pro Wrestling— Bam! Ent. Sports F-Zero: Maximum Velocity — Nintendo Racing High Heat Baseball 2002 —3DO Sports Iridion 3-D— Majesco Action Konami Krazy Racers — Konami Racing Pitfall Mayan Adventure — Majesco Action Rayman Advance —Ubi Soft Action Ready 2 Rumble Round 2—Midway Sports Super Mario Advance—Nintendo Adventure Top Gear GT Championship—Kemco Racing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2—Activision Sports Tweety and the Magic Jewel—Kemco Misc. Game Boy Color High Heat Baseball—3D0 Sports The Land Before Time—Natsume Action Return of the Мпја— Natsume Action PlayStation Alone in the Dark 4—Infogrames Adventure Arc the Lad Collection—Working Designs RPG Blast Lacrosse—Acclaim Sports Dracula — Dreamcatcher Adventure Motocross Mania— Take 2 Interactive Sports Time Crisis: Project Titan—Namco Shooting WDL WarJetz —3DO Action PlayStation 2 18 Wheeler—Acclaim Racing Bloody Roar 3 — Interplay Fighting CART Fury — Midway Racing Championship Motocross 2002—THQ Racing Ephemeral Fantasia — Konami RPG Esc. from Monkey Is.—LucasArts Adventure Giants: Citizen Kabuto—Interplay Adventure Gran Turismo 3: A-spec— Sony CEA Racing Le Mans 24 Hour Racing—Infogrames Racing NBA Street — EA Big Sports Paris Dakar Rally —Acclaim Racing Portal Runner—3DO Action Seven Blades— Konami Adventure Test Drive Off-Road —Infogrames Racing Twisted Metal Black— Sony CEA Action Ultimate Sky Surfer— Crave Ent. Action WDL War Jetz —3DO Action Dreamcast Alone in the Dark 4—Infogrames Adventure Floigan Brothers —Sega Adventure Heroes of Might & Magic III —Ubi Soft RPG Outtrigger—Sega Action Soldier of Fortune— Crave Ent. Action Sonic Adventure 2—Sega Adventure World Series Baseball 2K2—Sega Sports July Alone іп the Dark 4—Infogrames Adventure Playmobil Hype —Ubi Soft Adventure Toki Tori — Capcom Puzzle Trouballs — Capcom Puzzle VIP—Ubi Soft Action PlayStation Digimon Card Battle — Bandai RPG PlayStation 2 Duke Nukem — Rockstar Action Ico— Sony CEA Adventure Klonoa 2— Namco Adventure Rune Viking Warlord — Rockstar Action Supercar St. Challenge—Activision Racing Dreamcast Conflict Zone—Ubi Soft Action Evil Twin—Ubi Soft Adventure August Commandos 2—Eidos Action Half-Life—Sierra Action Herdy Gerdy—Eidos Adventure Jekyll Hyde—Dreamcatcher Adventure Project Eden— Eidos Action/Strategy Soul Reaver 2 — Eidos Adventure Dreamcast Ooga Booga— Sega Action Castlevania will be the one to watch this June when GBA hits. tronic Gaming Monthl 50 — www.zdnet.com/egm LAST TIME ON HSUAND CHAN, THE ENIGMATIC SUSHI-X RATTLED ON FOR А WHILE ABOUT... OM. ROBOTS... UM... TAKING OVER THE WORLD OR SOME SUCH THING. WE WERENT REALLY PAYING ATTENTION. JUST READ, YOU'LL FIGURE IT OUT. 115 JUST FoR HERE WE ARE - THIS 1s WHERE THEYRE KEEPING COVER -- Now, THEN, IF 1 САМ UST GET 95 THE KILLER ROBOTS! IN AN OFFICE BUILDING? ARE THEY PROGRAMMING THEM то GO UNDERCOVER AS TEMPS? \ USED MQ VISITOR'S PASS. THIS 15 AN OFFICE BUILDING, THEY RENT OUT SPACE To SEVERAL DIFFERENT COMPANIE © CHAN! Stor! 57Р! THE ONE WE'RE LOOKING FOR 15 ON THE ToP FLOOR THs AT T 17800 « CHAR ~ Tii Susu SAGA! PART THREE ELECTRIC BOOGALOO" DIE, TERRORIST scum! ARR! GRR! 900 GET OFF THIS TIME, LITTLE FeLLow, gur 7м WATCHING ALRIGHT, THEN... ALISTAIR GoRpon! PREPARE To PAY THE PENALTY OF YOUR 4 үм SORRY, MR. GORDON dust STEPPED our, WOULD Lou LIKE YO WANT FoR www.ape-law.com/evilmonkey READY? VTHINK THIS 15 THE ONE WE'RE LOOKING FoR! EVERYONE GRATuTouSs VIOLENCE! WERE NOT DONE YET. wE STILL THE CREATOR OF THESE THINGS | FOLLOW m A CLIMACTIC BATE: NOT HAVE THI SHOW FOL SULIA, HOLD MY CALLS, їм GOING To TAKE THE REST OF THE DAY - WE ARE VICYORIOUS! SNR OE бо AGANST one MIDDLE" AGED боҷ, BUT -- HEY! wutge's Y SUSHI-X? ont, FIDDLESTICKS ACE ТО ACTUALLY WED, WITH OUR HEROES EMERGING VICTORIOUS € WHICH WE Do DUNNO! IT SEEMS HE'S DISAPPEARED IAS MHSTEROUSLA ASHE CAME... BUT Y'know, DEEP Down, 1 HAVE A FEELING WELL MEET ОР AG, HE DIDN'T PAY US 54 Sonic Adventure 2 56 Outtrigger Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern Heavy Metal: Geomatrix 62 Extermination 63 ico 64 Devil May Cry 66 Resident Evil Code: Veronica X 67 Тһе Lost 68 Rune: Viking Warlord NASCAR Heat Monster Rancher 3 69 Blood Omen 2 TO State of Emergency Smuggler's Run 2 Madden NFL 2002 T2 Dave Mirra: Maximum Remix Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro 73 Sheep Raider X-Men: Mutant Academy 2 One Peace Mansion би у ME 74 Bounty Hunter 75 Gotham Game Boy Color T6 Тһе Legend of Zelda: Oracle Series 78 X-Men 2: Wolverine's Rage Commander Keen Spider-Man 2: Sinister Six Mega Man Xtreme 2 T9 Mega Man Battle Network Spider-Man X-Men: Reign of Apocalypse Super Street Fighter |! Advance WARNING: Previews marked with international symbols may or may not be released in the U.S. They аге designed to run on Japanese or European PAL Systems. Import at your own risk. t's E3 time again—that magical time of year when we get a glimpse into the future of our great hobby and realize just how hard it's gonna be to wait for all that cool new software. In the meantime, we're here to bring you the latest screens of all the hot new games coming your way. It's like a little slice of E3 every month! Especially this month, where we've tried to get as many ofthe titles being showcased at the upcoming show into the following pages. Not the least of which is Sega's Sonic Adventure 2. Dreamcast may be going down, but we're still excited about its games. And what of the N64? This month we preview Mario Party 3, but that's the last of the first-party titles in the U.S. for this troubled system. Who's to say if our N64 section will return in the coming months? But perhaps one of the hardest hits to take is the coming demise of the Game Boy. We've been playing the heck out of our shiny new GBAs this month, and the future of handheld entertainment is definitely here. The system with the strongest NS Маи NITE The last great games for the Game Boy Color? It's a real possibility. But enough sadness, check out the new Zelda games on page 76. run in history (1989-2001) is about to go the way of the dodo, and we can't help but get a little misty-eyed about it. Luckily we'll get one last Zelda game (actually, two), before the fat lady sings. Now we need your help. We're looking for some feedback on this here Previews section. What do you like about it? What do you hate? What would you change? Do you want more blowouts or galleries? This is your chance to shape the magazine. E-mail suggestions to egm@ziffdavis.com, subject line “Previews.” Ф 1. Extermination 2. Devil May Cry 3. Sonic Adventure 2 4. Mario Party 3 5. Resident Evil Code: Veronica X “Close, but no PS2...” The RPG Maker Contest’s Honorable Mentions In the end, we received 60+ entries, and paring it down to a single winner was an incredibly difficult task. Sadly, we can only give out one PS2 (see the winner's review in Review Crew), but thanks to all for participating. Contest Runner-up: "Poké-MADNESS, " by David Schwarrz Best Story: "The Legend of Magicrys,” hy Matt McCabe Coolest Characters: “Robot Go Home,” by Keith Golvellius Most laughs: “Crispin’s Quest,” hy Joel Regus Best Use of Monkeys: “Shadows of Fate,” by Ben Heuber 52 - www.zdne PlayStation 2, July PlayStation 2, Winter Dreamcast, May Nintendo 64, May PlayStation 2, July Can Poké-Madness be stopped? PREVIEW Sega Sonic Team 1-2 Action 25% May Sonic Adventure www.sonicteam.com/ sonicadv2/index e.html It's a bit like Sonic Adventure, but faster and more fun. Only three real playing styles now. Knuckles’ counterpart, Rouge. Sonic may still be a powerful icon in the gaming world, but a few of his titles have slipped through the cracks during the last 10 years. Cool arcade titles like Sonic The Fighters and Segasonic The Hedgehog (which EGM gave a perfect 10!) have never appeared on any home console. Perhaps Sega will realize that gamers would love to experience these forgotten classics and release a compilation packed with missing Sonic games. Shadow is a hedgehog-murder machine designed by the military. He also wears some funky-fresh roller skates like Tootie from The Facts of Life. Sonic deftly avoids a bullet from a pair of Go-bot wannabes. Ever-present danger makes it hard to gawk at the lush foliage. appy birthday, Sonic. For 10 years, Sega's lovable mascot has been saving defenseless woodland critters, collecting Chaos Emeralds, and making other video-game characters look lazy and sluggish by comparison. He now joins the ranks of other decade-surviving game stars, hobnobbing with Mario and Mega Man in the exclusive club of platforming longevity. Despite Sega's recent decision to publish on multiple consoles, this franchise appears to maintain its loyalty. Sonic Adventure 2 debuts on the Dreamcast, proving that there is still plenty of life in Sega's aging hardware. When designing this killer sequel, Sonic Team examined the million-selling 1999 original, Sonic 54 Adventure. Although the game was well-liked (not to mention the best-selling DC title worldwide so far), many complained about the snooze-inducing adventure sections that divided up the action levels. Now, these distractions have been bulldozed—SA2 is 100 percent action. Sonic Team’s U.S. branch toiled to make the game instantly accessible to gamers in both America and Japan, streamlining it to be pure action and adding a two-player versus mode to give it that pick-up-and-play quality that its predecessor lacked. One successful aspect of the first SA was the multi- character concept, so the sequel takes that feature even further—now players control three “Hero” characters and three “Dark” characters. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles comprise the all-star hero team while Dr. Robotnik joins two new villains, Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat, to form the Dark team. Playing as the three heroic characters yields a familiar plot of good triumphing over evil, but controlling the dark crew offers an insidious new perspective on the action. Sonic Adventure 2's director, Takashi lizuka, comments: “The cool thing is that because there’s a whole dark story line, there’s a happy ending for each of the dark characters as well.” Sonic is still the same 'tude-filled bundle of spunk and speed you know and love, but he does sport some “xtreme” new moves thanks to his officially PREVIEW licensed Soap grinding shoes. Hipper and edgier than ever, Sonic now surfs through the air, grinds on rails, dodges rampaging semis, vaults on monkey bars, and bungee jumps from majestic rainforest trees. Shadow the Hedgehog is Sonic’s new nemesis, a mysterious red and black ’hog wearing rocket- powered rollerblades. His levels are very similar to Sonic’s— breakneck speed, thrilling loops and extreme grinding abound. Surprisingly, Tails’ gameplay has completely changed in this sequel, as the shrimpy fox now pilots a large mechanized robot. His mighty mecha can lock on and fire missiles at encroaching enemies. Tails’ levels may lack the sheer speed of Sonic’s stages, but the strategic shooting action adds a bit of Panzer Dragoon-style variety to the gameplay. SA2 also offers players their first chance to control the nefarious Dr. Robotnik, whose gameplay mirrors that of Tails...only more evil. As in the first game, Knuckles’ quests involve locating the missing shards of a shattered Emerald. The hot-tempered echidna possesses a bevy of useful maneuvers—he can climb, dig, glide and has brutal hand-to-hand punching combos. His foil is newcomer Rouge, an unscrupulous female bat with an eye for expensive jewels. Her moves are similar to Knuckles’, but she dishes out a flurry of kicks with her stiletto heels in lieu of punching. Rouge is also ð Textures this good really make you wonder why we're seeing the Dreamcast die already. The mind boggles. notable for being the first Sonic character to feature polygonal breasts that bounce. We've come a long way in 10 years. One would expect the Dreamcast to be showing its age in comparison to the newer consoles, but Sonic Adventure 2 defies all graphical expectations. In fact, the sheer beauty of this blockbuster sequel might cause you to question why the DC is headed toward a premature curtain call. A rock-steady 60 fps framerate, lushly complex textures, and unbelievably large environments demonstrate just how much can be squeezed out of the Dreamcast by the right developers. Sonic games have always featured imaginative, attractive levels, and Sonic Adventure 2 maintains this proud pedigree. Sonic veterans surely recall the first time they played the unforgettable Star Light Zone 10 years ago: A pulsing techno beat played on as Sonic sped through a metallic wonderland beneath a star-filled sky. Blazing across neon-lined lanes of SA2's Radical Highway Zone rekindles the spirit of that classic level, capturing the unique blend of style and substance that has always defined the series. Although SA2 focuses squarely on action, Sonic Team has not forgotten about the Chao mini-game, a cute virtual-pet distraction that many considered a highlight of the first game. Our preview build was sorely lacking in the Chao department, but lizuka-san assures us "that the Hero and Dark concept also extends to raising your Chaos." What kind of nasty virtual pets would a team of diabolical super-villains have? We can't wait to find out. So far Sonic Adventure 2 seems to live up to the hype, as it improves on all of the finest aspects of the first game while ditching the slower portions that dragged it down. We'll know for sure once we can unwrap Sonic Team's heart-felt birthday present this summer. E d Sonic The Fighters Sonic Adventure 2 revives the competitive thrill of the two-player Vs. mode, a feature that debuted in Sonic The Hedgehog 2 for Genesis. It's a battle of Hero versus Dark; each character faces his or her rival in a series of brutal challenges. Sonic faces Shadow in a seizure-inducing split- screen race to the finish. Players can use collected rings to hinder their rival’s progress. Tails and Robotnik duke it out deathmatch-style, shooting missiles and snagging rings in a battle arena. Who knew that fox had such violent potential? Knuckles and Rouge engage in a frantic scavenger hunt to find one missing Emerald shard. Sadly, the framerate takes a dive from 60 to 30 fps during the split-screen contests, but hey, many other “next-generation” platform games can't pull that feat off in single-player mode, so we aren't complaining. he | | | heaviest metal on earth, the correct answer is | | actually Mercury (as compared to other metals at a | | liquid state, that is). With an atomic weight just over | | 200, imagine how heavy a barrel of Mercury would PREVIEW | be. How heavy, you ask? Very heavy indeed. GALLERY Question: What happens when Sega's AM2 division, creators of Virtua Fighter, take on the first-person shooter genre? Answer: Outtrigger, one of the many murder simulators hitting consoles this year. Customize your player and jump into one hell of a rocket arena-derived experience. Like Quake III, the main appeal here is online play against human opponents better bring along your DC mouse this summer. CITED PERRET CHE Û БН [^ [PU 0 ? Chronicles of Pern Anne McCaffrey’s best-selling sci-fi series, The Dragonriders of Pern, provides the basis for Red Storm Entertainment’s epic new adventure game for Dreamcast and PC. The game begins in the mythical land of Pern where its leader, the Weyrwoman, whose duty for generations has been to protect her people from a destructive alien cataclysm called Thread, has just died. With the Weyrwoman’s passing, her ancient ally, the queen dragon—matriarch of Pern’s dragon clutch whose fiery breath is what can destroy Thread—is weakening. It is up to you to find a new and worthy rider for the queen dragon before it’s too late. With your spiritual fire lizard companion, explore over 120 detailed locations spanning three continents, and search through worlds where wit, as well as weapon wielding, will be put to the test. Due for a May release, Dragonriders: Chronicles of Pern offers devoted McCaffrey fans a first look into a world they’ve only imagined until now, while also introducing newcomers to a long and successful sci-fi fantasy series. Heavy Metal: Not since Spawn was ported to the DC several months ago (also by Capcom) have we seen a comic-book-to-action/shooter translation like Heavy Metal, so it’s not too surprising the two games look similar. Staying true to its name, the four-player fragfest will feature brand-new tunes from some of metal’s biggest names (think Megadeth) and looks great thanks to creative direction by the ink version’s writers and artists. SELECT PLAYER 56 m by phone 800: d offers тау vary іп Canada. PREVIEW Nintendo Hudson ма Party 95% Маут Sonic Shuffle (DC), Adv. of Cookie & Cream (PS2) ТОС) www.nintendo.com www.marioparty.com Duel Mode adds a new dimension to the game. Does anyone really play more than 35 turns? Anyone? What could be uglier Cellular Shopper Buy items from a m shop anywhere on A the board. Lucky Charm Anyone you choose can play a Game Guy mini-game. ` Koopa Kard Withdraws all the coins from the . bank as you pass. Boo Repellent Automatically gets tid of Boo when he comes a-callin’. | | Lucky Lamp | WP 3 Changes the | | location of the | [ - star onthe тар. | | Bowser Phone | Call Bowser and | make him visit any | opposing player. "A Wacky Watch In a hurry? Using this sets it so only - five turns remain. Barter Box Use this to switch all your items with another person's. | Poison Mushroom Make any other player move - backward. ] each time you meet up with him/her on the Mario Party 3 Like the Mario Party games, sometimes you're given the chance to win an item instead of having to buy it at a shop. In Duel Mode, you battle your opponent board. Better have reinforcements ready. ario Party sits at the top of the party-game genre, challenged by the likes of Sonic Shuffle and Crash Bash, but never toppled. If you’ve never played a Mario Party game, imagine a board game where you try to gather stars by circling the board and competing in mini-games against up to three other players. The reason all the Mario characters are duking it out this time around is to get possession of the Millennial Star. This third installment is more refined than its predecessors, boasting more mini-games (over 50), new items (that really help make the game more balanced than before), boards, and the addition of Princess Daisy and Waluigi from Mario Tennis to the cast of characters. The multiplayer mode may not have changed much from the last Party, but the real attraction to the third game is a two-player grudge match called Duel Mode. In it, you compete against either the computer or a friend, circling a smaller board, claiming every Space you land on as yours. Land on a space you own and you get coins. Land on a space the other guy's claimed and coins are taken away from you (and given to him). Run into your opponent anywhere on the board and you battle. But you're not defenseless. Each time you pass your starting square on the board, you're given a partner, selected by spinning a roulette wheel, to help you out. You can have up to two partners, one in front and one in back to either attack or defend against your opponent. Each has different attributes —hit points, attack/defend ratings, and a salary you need to pay in order to keep them around each turn. If you can't pay, you lose them and are left open to attack. The game ends when your hit points are depleted or you run out of turns— whichever comes first. Duel Mode's still got mini-games to compete in for coins and there are shortcuts on the board which you can take to catch up to an opponent. This may be one of the last new Nintendo 64 titles we see in the U.S. So, if you're planning a little get- together soon to mourn the passing of the system, why not remember it playing the latest of one of its great franchises? Án °вуешәаред eje. E 3 о 9 8 Е 55 8 m 28 So Б8 „39 $5 3 2 5 Proouct FY nbacom EDL PlayStation.e Also available on PlayStation® www.989sports.com Over 50 NBA Signature Dunks Close the Lanes with Auto Defend Set Screens with One Touch 20 Cameras Showcase the Action PNR. i | You can't keep a good game engine down. Neversoft's Tony Hawk game engine has | proven so successful it's been used in no less | than five games thus far. They include: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2, Spider-Man 1 and PREVIEW 2, and Matt Hoffman's Pro BMX. GALLERY E EM Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 Why has it taken a few extra months for Tony Hawk 2 to hit the N64? For one, the naughtier songs had to be cleaned up—it is an “E”- rated game after all. Second, a special *N64-exclusive" bonus level was added. So basically—it was time well spent. Hey, it'd be worth the wait even without the bonus level. For those who haver't tried the sequel on other systems, improvements over the original include a great 3D park editor— complete with ramps, rails, pipes, bowls and more— plus the "manual maneuver (balancing on two wheels indefinitely) which allows trick linking for huge point totals. Several new pros (12), multiplayer modes (Tag and an enhanced version of HORSE), and real-world skate parks are also included in this April release from Activision. Dr Mario 64 Hold up, next-genners, the N64's not gone yet. Nintendo is gurneeing their NES/GB puzzle classic to the '64 early this April, žo sfa LOS | д 5 « 2 а ITI. just in time to bolster a relatively ij - 5 12 [ | sterile spring for the console. : Se = à ; 2 BELL 5 Patients of the original title will BERES E recognize that along with a major graphical facelift, Nintendo's prescribed some cool story mode cinemas in between stages, featuring the starring players rendered in Paper Mario fashion. Up to four can play simultaneously in any of three competitive games, or a pair can go head-to-head in traditional versus mode. Perhaps the best news is the modest price tag you'll find grafted to DM64's box— Nintendo's discharging it at an unprecedented $30, which makes it an awfully easy pill to swallow. Take a sick day for this one, but don't OD, DM64 is an addiction you can afford. ALIEN NESS / ROCKSTEADY CREW, NYC 0.3. APPAREL OREATED BY THE ECKÔ MINDLABS Wuu.PHYS-S07.00M PHYSICAL SCIENCE / Arpanet CO PREVIEW Sony CEA | Deep Space, Inc. E Action/Adventure | July Syphon Filter (PS one) www.playstation.com Ш Good set of controls, cool items and weapons. P Bi i3 Import version was way too short and easy. = ۸ | What happens to your buddy once he gets infected-ick! Gun freaks will love all the extra parts and optional attachments you can find for your rifle in Extermination. On top you can opt for the standard laser sight, a zooming sniper lens, or a night-vision scope. Under the main barrel you can choose from a flashlight (to light up darker areas), shotgun or flamethrower— both of which have their own ammo scattered throughout the complex (normal gun bullets can be replenished at ammo stations). Also well hidden in various parts of the game are the three parts to the “Ultimate Weapon.” Don’t get too excited—it’s pretty much just like a grenade | launcher, though nice to have when you face the final boss. ER Dennis’ hair and outfit were changed | from the Japanese version of | Extermination to make him look less | like Syphon Filter's Gabe Logan. | nu | | | | If this reaches 100%, you're screwed. Use the vaccine stations close to save spots to bring it back down to 0. |________ Most enemies have a specific weak point, _ like the green section in this monster's chest. Switch to first-person mode to hit it. The lights are out in this area, so you need to use your gun's flashlight to see. Don't try to walk past this tripwire or you'll set off a booby trap; cut it with your knife instead to pass safely. t’s a little Tomb Raider, minus the boobs. It’s a little Resident Evil, minus the zombies. It’s a little Syphon Filter, a little Metal Gear and a dash of John Carpenter’s movie The Thing for good measure; it’s Extermination, and if you are desperate for some action along the lines of any of the above titles on your PS2 this summer, it might be your only hope. You play U.S. special forces member Dennis Riley, sent to investigate an unknown incident at a top- secret military base in Antarctica. Once you arrive, (surprise!) all hell breaks lose: The place is teeming with mutant insects and infected scientists. After piecing together what went wrong, you've got to not only escape but prevent the virus from ever spreading any further. Although most of Extermination takes place from a behind-the-back, third-person view, you can toggle it at any time to first person for pinpoint aiming. This comes in handy against all of the game's bosses, but even minor enemies usually have a glowing weak point you can hit for quicker kills. If you're low on ammo, you carry a knife that, unlike any in Resident Evil, is actually worth a damn: Use it to unlock doors, cut the wires to security sentries and booby traps, or instantly kill weaker enemies. Another key item is the rechargeable battery you carry —for opening electronic doors, activating various machines, and saving your game at designated spots. In addition to a handy map, you have a nice range of moves to help you explore Extermination's 3D levels: You can crawl through vents, jump, climb, crouch, roll, sidestep and eventually even slide down suspended wires. Unfortunately there's not too much room to use all these maneuvers —we finished the import version in just a couple days. Sony has made some changes for the U.S. version, though, to increase the difficulty and hopefully the length: Expect tougher enemies, plus less ammo and health items. Will it be enough? Check back next issue to find out how the final product turns out. Ф Clockwise from top left: Use the flamethrower to light up rooms and enemies at the same time. A look at the sometimes complex 3D levels. Each time you get hit your infected meter rises; when it reaches 100% your max health drops and you slowly lose life until you vaccinate yourself. Use the Zoom Scope and flashlight to flush out enemies. And get help from friends-you'll need it. Similar in style to Panzer Dragoon and Klonoa, the language in Ico was created specifically for the game. While Ico himself has the benefit of English voiceover whenever he speaks, only one other character, the Queen, will have subtitles, and only when she addresses Ico directly. The meaning behind any other dialogue in the game remains a mystery until you play through Ico a second time, when all the | subtitles will be unlocked, granting you insight into the mysteries introduced the first time around. Talk about replay incentive! Banished to an abandoned castle because he was born with horns, Ico (pronounced “ee-ko”), the title character of Sony’s newest action adventure, finds himself tasked not only with escaping the confines of the eerie citadel, but freeing a princess mysteriously trapped within the very same walls. To meet these demands, Ico must jump, climb, swing, swim, swat, push and pull his way to freedom, all the while keeping the princess safe by his side. While at first glance the game appears to be more of the same ol’ business, the hook here is you need the princess around in order to progress. Only with her can you make it through magically sealed doors and use save points. The sense of scale in the game is immense, with Ico dangling precariously over chasms hundreds of feet deep, or scaling mountains equally as high. Problem-solving is far more natural than any “puzzles” you'll find in, say, a Resident Evil game. From figuring out how to lower the princess from the cage that contains her, to sorting out exactly how to bridge the chasm that lies before you, there's always a logical solution to be found. The graphics take a subtle leap beyond what we're accustomed to with plenty of elegant light-sourcing, fluid animation, and wonderfully rendered characters. There is little music involved, as the excellent use of ambient sounds creates a greater tension than an army of flugelhorns could ever hope to achieve. Mining the same emotional caverns occupied by such diverse sources as Where the Wild Things Are, Panzer Dragoon, Heart of Darkness and Out of This World, this boy-meets-girl-and-takes-on- the-world tale of survival has “sleeper hit" written all over it. Discover what we're talking about for yourself when Ico ships this August. aC N — PREVIEW GALLERY Once you liberate the princess, there's barely a moment she leaves your side. While you lead her by the hand for the most part, some puzzles require you to be separated. Thankfully, you can always call out to her, and barring any physical obstacles preventing her progress, she'll catch up with you quick as a whistle. Integral to any game of this nature, reliable controls are a definite must. Thankfully the handling in Ico is very forgiving when it comes to grabbing ledges, recovering from ill-timed jumps, and leaping from suspended chains. Even novice players can rest assured that they'll have a fair time playing this game. The sweet light of day contrasts starkly to the enemies in Ico. Hordes of shadowy wraiths will periodically materialize and try to abscond with the princess. You can swat at them with your torch, causing them to dissipate with each strike, but if they kidnap the princess, you'll have to restart from the last save point. Гы ЈЕ == PREVIEW ЕПШШ Capcom Сарсот a : (ИН Action/Adventure Release: Winter СІЙ Dino Crisis 2 (PS one) WWW.capcom.com KET Unique yet fantastic controls, superb graphics, haunting and rockin’ tunes-take your pick. Hopefully it will last longer than Onimusha. When the evil spirits wrap their legs around you and slice you with both hands-ouch! Devil May Think Of course DMC isn't all action—there are a few sections even in the short demo where you've got to put down your weapons and figure out how to proceed. Like Resident Evil, usually it's simply a matter of finding the right key. Other times (above) you need to use items to unlock secrets. Another example: The eye on the wall below glows each time you swipe it with your blade—hit it repeated- ly to activate an elevator on the floor. Nothing complex to be sure, but a nice break from the frantic action. Recover glowing orbs from defeated foes: red ones to open locked doors, green ones to restore health. Use sword attacks to swoop enemies into the air, then blast them with your pistols repeatedly-they hover, suspended in mid- air, twitching helplessly. Hell yeah. he game may be called Devil May Cry, but it's PS2 owners who will be weeping once they finally get their hands on this highly anticipated new adventure from Resident Evil mastermind Shinji Mikami—weeping tears of joy, that is. Capcom has combined the visceral run-and-gun action of Dino Crisis 2 with the intense swordplay of Onimusha for a game that looks—and feels—far beyond any of their previous survival-horror titles. If that sounds like a bunch of empty hype, don’t take our word for it—give the demo shipping with Resident Evil Code: Veronica X a whirl yourself and try to prove us wrong. Go ahead, we dare you. What has us so damn confident you'll get excited about Devil May Cry? Sure these screens look good, but you need to see the game in action to really understand what мете talking about. First, all the backgrounds are real-time, which means the camera can pan in, around, and over any of the incredible From the one- handed shotgun reloads to the way Dante strolls past enemies as he blasts, DMC's style can only be described as “bad ass.” ____-___-_ | Think you’ve seen too many Resident Evil clones? Try | living in Japan, where survival horror has seeped into | just about every genre—including, yup, bass fishing! scenery at will. And it’s a good thing, because the hero you control, Dante, doesn’t stay put for long. Dumping the awkward turn-and-then-move-forward control scheme of Resident Evil-games past, Devil May Cry is simple one-analog-stick movement a la Mario 64: You push left, Dante moves left. You push iagonal up and right, Dante moves that way. You get the idea. And there are plenty of reasons you need all this uick movement: The enemies you'll be facing are fast, and they like to travel in packs. These aren't some old foggy zombies, shambling toward you at a snail's pace and freezing at the sight of stairs. These are some nasty-ass demons who can fly in izzying circles, swooping down, darting back and forth, tossing weapons of their own you have to dodge. Luckily you've got a likewise upgraded arsenal to retaliate with —a massive special sword with different elemental abilities, plus all different kinds of guns (two pistols and a shotgun in the demo) that can be used quickly and effectively either together with your blade or by themselves. You also have a quick side-roll maneuver and jump, plus a magic meter that rises as you kill enemies, eventually allowing you to turn into a pretty damn nasty demon yourself and unleash some serious damage. When all of this comes together it's like poetry in motion; but like we said, don't take our word for it, see for yourself. More soon. я H FOR A STORE NEAR YOU CALL' SHOP BY PHONE | Rain # Џ :800- 800-0032 | Milla Jovovich plays Alice in the upcoming movie Resident Evil: Ground Zero, slated for an October 2001 release. Looks kinda like a cross between Claire and Jill, doesn’t she? PREVIEW à Џ B. TX = = = a Capcom Capcom 1 [Genre | Adventure 100% July Cr Dreamcast Web Address: www.capcom.co.jp/bioSth/ More revelations about Umbrella and Wesker. What are you going to do with your Dreamcast RECV? | And The Ugly. | The screen-loading doors are uglier than ever. Why? Wesker's Report а «i У ; If you follow the import scene, then you already know that the release of Code: Veronica X on the PS2 coincided with Biohazard's 5th anniversary in Japan. Picking up the game guaranteed you a playable demo of The Devil May Cry, as well as a special DVD called Wesker's Report, narrated by none other than Albert Wesker himself. The report sheds new light on everything from Umbrella and S.T.A.R.S. to the Tyrant and the deadly T-Virus. Also featured are interviews with the creators of the RE series. Capcom has not commented on whether or not they'll pack in Wesker's Report for the U.S. release. | | In this new cutscene, Wesker gives Claire a passionate beat-down, but keeps her alive to use as bait for his true nemesis-Chris Redfield. Claire's first encounter with Wesker lasts for only a minute. RECVX has approximately 10 minutes of new footage. lone in the Dark might have silently kicked off the "survival-horror" genre as we know it, but it was Capcom's Resident Evil that broke the sucker wide open. After years of refining the RE titles, Code: Veronica is simply the pinnacle of where the genre is today. First released on the Dreamcast in 2000, CV was the first in the RE series to employ 3D polygons for both characters and environments. While the game didn't carry the weighty title of “RE4,” its taut and tension-filled narrative revealed more about the insidious Umbrella Corporation than perhaps all the previous RE titles combined. But even more daring was the fact that as a DC-exclusive title, CV was potentially alienating the very fan base that created the phenomenon in the first place. With the PlayStation 2 version of CVX, all that's about to change. Despite rumors on the Internet (no way!) that say CVX suffers from slowdown and aliasing problems, we noticed nothing of the sort. In fact, the PS2 and DC versions look nearly identical. So what's CVX got that your DC version didn't have? Aside from the ubiquitous “X” in the title (there goes the naming convention for CV on the Xbox), CVX contains nearly 10 minutes of new in-game cinemas. The focus of the new cutscenes deals with Albert Wesker, an ex- Umbrella scientist and member of S.T.A.R.S., who was thought to be destroyed by his own creation in RE1. We won't spoil all the surprises, but the extra footage does provide you with much better understanding of what went on behind the scenes during CV and even earlier REs. And Capcom, to be sure, is banking on your dying curiosity. The one other major change is that Steve Burnside, the DiCaprio look-alike you loved to hate, now sports a hipster Britpop 'do complete with shaggy bangs. Why? We haven't a clue. But the real question about CVX is: Should you give a damn about a PS2 version if you've already been there, done that? Probably not. But for the hardcore RE contingent out there, CVX is definitely worth picking up, just for the Wesker footage alone. As for all you CV virgins out there— we envy you. We really do. nm The boys at Irrational games are responsible for some of the most critically acclaimed PC games in history. Namely: System Shock 2 and Thief: The Dark Project. A few of the members even had a hand in Ultima Underground and the original System Shock. The The guys over at Irrational Games have decided they want to redefine the survival-horror genre with their first console game, The Lost. Being released by Crave this winter, the game is very loosely based on Dante’s Inferno (the story of a man forced to take a journey through hell). The Lost is actually about a woman named Amanda who enters hell to save her recently deceased daughter, Beatrice (a reference to the poem). Since the game is based on the different levels of hell, the developers have taken a lot of creative license to make each area unique, froma World War II setting to run-down ancient Roman architecture. Amanda herself will learn to take on four different forms, each with its own personality and ability. One will be a fighter, while another is a thief. Choosing the right form for each situation will be the crux of the game, while the warring personalities of each form will drive the story. Although the demo we got of The Lost is still very early, just now starting to run on the PS2 dev kits, it’s looking solid. Given the past accomplishments of the Irrational team (see topper), we can expect a highly suspenseful, well-written story to accompany the action. CAR МЕНЕ IEN ee 300 STRAIGI | monto 100 KNEES 12 НЕЕ HQ OKS COMING SOON Т0 ||] ULTIMATE FOMTING CHAMPIONSHIP CRAVE, ENTERTAINMENT | Runes аге an ancient Germanic alphabet, used for writing, divination | and magic. They were used throughout northern Europe, Scandinavia, | | the British Isles and Iceland from about 100 B.C. to 1600 A.D. | Runic inscriptions of great age have even been found in North | America, supporting stories that the Vikings arrived in the Americas PREVIEW pe А2 == | long before Columbus. GALLERY = - Rune: Viking Warlord If you were Ragnar the Viking, what would you do? Would you explore 40 different environments, hacking up hellhounds, frost giants and the reanimated Ragnarin? Hell yeah! Would you use your berserker powers to decimate your foes, and would over 15 different weapons, 7,000 animations and a split-screen two-player mode be enough to satiate your bloodlust? Find out when Take 2 Interactive releases Rune this July. NASCAR Heat Infogrames knows that NASCAR 2001 left a lot to be desired, so they’re taking on EA in their press materials for NASCAR Heat, directly comparing the two games. By the time Heat is released this summer, expect to find 19 real Winston Cup tracks (excluding some like Indianapolis and Chicagoland Speedway), 26 real drivers, and all the updated rosters and paint schemes that EA’s game lacked. Of course, all the play options that made NASCAR Heat so unique on the PS one will return on the PS2. Sure, it still has Championship and Single Race modes, as do all racing games. But the thing that makes Heat stand out are the Beat the Heat and Race the Pro options. In Beat the Heat you need to pass a series of tests (reminiscent of the license tests in Gran Turismo) created by NASCAR drivers themselves. Then in Beat the Pro, go up against the best laps in the game from guys like Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin and Rusty Wallace. It’s a NASCAR fan’s dream come true. Monster Rancher 3 Tecmo overhauled the graphics for the third installment of the Monster Rancher series (available this summer). This time around, Tecmo has added the ability to create monsters from DVDs. The main human characters are also now drawn in a more cartoony style and monsters are all done using cel-shading. If you’re unfamiliar with the previous games in the series, you use CDs to create new monsters, then train them and put them into battle. As in previous versions, the goal is to become a champion breeder, eventually getting a monster of “S” rank. New evolutions and attacks have been added to each of the many types of monsters. Now when you explore the areas you’re in, you get to take control of your monster, steering him to find good items, while hopefully avoiding enemy confrontations. Your battlin’ pet can also wear masks, which—in the Japanese version—can be personalized by importing and manipulating an image from a Sony PictureParadise- compatible digital camera. | The NASCAR series has a new superstar in | Kevin Harvick, the 24-year-old rookie who | took over the Goodwrench Chevy after the | Daytona tragedy this year. In only his third | | race, Kevin brought his car to victory lane at | Atlanta Motor Speedway. Не'5 one to watch. Well, Soul Reaver 2 may be in the proverbial can, but Kain will be stepping back into the limelight with Crystal Dynamics’ Blood Omen 2. Set two centuries after the original PS saga, the game puts you in RG hd ы charge of the villainous Kain, who is out to recover the stolen Soul gm Reaver sword. Along the way, you’ll have to rely heavily on loads of gory 1 D O Еа Q Q ES «e» combat skills to succeed, with weapon-dependent attacks and unique FR stealth kills helping you dispatch your nemeses. Bear in mind, though, 10 SHOULDER that Kain's vampiric leanings require occasional fill-ups at the expense " of helpless townspeople, or whoever's handy at the time. You'll have to qe ie [m KS be a slippery little devil if you want to knock off some enemies, and а... even moreso if you want to relieve them of their life-sustaining juices. What's more, Kain will have several supernatural powers at his disposal, Such as telekinesis, which he'll have to use to solve many of the game's puzzles—a major focus of the gameplay. Hopefully they'll be more creative than Soul Reaver's. Eidos is hosting Kain's triumphant re- emergence at retail this Christmas. Now if only they could get Raziel back into the release picture, it'd be a happy, happy world. ENTERTAINMENT = тсс PREVIEW GALLERY State of Emergency - Causing a commotion seems to be Rockstar’s forté as they prepare to unleash yet another urban assault this fall with State of Emergency. Incite the masses to riot in over 80 different missions spanning four cities. A fully destructible environment is provided, enhanced behavioral Al tickles the crowd into naughty deeds, the corrupt government begs to be overthrown, and gangs roam the streets. Slashout meets GTA3? Smuggler's Run 2 Rockstar has teamed up with Angel Studios once again to bring us a sequel to their top-selling PS2 launch game, Smuggler’s Run. SM2 will use an updated version of last year's engine, with the same go- anywhere gameplay. Rockstar has told us they're very aware of the odd difficulty curve in the original game, and that it'll be fixed for this fall release. These screens are actual game shots. Madden NFL 2002 — Despite the hype surrounding the debut of Madden 2001, it very nearly lived up to expectations. In the end though, a sluggish framerate and limp hits—not to mention the absence of online play—kept it from achieving greatness. So is 2002 fixed in all the right ways? According to EA the gameplay is faster, but we won't know for sure until after E3. There's no sign of online play either, but there's still time. The changes are mostly cosmetic: new animations, more detailed player models (including faces), new Madden Cards, plus you can play and draft with the new Houston Texans. In addition, widescreen TV support will allow a deeper view. Worms are an essential part of a gamer's diet The perfect side dish for Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance ‘IMAGINE NO LIMI iSi www.nyko.com NYKO's Worm Light is protected by US utility patent 6,186,636, and US design patent 435, 679. Other worldwide patents are pending. Worm Light™ and NYKO® are trademarks of NYKO Technologies, Inc. ©2001 NYKO Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 888-444-Nyko ~ Э PREVIEW GALLERY Dave Mirra: Not quite a sequel (could that be in the works for the Р522), this is the original Dave Mirra Pro BMX with the added bonus of eight more tracks (for a total of 20), a new Expert difficulty level, plenty of new tricks, and a slew of cool new tunes. Hardcore fans of the first game will want to dig in (if they can pull themselves away from Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX). Expect Maximum Remix to hit store shelves in late May. Enter Electro Supervillain Electro has found a way to amplify his lightning- wielding powers, and to stop him from raising hell, Spidey must foil his plans to high jack three essential parts needed to construct the device. Many of New York’s famous landmarks serve as the battlefields for the action, which is similar to the original game, but with a few, new wrinkles. A host of new web attacks give Spidey the ability to freeze and electrify his enemies, and there’s also a few helpful combo moves and armored suits he can don. And after you use those weapons to finish up a tough day at the office by beating an end- level boss, you're treated to snapshots of your battle, so be sure to smile for the camera when Activision's franchise swings into stores this fall. —— P Ü Ф you'll ever get to see the Spidey movie. Well, you'll find that answer and much, much more at www.spidermanhype.com, the site that Entertainment Weekly called “The CNN of Spider-Man’s Internet World.” We're not sure if that reference is a compliment, or not, but we can tell you that no one beats this site when it comes to insider info and sneak peeks at the movie. Ath Mix Now this is the version Konami should have brought to the U.S. Already out in Japan, DDR 4th Mix features an entirely new playlist with very few remixes from 3rd Mix and songs that are, on average, about a half-minute longer than earlier games in the series. The famous Diet Mode makes a return in 4th Mix as well. Perhaps the coolest addition, though, is the new six-panel playing style. Basically you need to pay attention to up, down, left and right, as well as two diagonal pads. It makes DDR a whole new experience, especially to those of us who've been playing for quite a while now. DDR freaks: Don't wait any longer, import this version of DDR and get dancin’! À à тиек COLE 12 = | АКЫ" à g вија Ever wonder why Wile E. Coyote looks so much like Ralph Wolf from the Sam Sheepdog episodes? Or, ever mistakenly call Ralph, Wile. E. Coyote? Well, prepare to be enlightened. Wile E. Coyote is Ralph Wolf. Yes, you heard right. Looks like Chuck Jones wanted to see if his lupine lemon could fail as success- fully in other scenarios. Boy, can’t a coyote wolf get a break in this business? 4 —» PREVIEW GALLERY Dive into the wacky world of Daffy, Porky and the star of Infogrames' new Looney Tunes game, Ralph Wolf, in Sheep Raider. Over 15 levels of varied terrain await Ralph, who'll hide, swim, fly and sneak in order to poach sheep from under Sam Sheep-dog's nose. Out in June, Sheep Raider offers gadget-based puzzles and plenty of platform-style action. Mutant Academy 2 More is better, or so the newest installment of Activision's X-Men fighter would imply. The gameplay in this series hasn't changed much apart from the new attacks and aerial moves that have been added to combat. Instead, the rosters of arenas and fighters have each been increased by six. Rogue, Forge, Nightcrawler and Havok are now playable, in addition to two other characters who must be unlocked. If you ever wanted to rough up the X-Mansion, this is your chance, but this fall release's biggest draw could be the supplemental material that includes concept art, sketches and costumes from the movie. In an attempt to stretch the definition of the *puzzle game" to unheard-of lengths, Capcom's One Peace Mansion thrusts you into the role of an apartment-building superintendent. You have to manage who lives next to who in each apartment, making sure their different personalities don't clash. Comfort is of utmost importance, and tenant juggling will be the order of the day when the game ships this summer. ST ee KR e ETÀ we S ud PREVIEW Crave Entertainment Warthog 1 Flight Sim/FPS 50% Winter StarLancer (DC) www.cravegames.com It's like Wing Commander meets Half-Life. No planned multiplayer or online options. The Order of Virtual Light cult getting pissed off. |______________ | Street Cred Warthog should be familiar to any space-flight nuts out there. Having cut their teeth on StarLancer (for Chris Roberts, creator of Wing Commander), they’ve also visited the Star Trek | universe with Activision's Star Trek: Invasion on the PS one. Other games programmed | by Warthog include Asterix | the Gaul for PlayStation and PC, plus Tom & Jerry for PS one and Game Boy Color. OK, so maybe there's a few chinks in the armor. Unless you love Asterix like young Dudlak does. Huge ships aren't just there to stare at or blow up-you can actually fly into them and search around on foot. The Order of Virtual Light cult members are actually unwitting host bodies for The Watchers, a powerful alien race. hat better way to launch a franchise on a new platform than to try something unique? Warthog has made their mark with space sims, but now Crave has them taking it a step further by getting the player out of the cockpit for a little down-’n-dirty combat on the ground as well. Truth be told, Bounty Hunter will be more of a first- person shooter than a flight sim. But rather than magically dropping you into a new level it's up to you to fly there, through hostile space, land, and set off on foot. Similar things have been tried on PC games with mixed results. Warthog says the reason is that most of those games used one of two separate engines depending on whether the player was in his ship or out on foot. But Bounty Hunter uses just one graphic engine—and one control scheme— no matter where you happen to be. The result is a silky-smooth transition from one game mode to another, anywhere from space to a planet's surface, to the inside of a capital ship, and everywhere in between. From what we've seen so far, it works great. In our brief demo, we started the game in the midst of a firefight in deep space. Then, turning toward a huge ship on our left, we saw a landing bay was open. After flying in and touching down, our hero grabbed a gun and proceeded to pick his way through the ship and rescue a concubine. Very cool stuff, and all seamless. Although the first-person shooter aspect of Bounty Hunter will be its main focus, let's face it, Warthog's made its name with space-flight sims. Keeping that in mind, the ship-to-ship combat in the game promises to be very involving. Basically think StarLancer with nicer graphics and up to six different ships you can fly. The overall game progression will be totally plot- driven, with cutscenes ushering the player to his/her next objective. Crave and Warthog are both adamant that all the cinemas will use the actual game engine— no rendered characters or cheesy FMV here. Online deathmatches? Crave says no. The developers are more worried about making a kick- ass single-player game, and getting it finished in time for the ship date. Ah well...next time. ah Microsoft Bizarre Creations 1-2 Racing 30% Winter 17 MSR (DC) www.bizarrecreations.com Amazingly accurate cityscapes. No solid release date. Streets devoid of all human life. lip Service “Over the last year, we started doing a lot of | research on what should be | our crown-jewel racing title, | what type of racing-title partners should we be working with," Garrett Young, program manager of sports and racing at Microsoft, told us. *Of all the people we met, working with Bizarre Creations made the most sense. They were awesome with MSR last year, which was great, they have history with Formula | One games, they've done some other titles like Fur Fighters. So in the end, it made the most sense to work with Bizarre, and it ended up the coolest thing we could have done on the racing front." That's all very true, Bizarre does have quite a history when it comes to | racing games. Their F1 titles | in particular were critically | acclaimed on the PS one | (especially in Europe). This seems in keeping with Microsoft's policy of doing | what's best for their gamers. | Let's hope the results are as spectacular as they promise. | | | Bizarre is quick to point out the cool, real-time reflections on the finish of each car. Bizarre already has some pretty nice weather effects going on, and the build we saw isn't nearly done. icrosoft's been aggressively courting developers to work on its console and certainly trying to cover every important genre. Racing games are key, so it was no surprise when we saw this little number spinning its wheels at the recent Microsoft Gamestock event. For developer Bizarre Creations working on Gotham for the Xbox is deja уй all over again. Twenty-four months ago they were in a similar situation, working on MSR for the Dreamcast with unfinished devkits. Managing Director Martyn Chudley relishes the chance to further develop the Kudos system and take city-based racing to the next level: “When we finished MSR, we knew we were going to do another city- based racing game but didn't know for which format. So we fiddled around on the PC, where we had time to rewrite the physics. And we knew Xbox was going to be Nvidia, so we worked on GeForce cards." The Gotham team is crafting the game with quiet confidence, and only a scant few months into the project there are already quite a few improvements: The cars feature real-time reflections and the resolution and texture quality have been upped dramatically. Like MSR, though, expect all those realistic streets to remain eerily void of pedestrians. “We won't be populating the streets of Gotham due to car-licensing issues,” says Chudley, “however, we are gonna try to put in more ambient noises, load more things like rubbish and stuff you can interact with, 15 zdnet PREVIEW steam coming out of vents, leaves blowing around, smoke. Just try to make it far more immersive.” Gotham is built of mostly new code and technology specifically for the Xbox. Microsoft and Bizarre are keen to point out this is no port, but an extension. There's more emphasis on arcade action and а the tracks are getting seriously spruced-up with redone textures and more polys; it’s the New York City area that’s the most exciting new feature. Striking the right balance between arcade and in- depth gameplay was an area some found faults in MSR, so care is being taken that Gotham will be far easier to get into and more rewarding as well. “That's the biggest thing, broadening the appeal," Chudley explains. "We've done the niche thing with the DC. With the Xbox we have a bigger target audience. We let people see more of the game." But the true innovation of MSR was the Kudos system, which rewarded the player for his/her driving skill rather than just speed, and Chudley wasn't entirely satisfied with how that turned out in MSR either. *The kudos system was sort of hidden, under the surface. You did some cool things but you also got lots of penalties, so we are making it more friendly." Bizarre will take the time to get it right, because, let's face it, there's some pretty stiff competition out there. “This is not a GT clone by any sense of the imagination," says Microsoft's Garrett Young, “but that's the bar we measure ourselves against." + LUTTE Nintendo Capcom CE : [селе Action RPG [% Done: 100% May T СТА Link's Awakening DX [ATOS www.nintendo.com The Good: Old-school Zelda gameplay, cool Link System. Technically not much different from the first Game Boy Zelda. Originally there were going to be three games, not two! CLASSIC A Link Both Oracle games are filled with nods to past Zelda titles. For example, in Oracle of Seasons, you can burn down trees to find hidden treasures (“It’s a secret to | everybody,” “Pay me for the door repair charge,” etc.). And in Oracle of Ages, you can ride on a raft for the first time since Zelda Il: The Adventure of Link. to the Past The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Series I | Eel $,., 23932" A td Meee ЕЙ лава The Мека tree is in both games, though it changes gender depending on which one you're playing. n development for nearly three years, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages have gone through numerous changes on the road from initial concept to final product. Formerly known as Mystical Seed of Power, Mystical Seed of Wisdom and Mystical Seed of Courage (when the duo was still a trio), the games have finally been released in Japan and are scheduled for release on May 7 in the States. The two titles were actually developed by Capcom and scripted by Flagship (the guys behind the Resident Evil story lines), marking the first time a “real” Zelda title has been developed outside of Nintendo (no, those crappy CD-i games don't count). When Capcom first approached Nintendo about working together to develop these new games, the plan was actually to create four titles, but that soon dwindled to three and eventually ended up as the two titles that you see here. According to Yoshiki Okamoto, producer of the Oracle games, the third chapter— which was completely finished before it was cancelled— was actually a remake of the original NES Zelda. Will it ever be released? "We'll be debating over it later," says Okamoto in an interview with Japanese writer and Nintendo superfan Shigesato Itoi. One can only hope... Fans of Link's Awakening DX, the previous Game Boy Zelda, will no doubt feel right at home with Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages. The games use the exact same engine as DX, only slightly modified to take advantage of the Game Boy Color's full color palette (the Oracle games won't run on old-school Game Boys). Animations have been improved, and the life bar has been moved to the top of the screen, but otherwise the interface is almost identical. What sets these games apart from their predecessor (and any other Zelda, for that matter) is the innovative "Link System," which allows the two games to interact with one another in a variety of ways. You see, Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages are meant to be played back-to-back, in either order. Upon finishing one game, you're given a password to 16 enter into the other game, which then alters the second adventure, depending on certain actions you took and events that occurred in the first game. Only after finishing both games in succession will you get to see the true last boss and the “real” ending. Even better, the second quest is filled with special passwords that you can obtain, and carry back to the first game to exchange for some great items and power-ups (see “The Link System” sidebar). The way the two games interact is exciting and original, and makes for great replayability. Story-wise, the two games are similar enough. Seasons begins with the Maiden of Earth, Din, being kidnapped by the evil General Gorgon. Her kidnapping causes the four seasons to get all confused, and as a result, Link needs to locate the Rod of the Seasons so that he can restore order to the land and rescue Din. In Ages, it’s the Maiden of Time, Nayru, who gets whisked away by a wicked sorceress named Veran. Veran possesses Nayru and takes her back in time to screw up the past in an effort to take over the world in the present. Link must locate the Harp of Time and use it to travel back and forth between the past and the present in order to right Veran’s wrongs and rescue Nayru. Interestingly enough, Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages were specifically designed to appeal to different types of Zelda fans. Seasons is much more action-oriented, with hordes of bad guys at every turn, while Ages has far fewer enemies, but more brain- bending puzzles and interesting dungeons. Despite this, the games still have plenty in common. Both games feature five kinds of Mystical Seeds, each of La LAGS | 2.233388" “eal Teal ы WE $ which has different properties (one lights fires, another lets you run fast, etc.), as well as Gacha Seeds, which, when planted, grow into trees that provide special items and rupees. Both games have animal friends who help you out, and a clumsy witch who drops items every time she flies in your path. Plus special rings hidden throughout the two games (64 in all), once identified at the Ring Shop, grant special abilities or power-ups when equipped. There's plenty more where all that came from, too. We haven't even touched upon the new items (Pea Shooter? Magna Glove? Swap Hook?) and the returning cast of characters from the N64 Zeldas. But since much of the fun of playing through a Zelda game is discovering its secrets, we'll hold off on revealing too much. Needless to say, these two games are indeed epic, and despite being developed by an outsider, they're very worthy of bearing the Zelda name. If you're a fan ofthe series, you owe it to yourself to give both Oracles a spin. Chances are good you won't be disappointed. Жұ | Well, kinda. When GBA launches inthe U.S. | on June 11, be sure to pop in your Zelda: | Oracle games and take a look around. In addition to a slightly altered color palette, you'll find that each game has a special shop that's only accessible when playing on a GBA. What rare goodies lurk inside? You'll just have to find out! ER ET ASE ME For the first time ever, Link now has support from the animal kingdom. Ricky (left) can jump up cliffs and has a wicked left hook. Moosh (center) can fly over large gaps and do a powerful butt stomp. And Dimitri (right) can traverse deep waters and climb waterfalls. п GAME BOY PREVIEW The Link System | In addition to the first password you receive, which lets you continue from one Oracle game to the next, there are several other passwords that you can find during your "second quest" which allow you to obtain some great items and enhancements. u] vel han Step D After fi ШЕШУ. Seasons and starting Ages, you'll run into characters who give you special pass- words. Write these down and then head over to your finished Seasons game. Quel 181 549999999 Step 2) Find the person who you’re supposed to deliver the password to in Seasons, and you'll get something for use in your Seasons game as well as a new password. Step 3) Finally, bring the new password to Farore at the Maka Tree in your Ages game, and she'll grant you the same item for your Ages game that you just received in Seasons. Sweet! AR he. COLOR PREVIEW GALLERY X-Men 2: Wolverine's Rage Wolverine's gonna be pissed off come this May, and with good reason. Seems like supervillains are always passing time constructing evil devices, and this time Lady Deathstrike, Cyber and Sabertooth are targeting ol' Wolvie by making a weapon that will melt his metallic Skeleton into sludge. To foil their plans, you take to the streets with your claws sharpened. Activision has given our hero a few other powers to spice up the traditional side-scrolling action: Along with Wolverine's regenerative ability that allows him to slowly regain his strength, he also possesses a "Bestial Rage" mutant attack that drains his lifeforce, but deals much major damage to enemies. Hopefully this variety will distinguish X-Men 2 from the glut of mundane GBC beat-'em-ups that crowd store shelves. Spider-Man 2: Sinister Six Activision will come out swinging with a new Spider-Man game this spring. America's fave arachno-hero's got some funky new moves to immobilize, evade or "spin-kick" his attackers. Power-ups like the Spidey Shield are also featured additions. If villains are your thing, expect to see Doc Ock, the Sandman and Kraven, just to name a few. Adapted from id Software's old PC title, Commander Keen is being develop- ed by David A. Palmer Productions for Activision on the GBC. A side-scrolling platformer, the game promises several returning characters, but will send its pre-teen hero off on an all-new romp. Aside from some really vibrant graphics, CK's three separate worlds host over 30 alien foes and tons of puzzle-filled gameplay. Watch for it this summer. ۳ Ка ~ MET Mega Man Xtreme 2 Mega Man Xtreme on the GBC was, in many ways, just a compilation of the first two Mega Man X titles for the SNES. Mega Man Xtreme 2 takes up where its predecessor left off, but this time you have the option of playing MM or his counterpart Zero throughout the game. Capcom has upped the ante by allowing you to switch, on-the-fly, between the two do- gooders. The cool thing is, MM and Zero will also have different level layouts and end-bosses. MMX2 comes out late summer 2001. ДАТЕ ТО 2% 18 | Capcom’s decade-running | franchise has some of the most | hummable songs in all of video | gaming. ОК, so it’s not MP3, but | do check out The Mega Man Mod Archives (http://24.16.84.122/ | ~rockman/m3a/index.shtml) to | download music from the long list | | of classic Mega Man games. Battle Network Mega Man Battle Network takes place in the distant future where everybody owns a “virtual pet” version of the Blue Bomber. Take your pocket-gotchi Mega Man deep into an insidious online network and battle evil computer programs. Explora- tion takes place in a top-down isometric view, while combat is an interesting combination of real-time and turn-based mechanics. It feels kind of like a first attempt at a Mega Man RPG of sorts. While мете sure most people would have preferred a classic Capcom side-scroller, we'll still play this with an open mind this July. It may look like the standard side-scrolling drek you’re used to seeing in Game Boy Color games, but there’s a surprising amount of depth and variety in this Activision title. Coming this fall, X-Men’s Story Mode allows you to play as Rogue, Wolverine, Storm or Cyclops as you fight to escape an alternate timeline. Points are earned by performing special attacks that can be used to improve your character’s abilities. If you're not in the mood for adventuririg, then there's also a handy Versus Mode that serves up a simple one-on-one fighting game. The evil Master of Illusion, Mysterio, takes the helm in the battle against good in the first Spider-Man game on the Game Boy Advance. Good thing our friendly neighborhood wall- crawler is ready for the job. According to Activision, our web-slinging friend hasn't been Slacking since we last saw him. Spidey's got a new wardrobe of protective suits (including a "very secret black suit") at his disposal, multiple power-ups for health and web formula upgrades, and kick-booty special attacks. Sounds like Spidey on the GBA has lots in common with his PlayStation game from last year. Heading for a fall release, along with Tony Hawk Spidey looks ready to be one of the strongest American titles on the GBA during the launch period. Super Street Fighter Il Essentially the same game as Super Street Fighter II Turbo, with its super meter, hidden characters and overhauled combo system. Fighting fans can take it on the road when Capcom releases Super Street Fighter II Advance for the new Nintendo handheld this summer. With 32 bits of 2D power at its disposal, we expect GBA owners with a link cable to be in two-player Hadoken heaven. We had a chance to play this one at TGS and were impressed: Tapping buttons for light attacks and holding them for medium ones works all right and, outside of some slight slowdown, the game stands up pretty well next to its SNES brethren. 19 PREVIEW Hony Немю Pro SKatenex: PAGES THPSZIGBA Раде вв Mat Но та 5: С 3 PFO BMX 2 ў x € 1 Page 91 Shaun Paimer’s Pro-Snowboarder Page 90 Kelly Slater's: Pro Surfer Page 92 Ll ring Out of Big Air... ou'd expect to sniff a lot of not-so-fresh odors at the You ready Y offices of a hard-working developer like Neversoft. But instead of stale pizza, spilled beer or sweaty T- shirts we smell—sniff, sniff—what’s this? New-carpet aroma? for a rush? “We had to move to new offices last year because we needed room for that thing,” Neversoft prez Joel Jewett says, pointing to a larger-than-life-size statue of Spider-Man Activision slinging webs in the spotless lobby. Spider-Man was a fine game, but he’s not the big reason behind Neversoft's on-fire rep and plush new digs (their thinks SO conference tables haven't even been scuffed by visiting = skaters yet). This is the house Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater built. And what's good for Neversoft is good for Activision, which By Evan Shamoon owns the studio and publishes its games. All told, the Tony ~ 1 Hawk titles accounted for about 25 percent of Activision’s and Crispin Boyer publishing revenues last year—and this is a company with a broad range of games, everything from Disney to Quake. “If you sort the [sales] data by extreme sports, we have a 67 ook—up in the sky! Is that a bird? No, it’s a Birdman. Tony L Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 drops for the PlayStation 2 this fall with— get this!—online play. And in roughly 2,216 words, here’s why neither work, family nor unrequited love will matter when the Birdman lands. “Life is little more than the long wait between new versions of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.” That’s perhaps one of the lesser- known ancient Chinese proverbs, sure, but also a sentiment echoed by millions of fanatical humanoids around the world. Aside from humdingers like fire, the printing press and the Beatles, few cultural phenomena have been quite as captivating since the dawn of civilization. And now it’s high time for a relapse: Neversoft’s newest Tony Hawk sequel arrives on the PS2 this fall. But you PS one owners shouldn’t feel left out; a scaled-down THPS3 Кот a different developer will hit it the PlayStation at around the same time, and pretty much every other system that matters will get a version of the game next spring. (Note that THPS3 in this feature.) "We're in a really good position, because even though we started over from scratch and rebuilt everything [on PS2], we're doing it with the knowledge we gained over two years," says Joel Jewett, the aforementioned president and chief trash-talker of Neversoft. “We know the game inside and out, we've made all the mistakes before. I'd hate to have to compete with us right now." And by the looks of things, so would we. Mere seconds after THPS3 materializes onto Neversoft's huge flat-screen TV, it's clear we're in for a treat of the hardcore we're focusing on only the PS2 version of Tony Hawk's Skater The series’ move to PS2 means THPS3’s environments are bigger and much more interactive. See that freeway buckling behind Tony? Trigger a tremor and It shakes down in real time, opening new grinding opportunities. Nice. percent market share in 2000, and that's just from Tony Hawk 1 and 2,” says William Kassoy, Activision's director of global brand management. Expect this stranglehold on extreme sports—actually, they're called action sports now; the term “extreme” is sooo last week—to tighten on May 15. That's when Activision launches its own action-sports sub-brand called O2. (It stands for “big air.” Get it?) The tagline: “Sports Revolution." “Initially, the line was ‘Sports Evolved,’” says Kassoy, “but these sports didn’t evolve out of the traditional big-five sports, stuff like football or basketball.” Instead, we’re talking BMX, snowboarding, surfing and, of course, skateboarding—and all that pretty much sums up Activision’s action-sports lineup for the next year. The games begin with Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX, which launches the same day as the brand. This fall we'll see Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and Shaun Palmer’s Pro Snowboarder. Then we get Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX 2 and Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer next spring. We know a wake-boarding game is also in the works, t Gaming Monthly 81 persuasion. In the grand tradition of both Brian Boitano’s trousers and the American prison system, Tony Hawk 3 is literally bursting at the seams. With more realism, more fantasy and the promise of—we’ll say it again—online play in the cards (see sidebar on page 87), Neversoft's newest baby should grow up to meet all those impossibly high expectations. Hurts? Not Exactly The most immediately impressive thing about THPS3 is the sheer size and creative depth of its environments. The level furthest along is Los Angeles —hometown of Neversoft, Activision, and innovative new uses for silicone—and it's absolutely. teeming with life. Not only are these environments going to be roughly twice as big as those in the two prequels, they will be far more engaging as well. Traffic races realistically through the streets, pedestrians bustle about, tectonic plates push together; these guys are building living, breathing worlds. “We tried some of that stuff in Tony Hawk 2, but the PS one hardware limited us in terms of what we could pull off,” says Scott Pease, producer of the first two games and now lead producer on THPS3. “Seeing the helicopter take off and then just hearing it crash above you [in THPS2’s Hangar level], for example—we had to kind of fake it. But now we can really mess the environment up, but after that? "We're going to look at sports that have that lifestyle element attached to them,” Kassoy says, “so we’re not going to do extreme skydiving, because there’s not a huge lifestyle around that.” 02 is Activision’s first sub-brand, and they’re thinking big. In fact, they don’t even see extreme games from similar-minded brands like EA Big as competition. “Both of our Tony Hawk's Pro Sketer titles exceeded the sales of Madden, NBA Live— with Jordan even—NASCAR and Tiger Woods in 2000," Kassoy says, "so we really see our primary competition as traditional sports brands like EA Sports and 989 Studios." To rattle the competition, Activision has locked more than 40 action-sports athletes into exclusive contracts and is having all its action-sports developers implement the easy-to- learn/hard-to-master Tony Hawk control scheme in their games. After all, THPS is the O2 brand's flagship title, and now the franchise is making the leap to PS2. You thought Mr. Hawk flew before? Get ready to watch him soar. Inet.com/egm S SD Bn ae move things around, create entirely new lines. Some of the cars will actually stop for you, slamming on their brakes. Pedestrians will actually walk around and interact with each other while you're not there. If you get up close enough you can even hear them speaking to each other.” It’s this sense of place—the reality that your actions actually have consequences in the world you inhabit—that gives the game such tremendous screen presence. Even better, this depth is embedded directly into the gameplay itself. Level goals will be drawn thematically from each city, and interacting with/manipulating the environment will be part of completing your allotted tasks. Pease demonstrates this for us in the Los Angeles level by grinding several specific rails, each of which causes our surroundings to tremble slightly. “Each of these little tremors kinda weakens the thing...and then it's this last rail that sets off the Big One,” he says, just as an earthquake begins to tear through the city. Pease spins the camera around to give us an up-close and personal vista of what appears to be a stretch of the 405 freeway crumbling before Neversoft has completely redone the game’s animation system, packing in about five times the amount of data that was in THPS2. You'll see plenty of new bail animations, but look for subtle stuff, like the way skaters wobble their arms for balance when they grind. our eyes in real time. This, in turn, opens up a series of provocatively strewn-about rails and elevated lines, many of which allow access to previously unreachable areas. “So you can see,” Jewett grins, leaning forward in his chair, “we’ve got some pretty cool stuff going on.” We sat down with the Hawkman tl himself and tawked amongst ourselves about Pro Skater 3, Girl Scouts, a skater’s diet and the meaning of life. EGM: It’s been awhile (well, a year, really). How’s things? Tony Hawk: Good, yeah. Just super busy—the new game and working on all the other projects Гуе been working on, everything keeps getting crazier and crazier. Working on our next gigantic skatepark tour, and we've added Europe—so that's been a big task for me...and for everyone. EGM: Big continent... TH: Yeah, and through that we've been also working on what was going to be the next game, you know, also have a game based on the tour and what have you, and so basically we just came to the conclusion that 3 will be for both PS2 and PS one. And that's pretty cool—but, | mean, PlayStation 2 is quite a beast... EGM: So we hear. Is it killing those guys? TH: Yeah—they're actually ahead of schedule, but it's just been hard work. | see how comparatively far along number 2 was to its release date, and comparing it with what number 3 is now....But as it gets going things are getting exponentially easier and easier. EGM: How in the name of Tony Hawk can this game possibly improve upon the last one? The transition from 1 to 2 was more than anybody could have expected. TH: Yeah, and | think this will be the same way. | mean, | hope that in the PlayStation [version] the leap will be just as great as from 1 to 2, but | know that it will be on the PS2. l've got a 82 ES 77777 14132444 £ À The team has one guy dedicated to creating scripts for the game’s teeming population of pedestrians, who will interact with you and each other. Some civies are even involved in your mission objectives. In one level, for instance, you'll need to show a bunch of kids how to perform specific tricks. Some of the other level goals will involve interaction with the pedestrians and cars that cruise around the environments. “You'll see a short little cinematic that shows a ooter robbing our liquor store next to Fixy- Brokey TV over here," explains Jewett, pointing to a seedy corner of the L.A. level. “You'll have to recognize the car [he gets into] and chase him down; perhaps to stop him you'll have to alter the environment in his path. Then you'll see another snippet of the cinematic showing you what happened." As we watch the demonstration, subtle details abound, such as fluorescent lights and wooden desks inside the office buildings, visible through their semi- transparent windows. (“Just wait 'til we've got the porn theater working the way we want it," Pease deadpans.) Everything around us appears to be exploding with activity and personality, begging to be explored and experimented with. “It’s something players might not notice," says Jewett, “but having these little scenarios going on really brings the level to life and also gives us a chance to infuse them with our own twisted brand of humor.” Skate or Diet What has kept millions of helpless souls glued to their television sets for the past few years, of course, hasn’t been actual glue but rather the Tony Hawk engine’s perfectly realized control—a mind-numbing recipe that simply made everything feel so damn right. Fully aware of this fact, Neversoft is well on its way to recapturing said feel and will spend the next several months working to ensure THPS3 continues the trend in faultless control. (When asked if the formula had perhaps been somewhat super-early build and it’s already awesome; the textures and the motion are just insane. EGM: Do you see any new gameplay element in THPS3 having as much significance as the manual? TH: I think the balancing scheme will be much improved— specifically with manuals and with grinds...things like that. It's not gonna be so distorted, the leaning and whatnot. It will be way more realistic—not in the way you link tricks, but in the way you play and the way it feels, and how you know when you're too close to falling over. EGM: What's the toughest thing to translate from real skateboarding into the video-game version of the sport? TH: I think really making the animations look legit, and also having them at your control. There are so many games where you press some buttons and give up your control of when it's going to finish or how to adjust it to land right. And I feel like in this game, you're always in control—even if you're doing some intricate move, you can always lean or direct it to land on something else...| think that's the hardest thing to create. You know, when we're skating, if something's not quite right, usually we can make an adjustment or try to bring it back. EGM: Is there anything you feel that the last version of the game didn't get right? | noticed that it didn't shoot out delicious cookies for me to eat. TH: Hmmm...The only thing | ever said about THPS2 was that the rodeo flip is actually not spinning the right way. And, well, nobody would ever notice that. EGM: Have you heard anything about music in the third game? TH: There are definitely some bands that l've been pushing The Los Angeles (top) and Canada (above) levels are the ones farthest along in development, but bear in mind that everything here is still very work-in- progress. Neversoft plans to add more pedestrians and traffic, and particle effects still haven’t been implemented. Expect lots of eye candy. stumbled upon by chance, Jewett is markedly defensive: “Partially chance?” he cries. “There was no chance involved! Eight billion focus tests, 8 billion comments later and 8 billion tweaks of every single variable was what got us there.”) When it comes to improving upon this established control paradigm, the Neversoft guys certainly have their work cut out for them. The introduction of the manual in THPS2 presented an entirely new dimension of subtlety and technique, drastically revising the core THPS gameplay: Linking tricks into combinations was expanded to actually linking the combinations themselves together— with effectively infinite results. The inability to manual out of vert tricks thoroughly shifted the crux of the game, however, to hinge upon grind- manual-grind chains, since pulling off a vert trick essentially represented the grinding halt of this otherwise on-and-on-and-on progression. Neversoft's answer to this stylistic imbalance is, in fact, twofold. The developers are not only experimenting with a method of linking moves out of vert tricks (they're devising a landing trick, similar to the manual, that you can pull while landing on а quarterpipe to keep your combo going), but they're also looking to expand the gameplay contained within the tricks themselves. Pease explains: "We're gonna try to bring back the combo ability of the vert moves that got lost in THPS2, which just became kind of a grind-and-manual fest. We'll be adding in a lot more natural combos and moves almost fighting-game SWITCH for. It was really hard with the first two games, because people wanted too much money and didn’t see the value of just being in it for the sake of being in it. | think they do now, and also Activision’s in a much better place to ask for music. So some of the bands that | wanted to get in the second one are more likely to get in the third one. EGM: Any specifics? TH: Hmmm...Let's just say I’m pushing for some early punk stuff [grins]. My favorites in the first game were the Dead Kennedys and Primus tracks; in the second game | dug the Millencolin song and, of course, Rage. EGM: What’s your personal high score for a single trick in THPS2? TH: Somewhere around 250,000 or 300,000. EGM: Aside from your competitors, what do you eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner? TH: Well, skating keeps me in shape, but | try to stay away from red meat as much as | can. And, you know, | don’t just sit around and eat junk food all day long [stuffs two Thin Mints into his mouth and smiles]. EGM: Favorite movie of all time? TH: Recent years: The Big Lebowski. Early years: Weird Science [laughs]. EGM: Done your taxes yet? TH: Yeah, well...no. I’m in the middle of them. EGM: What was Tony Hawk like in the four-year open- heart surgery known as “high school”? TH: Um, an outsider | guess. | just spent all my time at the skate park, so as soon as the schoolbell rang | was out. | didn’t know anyone at the school, | didn’t go to any school events, | didn’t go to my prom, | didn’t go to football games or anything like that. My community was at the skate park, 84 style—that you’ll be able to do.” Players will actually be able to break out of certain moves and pull off new ones, uncovering hidden tricks, combos and brand-new gameplay territory in the process. And since THPS3 packs what Pease estimates to be “50-100 percent more tricks than THPS2,” that should entai experimentation. quite a bit of Beautiful Day Though still relatively early in its development cycle, THPS3 is visually and mostly they were older but | didn’t care...we all held a common interest. | mean, my first kiss was at the skate park. EGM: In regard to skating, was there any single event that determined how you wanted to live the rest of your life? TH: | think it was when | first started learning moves that no one else had done. That got me really fired up. It got me motivated to keep trying new things and see what was possible. Because when you realize that something you're doing—that you can be your own pioneer, go in different stunning—this is already one of the finest graphics engines we've seen on PS2 to date. “Everything is built from scratch," boasts Pease. "Each skater model is rebuilt with about 3,000 polygons, all the animation is totally redone for a more advanced hierarchy that includes things like hands and fingers." The impressive level of detail remains consistent whether the camera is pulled out to a bird's-eye view of the city or up close to an individual character, verifying the excellent versatility of their engine. Oh, and here's a cool new perk: You can use the boy band? wanted to. now? right analog stick to peer around your skater and take in all the splendor—or just try to figure out the best way to get to that rail way up on the church roof. You'll even be able to pick from a few different camera vantage points behind your skater. The improved detail and resolution is, of course, accompanied by a dramatic improvement in the animation. "We now have dynamic balance animations, for example, for every single grind, and for the smooth new bails as well," Pease says. Sure enough, we see Tony spread his arms and SC 00 EGM: Guilty pleasures? Perhaps an unhealthy obsession with Hello Kitty lip gloss, or a burning desire to be in a TH: Well, neither one of those. I’m a pretty bad gambler though. I'll stay at the tables until I've lost way more than | EGM: Even though you've got so much backup fundage TH: Well, it’s hard 'cause the stakes are higher—to make it interesting, you want to make it risky. So, yeah, I’m bad. I directions, and not everything has been done before—then you feel like anything's possible. If you feel like there's an echelon you reach and that's as far as you can get, then maybe you're not as inspired to keep going. In skating, it seems like there's always something new to learn. а say that happened was when | was about 11 or 12. never ever admit to my wife how much I lost. But my biggest obsession is electronics, buying everything new, whatever's updated. | just bought a G4 Powerbook without even worrying about what's going to happen to my old one. But the rest of my family's thankful, 'cause they always get my old stuff. Err, as in, like, four months old... We're not sure what impresses us more: the size of the levels or their massive draw distance. See those buildings in the background above? They're all fully 3D and part of the level. (You can even see inside their windows when you skate by!) Plus, you can use the right stick to look around and eyeball the levels now. teeter a bit when he grinds. Pease estimates THPS3 packs roughly five times the amount of animation data as THPS2. On top of that, the levels boast an unlimited draw distance—kiss the fog and faded-in environments of the prequels goodbye. And the whole thing is already running at 60 frames per second. Needless to say, the game is going to look very, very nice, but it’s also comforting to see that the look and feel are undeniably consistent with the universe Neversoft has forged with its prior Tony Hawk games. Which is not to say that any of this has come easy. How has it been working on the PlayStation 2? Pease explains the two sides of Sony’s imposing black box: “Development is difficult because it’s a much more advanced machine, but the cool thing is that you have to be really good to get a lot out of it. Take the high resolution —if you don’t have bad-ass artists, your levels simply aren’t going to look great. | think the new machines are going to really expose some developers who can’t hide their deficiencies anymore. So мете actually glad the new machines are so complicated, ’cause it will just weed the competition out.” Jewett adds, “On the PlayStation you had to worry about every vertice, every little poly in the game, and not waste anything to really attain the level of quality you wanted to achieve. And quite frankly, it’s the same exact way with the new machines! Тћеге'5 more of it, but to get the best of the best out of it you have to pay attention to every little detail. And now there’s more details....Nothing comes easy.” Welcome to the Terrordome The team is expanding nearly every other conceivable aspect of the game, including an enormously enhanced custom character builder that allows for a wilder variety of clothing ensembles than an Oscars pre- show (and thankfully without a skeletal Joan Rivers prancing around asking, “Who are you wearing, honey?”). But the big addition here: It will even allow for a—ahem— "diverse" set of female characters, which should be popular with the game's predominantly male fan base (you'll be able to doll up your female skater in outfits as skimpy as a bra and see-through skirt). Career mode is likewise being refined, and money will no longer be collected; instead Neversoft is aiming for a more free-form progression through the game. "We've come up with a system which preserves the customization of THPS2, but keeps the flow a bit more non-linear like THPS1," explains Pease. “In the second game, your cash just kinda ramped up, so in career mode there wasn't much reason to go back to the early levels. In THPS1, however, every goal was worth the same amount—it was worth a tape—so if you got stuck in a later level, you could come back to an earlier one to try to Solve the puzzle there and move forward." Certain goals in Career Mode will also depend on the particular character you pick. Jamie Thomas, who's a street skater, for example, might have to hardflip a certain gap to complete a goal, while Tony Hawk might need to pull a 900 over a channel. Custom skaters will face a more generic set of challenges. For the hardcore players— whose goal is to beat the game with every. character—touches like this will provide for an immensely richer single-player experience. The return of THPS2’s skate-park editor is still up in the air at this point because of the increased complexity and size of this sequel's environments (“We want to be careful not to do anything half-assed," says 2 _________ Ready to Grind Online? Neversoft unveils the skate park of the future OK, you might want to sit down for this: Neversoft is building online play into THPS3, making it one of the very first online PS2 games. The team told us they're 100-percent confident they'll get this feature in the game. “I just can't tell you how in- depth it will be at the moment," says senior producer Scott Pease, "as a lot of it depends on Sony and other hardware- support considerations." Neversoft has been implementing . online modes in THPSS over the past few months, and we're ‹ Sony has given them full support in this endeavor. Details alittle sketchy on how all this will work, since Sony has reveal their online plans to the world. Be patient—those teresting to note the office network ег, and Neversoft told 56k modems. “us they even plan to sup} .. We expect to see the ori lead-to-head multiplayer ‘games such as Trick Attack, Graffiti and Tag playable online, and Pease says the network modes will support a minimum of four players at once—and hopefully up to eight. In fact, don't even bother looking for a four-player split-screen feature. "We've looked into it and decided our game is just too chaotic for four-way split, especially on a small screen," Pease says, "so we'd rather spend the effort on the online side of things—it's a lot more fun for four players when each has his own screen." AS cool as the concept of online Trick Attack might be, the 8 Electronic Gaming Monthly - 87 folks at Neversoft recognize that creating an online community is perhaps even more intriguing—a sort of “online skate park” if you will. “To help broaden the whole Internet base, you need to build [the game] so that people want to go online to hang out with the friends that they've made,” says Neversoft prez Joel Jewett. “If you're just competing all the time, you're not really making buddies...you know, you're either kickin' their ass or getting your own ass kicked." The developers are therefore also interested in creating a more open environment, where individuals can come and hang out, chat (Neversoft is including support for USB keyboards), show each other new tricks they've learned, trade gear, and possibly even come up with their own games and competitions. "Many of the levels are section based," points out art director Chris Ward, “so you can choose to hang out wherever and with whomever you choose. Skate in the parking lot, inside a warehouse...it's up to you." Using the right analog stick to look around is especially handy when playing online, because it helps you watch and keep track of your buddies. You can take your turn in a pipe, for example, then hang to the side and watch your pals go through their routines. We played a networked game at Neversoft's offices, and it only took a few minutes of us watching other skaters zip around us before we envisioned the online community that will surely build around this experience. "It'S amazing, really," says Pease. "If you sit and think about it for like five minutes, you can think of 100 cool things we can do online—it's enough for a whole other product." n.zdnet.com/egm Jewett), but don’t rule the editor out; those decisions are still pending. In the multiplayer department, уоште going to find pretty much the same modes— Trick Attack, Graffiti, Tag and Horse. Of course, the big addition here is the inclusion of online play. Tony on the Go THPS2 on the Game Boy Advance proves big things do come in little packages We'll admit it—we were jealous. The real Tony Hawk got to play the GBA version of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 a few days before we did. But we sure can't argue with the Birdman's to- the-point evaluation of his game: “The Game Boy Advance is awesome! THPS2 for the Game Boy Advance is awesome!" Hawk wrote in a terse e-mail to Activision after a little hands- on time with this GBA launch title. Squint your eyes and this game looks remarkably like the PlayStation original. It’s played from an isometric perspective, but "the game world internally is 3D," says Karthik Bala, CEO Grind Now, Pay Later The team is planning to include between eight and 10 levels, and they're doing so with double the number of designers, artists and programmers who worked on their previous games. The Tony Hawk and Spider- Man teams combined to work on Tony 3; of developer Vicarious Visions. *That means all the surface information such as half pipes, ramps, rails, etc., have real geometry data associated with them. And the skater is a real- time 3D polygonal model, using a custom 3D software renderer, with all the character animation from the PSX game." So, as you zip around the environments, your skater's orientation and collision are based on the surface geometry of the level. That means you can perform all the same moves— including the manual—and catch the same air you could in the PS one version. thus, every free hand at Neversoft is working on this game. Still, this ain't no walk in the skate park. “The problem, see, is that you can never really quit working on the levels," art director Chris Ward explains in his thick Yorkshire accent. “You could literally work on 'em for two years, improving, tweaking them, but you've got to stop sometime." Jewett grins. “And then we have this weird thing about wanting to ship the game as Soon as we can," he says. "Hate to keep the fan-base waiting. We've put ourselves on the line, but | think we can do it." "Yeah," Pease quips from the other side of the table. *Just ignore the beads of sweat beginning to form on our brows." Best of all, THPS2 GBA runs at a blazingly smooth framerate. And despite the top-down view, the game's levels (you get six in all—five from THPS2 and the warehouse from the THPS) look right out of the PlayStation games. Even the new midi soundtrack is surprisingly rockin’. The GBA's lack of buttons meant Vicarious Visions got creative with the control scheme: You use the shoulder buttons for kick tricks and grabs, while A and B ollie and grind. A tutorial mode eases you into this Scheme so that any THPS fan will get the hang of it in no time. "We've had testers do 400,000-point combos and two-minute runs of 1.4 million points," Bala says. THPS2 GBA lacks create-a-skater, the park editor and multiplayer modes, but even without that gravy this game launched to the top our list of most-wanted on-the-go games faster than you can say, "Game Boy Color who?" hile PS2 will be the main recipient of Neversoft’s latest skate opus, Activision hasn’t forgotten about that “other” big black box looming on the horizon. Not only will Microsoft’s Xbox likely get its own version of THPS3 early next year—it will also launch with an exclusive Tony Hawk title, christened with the suffix 2X. Developer Treyarch (the same gang behind the excellent Dreamcast versions of the first two games) is working to make THPS2X improved enough for even the most demanding critics—and when those critics are jaded gamers tired of Tony Hawk ports, that’s saying a lot. In a nutshell, THPS2X takes everything from the first two games and makes it—oh, how you say —better? "There's a lot of Tony Hawk's NO COMPLY + ВЕЗБМТН 682 X2 power under the hood of this thing," says Nigel Mills, the game's producer, gesturing toward his towering Xbox development kit. "and we'd like to use as much of it as we can." When all is said and done, this incarnation will pack versions of every level from both THPS1 and 2, plus three brand- new ones. Combine that with greatly enhanced graphics locked at a silky-smooth 60-frames-per-second framerate and Treyarch is on the verge of building the ultimate THPS collectors' edition. More advanced geometry is the order of the day here, which essentially means everything will look sharper and more detailed. Half-pipes are perfectly rounded; rails are rebuilt in full 3D; lighting is far more complex; and backgrounds will be brought to life with pedestrians, birds and other details. While the skaters will be built + MUTE 2460 X4 from the same number of polygons as those in the DC version, each one is being retextured for a noticeably crisper look. “Believe it or not, we've got 12 artists working on staff right now—which is a lot for a game that's already out," Mills muses. The team is adding Xbox-specific features, such as the ability to replace the in-game music with tunes you've ripped to your Xbox hard drive (these tracks will be selectable within the game). And THPS2X will park itself onto the drive the first time you play, drastically reducing load times in future sessions (levels load so fast it's like playing a cartridge). Other goodies include four- BONELESS 300 player split-screen for the multiplayer modes, VGA support, female Create-a- Skater and a more robust level-editor. Fine, but what about the online play that was originally supposed to be in the cards? Well, that’s up in the air now. Treyarch is including support for up to eight players online—we even played the game over the network at Treyarch’s offices—but the team says it’s up to Microsoft to determine whether THPS2X will be playable online at launch. After all, Microsoft still needs to sort out its broadband plans. We asked the boys in Redmond for the skinny. "We're not announcing whether there will or won't be online games at launch, but certainly the ability is there," says Xbox marketing director John O'Rourke. Um, OK, not exactly the confirmation we were looking for. Long story short: If Microsoft has its broadband network ready for launch, expect to play THPS2X online. If not, you'll still be able to play on Xboxes linked together in a local- area network. Not a bad consolation prize. 360 BONELESS + INWARD HEELFLIP + haun Palmer’s Pro Snowboarder, due this fall on PlayStation 2, has the potential to be to snowboarding what Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is to skateboarding. Developed by UEP Systems—the originators of the Cool Boarders snowboarding franchise—Pro Snowboarder melds the near-flawless trick system of THPS with the solid engine of Cool Boarders: Code Alien. “Anyone who can play Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater can pick up this game and be good at it,” says Michael Fletcher, producer of Activision. Adopting that style of control makes it easy to grind on just about anything in the game, a fact not lost on Activision, which has increased the number of grindable surfaces nearly ten-fold over those in Code Alien. And since it’s set on slopes and not the streets, Pro Snowboarder will feature much bigger air than THPS, allowing more time to pull off an even greater number of tricks. “We’ve redesigned the basic boarder physics and motions to create a game where Pro Snowboarder the player links tricks to score big points,” says UEP Systems director Sunaga Makoto. UEP is also punching up the visuals to compete with that “other” killer-looking PS2 snowboard shredfest, SSX. “We have created highly detailed levels based on 10 real- world locations," Makoto says. Shaun Palmer himself picked the boarders in the roster, along with the courses, and he helped the designers capture the subtleties of each trick. Still, as in THPS, this game is more about breakneck fun than realism. Within the Squaw Valley course, for example, you'll find the Olympic village from the 1960 winter games and a ski jump you can launch off for massive air, as well as bobsled course you can tear through. Imagine the downhill courses from THPS2; that's what we're talking about here. Except—in case we haven't emphasized this enough — with much bigger air. Ask Shaun Palmer who the hell he thinks he is and he'll tell you he's just a kid who grew up snowboarding, skiing and riding BMX and motocross in South Lake Tahoe. Truth is, this five-time winner of the International Snowboarding Federation's World Boardercross is the cockiest über-athlete you'll ever meet. Will the real Shaun Palmer please stand up... EGM: What's your philosophy toward competition? Shaun Palmer: When | go out it's definitely to win. | respect my peers, but when I'm competing, it's war. EGM: What would you say to us if we were competing in the same event? SP: Well, to your face it'd be all good sportsmanship, and а wish you good luck, but in the back of my mind I'll be thinking, “I’m kickin’ your ass!” A little while ago, before the start of a race, I yelled out "Who's racing for second?" Luckily | came in first that race so it turned out pretty cool. EGM: Just like Babe Ruth calling “the shot." How does it feel having a game revolve around you? SP: It feels pretty good. I’ve always loved working with kids, and it’s cool when someone asks you for an autograph. So now that kids can play as me, it’s pretty cool. EGM: You’re known for picking up just about any sport that catches your eye and excelling at it. If you could have any other sport in the game, what would it be? SP: Motocross is my passion. For the last five years I’ve raced boardercross, but | love racing motocross. EGM: You have nine Cadillacs tattooed on your arms. What’s so special about Cadillacs? SP: I've always loved Cadillacs—loved 'ет since | was 16. | own a bunch now. EGM: Should we expect a Cadillac- shaped snowboard in the game? SP: There might be some exciting stuff hidden in there [wry smile]. EGM: Did you ask for anything specific to be put in the game? SP: | wanted to make sure the tricks are exciting. | mean, you wouldn’t be rail-sliding on chairlifts in real life, but it’s fun when you're doing it in the game. You know. There'll be some good "breakin'-the-law stuff" so you can have some fun without getting into trouble. at Hoffman’s Pro BMX should hit stores any minute now (check next month for a review), but Activision already has a sequel in the works, with a new developer and a new direction— hint: think bigger. Rainbow Studios, the team behind ATV Offroad Fury, is uilding this sequel PS2. And although t from scratch on he game's release is still over a year away (it hits PS2 in March 2002, then other consoles after and a muddy park area crammed with dirt jumps. In other words, you'll find a jumbo-size combo of street, dirt and vert elements in each of the game's 10 evels. As in THPS3, the environments here will teem with pedestrians and traffic, too, and you can expect to see a ot more texturing special effects than hese early screens show. "We plan on having all kinds of shaders that we've not been able to support in the past," says Rainbow Studios game designer which has been expanded to give you bigger levels to work with as well as that), it's already clear this thing packs he sprawling level design that Rainbow Studios is famous for. The level we played was set in an immense city full of curbs and benches o grind, culverts to use as half-pipes, lighting model." Mat Hoffman's If you think of Activision's action- sports athletes as paratroopers about to leap out of a plane, then Mat Hoffman is the next dude out the door—his first game comes out next month. And heck, a parachute might be just what this guy needs; Hoffman plummeted 60 feet onto his noggin while trying to beat his world record for highest air in late March. We catch up with the Condor, recuperating at his Oklahoma City home base... EGM: So what happened? Mat Hoffman: | hit pretty hard. | wasn't feeling right, my body position or my timing was weird. | was just trying to figure it out, and on one of the airs | completely dead-sailored it. | hit my head so hard that | don't remember any of it. It shattered my helmet and split my lip in two right down to my chin. EGM: Ugh. Are you all right? MT: Yeah, | feel pretty good. | am doing better now | think, kinda healing up, relaxing and getting stitches out each day. | was kinda in a daze for the first three days. I’ve crashed a few times and have hit my head to where it shocks me, but Robb Rinard,” things like real-time specular mapping, environment mapping, gloss mapping, projected texture shaders and a truly amazing The same eight bikers from the first game return, as does the park editor, more control over elevation. “1 personally like making the big dirt downhill with some kind of crazy ramp at the bottom,” says Dave Stohl, producer at Activision. "It's, like, how high can | jump?" The team is even trying to infuse more of the BMX culture into this sequel. Instead of just cruising from level to level in a generic career mode, Pro BMX 2 will pack more of a story —you'll progress through the game on a bus tour with your biker buds and go back and forth between tour stops to accomplish goals. The trick system, on the other hand, will remain basically the same, except now you'll be able to add in trick modifiers like in Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX. “This game is all about getting big air and pulling off insane tricks,” Rinard says, “but big air can also mean big, bone- crushing bails that will make you cringe as you laugh out loud. with this one | could tell | was higher than normal. When you hit your head hard it all feels the same because you get knocked out. But I’m just real sensitive about making sure it didn’t affect me too bad or mess with my brain. EGM: Well it’s a good thing for that helmet. So, are you happy with how the first game came out? MH: For me, it’s almost like the sport’s immortal now. Like right now, | haven’t been able to ride for eight days because Гуе been injured, but | feel like I've been riding every day because I’ve been playing the video game. EGM: Let’s say someone plays your game and wants to get into it. Any advice on a first bike? MH: | started Hoffman Bikes so | could recruit people into the sport, and | started thinking about the new audience that would be interested in bike riding with this game, so I’ve been working out this deal to where I'm taking a bike from my line that just has everything you need to get started riding, and I'm working on having it distributed in Toys R Us, Costco, places like that. We're trying to price it around $129. It's called the Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX Bike, and it has the same 91 zdnet.com/egrr graphics as the video game. It’s not designed by a big corporate company—it’s designed by a bunch of bike riders who are into biking and would love to get new kids into bike riding and do it on a bike that’s just awesome. EGM: Cool—we can’t wait to get ours. Back to the game, anything you want in the sequel? MH: There’s so many more things you can do now that it’s on the PlayStation 2. | just told them yesterday, and | don’t know if I'm gonna be able to get this, but | want to have one Flight of the Condor: That’s 26- and-a-half feet of wide-open air between Mat and the tip of his custom-built 24-foot vert ramp. He set that record in March, a few days before plunging 60 feet onto his head. To build the speed needed for such big air, э Mat gets towed to the ramp by a motorcycle zipping up to 50 mph. Mat even planned to have pal Evel Knievel tow him for one record attempt. The accident foiled that scheme, so the two friends just hung out. segment that’s on the moon, and it’s like all the physics are completely changed to be like the physics on the moon. | always wondered what it would be like to ride a vert ramp on the moon. | know I'll never be able to experience it for real, but | can kind of experience it by designing it into this game. EGM: And you can play it without risk of concussion. MH: Exactly. Of all the “lifestyle sport” athletes covered in this feature, Kelly Slater lives the life that makes us most jealous. This 29- year-old pro moves from one tropical locale to the next, was featured in People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, spent a couple of seasons on Baywatch, and dated Pamela Anderson. Meet our new hero... "Even the names are similar. There are obviously not kick tricks, but there are grabs. And floaters [grind-like moves where you balance on the tippy top of a wave's whitewash] are a big part of surfing.” Pro Surfer is a pet project for the О2 brand. After all, this is an untapped genre; there have been very few surfing games—and only a couple of recent forgettable duds. The last thing Activision wants to do is wind up all wet with this game. “This one’s going to have some time put into it,” Stohl tells us. “We want to make it the Tony Hawk of surfing. | don’t think there’s room for any mediocre surfer games.” we learned anything from Fast Times at Ridgemont High’s star stoner Jeff Spicoli, it’s that all surfers crave the perfect wave. So it’s a good thing Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer— not due on PS2 until next spring—will ship with the ultimate wave editor. “You can do things like set the speed of the wave, the depth of the barrel, the fatness of the wave, how it closes out and stuff," says Dave Stohl, producer at Activision. “We have to make it very customizable because every level is based around waves." But just ‘cause this game's set on water doesn't mean it'll lack the classic THPS controls. "A lot of these board Sports have similar tricks," Stohl says. EGM: Did you really surf on a door once? Kelly Slater: A friend of mine, he's a musician and a filmmaker, thought of this project to have me surf on a door because he thought it would be cool to do a piece called "Kelly Slater Goes to Work." He had me put on a suit, carry my door down to the beach and paddle out on it, and he filmed it. EGM: So how would you rate the door? KS: I'd probably give it a .02 out of 10— probably the worst board I’ve ever ridden. Kelly Slater’ EGM: Can you name any good surfing games from, like, ever? KS: | don’t think there’s been one. We were always excited as kids thinking there would be a surf game, and | remember a couple different ones came out, but they really weren't surfing. It’s yet to be really tapped. EGM: Your game will change all that? KS: That's definitely the goal, and | don't think there's anyone involved who will let it out there until it is that. EGM: What's the hardest thing to capture in a surfing game? KS: Creating a wave that's real looking and true to physics, the way it breaks and such. That's been a huge focus for this game. EGM: Ever have any run-ins with sharks? KS: | got stung by a man-o-war two days ago. That's pretty common—and painful. If it stings you on the chest or near your armpits or groin, the poison gets into your glands. The pain is unbearable. There's really not a whole lot of reason to be scared of sharks. l've seen them swimming right around me when I'm diving. l've been surfing for almost 25 years and have never been bitten. EGM: Still, we figure surfing is the only sport where you might get eaten. KS: Yeah, it's kinda up to the athletes in the other sports to get injured. | guess in snow- boarding you may have to worry about being bitten, but | don't think a bear can catch you when you're going down a mountain. + The team is concentrating on getting the wave physics true to life before going whole hog on the visuals—hence the lack of effects in the above shot. Aonthly - 92 - www.zdnet.com/egm RATING PENDING ORG! Arn Incorporated, 5551 Katolla Avenue, Cypress, Cato #080, Al Rights Reserved. DIGIMON, DIGITAL >“ ty of Bandai/Toei Animation. Used under license byg p ШШЕ America, Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. > PlayStation [ By David S.J. Hodgson ou all know who Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto is, Yu Suzuki is almost a household name (as long as that household flies a Sega flag and has a copy of Virtua Fighter in the game-room closet), And not a month goes by without a game magazine somewhere in the world running an interview with Shiny's Dave Perry, But what's happened to the unsung programmers and designers of yesteryear—the hermitic heroes of gaming? In this special eight-page kick-off to a new monthly section, we journey back to a time when unique gameplay thrills mattered more than marketing departments or the gift of self-promotion, It's time to probe the minds of four gaming godfathers — heck, let's call them gamefathers. We load up on their anecdotes and discover their invaluable contribution to gaming, as well as what they've been up to lately. David “Pittall” Crane Gamefather of the Classic Console Game А game-creating fiend with over 50 titles to his name, David Crane talks us through designing the seminal Pitfall!, speaks about the genre he helped spawn, and explains the value of Cheech and Chong in video-game advertising. Crane wore many hats while crafting an enormous variety of games for the Atari 2600. He was a designer, animator, sound-and- music guy—even a tester. “In the early ’80s we estimated there were only two or three dozen individuals in the world with both these left- and right-brain skills,” he tells us. “In the design lab of the early Activision, we had five of these individuals.” As a member of this “Activision quintet,” Crane started with a pencil, some paper and an original idea—which eventually blossomed into one of the most | n the first half of 1982, David beloved games of all time. He explains: “I vividly remember sitting in the lab with a blank sheet of paper, and saying to myself, ‘I've always wanted to do a game with а little running man.’ | drew the man on the paper and asked, ‘What is he running on? A path. Where is the path? In a jungle. Why is he running? To collect treasure.’ | drew the man, the path, a few trees, and a bar of gold. | incorporated a vine to Swing on and the old cartoon: effect of running across the heads of alligators, and the game was essentially designed." Right then and there, Crane created the premise of Pitfall! in about 10 minutes. The actual building of the game, however, took about 1,000 hours of drawing, programming, testing and debugging. When it was time for gameplay tuning, Crane turned to the pros— the other guys in the office. “We would each take the time to play the other games as they neared completion,” Crane explains. “We each made suggestions, and we all knew a good idea when we saw it.” From early on, Crane and his cohorts had a good feeling about his rope-swinging quest for cash. In fact, the only real predicament was deciding on a name. “The working title was ‘Jungle Runner,” he says, “and it came dangerously close to going to market with that name. In the 11th hour, after two weeks of brainstorming, | finally suggested ‘Pitfall!’ as a pun. Someone else dubbed the hero Pitfall Harry, and the name stuck. That was really fortunate when you consider that the second choice was ‘Zulu Gold.’ Without Cheech and Chong as spokesmen, | don’t think that name would have worked.” But Pitfall! did go on to smoke the competition in terms of sales. It spent 64 weeks at number one on the charts, sold over 3 million copies in one year, and became Activision’s top-selling game. It remained one of the best-selling titles in the history of the Atari 2600. And, of course, it helped expand the popularity of the platform genre, which was established by Shigeru Miyamoto's 1981 arcade hit Donkey Kong. “By the end of the ’80s,” Crane says, “there were more than 500 games in this genre developed.” Where is he now? î “I left Activision in 1987 and did some [freelance] 2600 work,” Crane tells us. “| then joined some friends at Absolute Entertainment doing NES and Super NES games. In 1995, | co-founded the Internet company Skyworks Technologies. We never believed that these mega-games were any more fun than a good single-screen game. We came to view the Internet as the latest video-game system, and with limited bandwidth, it is more like the systems of the past. We have to trade off memory, graphics, processor speed, and download time just like the old days.” Check out the newest Crane creations at www.skyworkstech.com. FRE KARR ЕК E É% Electronic Gaming Monthly - 94 - www.zdnet.com/egm à some electronic or board, game? Reality is mo У meaningful. There аге more important things in life than pixels w Favorite Game Glinracter?. + ÈS ar my least on i. ‘character: any karate- "a ` chopping, street-fightin: isi te game characti he worst prediction i of my RI was whi ws x NN ma. més woul lasta year. In its purest form, a _ karate ses regents good hand-eye Skills anf an analysis to counter. А. technology to amuse himself? I came to this realization as a kid, [and] it still holds true today. IBM’s Big Blue got no respect until they taught it to play chess. Today’s video- вате systems contain more technólogy than any system in use for ЫТ work, | live by that motto technology should be enjoyed." Gameography: Too many to list, but here are the highlights: Outlaw, Canyon Bomber, Slot Machine, Dragster, Fishing Derby, Laser Blast, Freeway, Grand Prix, Pitfall!, The Activision Decathlon, Pitfall 11: Lost Caverns, Ghostbusters, Transformers, Little Computer. People Research Project, Skateboardin’, Super Skateboardin’, David Crane’s Amazing Tennis, A Boy and His Blob, The Rescue of Princess $ Blobette. E Photography by Claudia Goetzelmann k eee Ra РЫ рр t Akira “Street Fighter I Nishitani Gamefather of the Fighting Genre What's it like to create the first really innovative fighting game? We talk with Street Fighter |'5 lead designer about punching pads, pioneering joystick motions, perfecting Ken’s power uppercut, and getting Blanka just the right shade of green. ack in 1990, three years after H the initial Street Fighter had hit arcades, Akira Nishitani— then a lead designer at Capcom Japan—was told to start sketching character designs for a sequel. Little did he realize it would become the first and most popular fighting-game franchise in the world. “We were told that Street Fighter was having a good response in overseas markets,” he tells us, “but | wasn’t satisfied with many aspects of the [first] game. | wanted to play as a character that best suited me, and there weren’t too many games where you could choose your player at that time. That was my initial motivation.” Out came the pencils and sketchbook, and the classic look of Ken and Ryu were created first. “They are the main characters after all,” he says. Next came Sagat. Then came the obsessing over details. Discussions about every nuance of Street Fighter II —from joystick motions to the look of the characters—continued for days. “Blanka’s concept was a ‘wild boy’ from the very beginning,” Nishitani says, “so his look wasn’t very different from how it is now. He had much lighter and natural- colored skin at first. Then, someone suggested, ‘Let’s make him more butt-kicking! and he ended up having green-colored skin [laughs]!" As for everyone's favorite sumo, Nishitani explains that *Honda was literally a normal Sumo at first. Then | asked the designer to make him look more Japanese, and he got a Kabuki- style make-over and yukata kimono.” Despite all the new characters, there’s still only one fighter for Nishitani-san: “My favorite character is still Ryu—I’ve been using him for over 10 years!" The plan wasn't to craft a simple rehash of the original game. For a RAY start, some of the Street Fighter arcade units came with punching pads: analog cushions that caused more damaging attacks when walloped with force. ^I [initially] wanted to use those buttons for Street Fighter Il so bad,” Nishitani says, “but there were problems, such as the maintenance, the cost...so the idea was turned down." Nixing the whack-a-mole- style buttons created a more intricate game, however—one in which artful joystick wiggling and combination attacks took the place of puffy-button mashing. “If we chose the [punching pads], the series might not have lasted this long," Nishitani says. Of course, some of the first game's features did make it into the sequel. Nishitani's favorite is his preferred characters' flagship flourish: *Ryu and Ken's uppercut,” he says. “If you are a man, go with a Dragon Punch [laughs]." Then came more innovations. *The button combinations are really the fun factor, but some people have difficulty with them," he explains. *So | came up with the idea of charging or tapping as a new input method." And although these ideas created a new gaming genre, Nishitani still wasn't satisfied. “Even when Street Fighter || was А” А" Electronic Gaming Monthly - 97 - www.zdnet.com/egm finished, | still tweaked it,” he says. “That ended up as SFII Dash [Championship Edition]. But after Dash was released, | still wasn’t satisfied. | think that’s the way it is for developers.” Even during the early stages of SFII development, Nishitani knew he had an addicting experience on his hands—especially as precious programming time was spent playing the game instead of fine- tuning it. “We were playing two- player mode all night long for over 100 matches consecutively," he Says. That didn't stop the team from losing sleep over the game's chances. “This may not be easy to believe, but there was no custom for Japanese gamers to play against strangers in arcades, so | thought a two-player game might not be successful in Japan,” he says. And he was initially correct— ittook 12 months for the two- player fighting-game craze to catch on. But when it did, Street Fighter II kicked off a decade-long run of competitive play and paved the way for many more multiplayer games—as well as almost every fighting game you've heard of. Where is he now? After the frenzied success of SFII, Nishitani stayed on at Capcom, intent on perfecting the fighting engine he helped create. Working on the seminal X-Men: Children of the Atom was just one of his fondly remembered tasks. Then he left Capcom and established a company called Arika. “Now | make more games," he says. “Remember that name: Апка!" One such game was the realization of the Street Fighter engine in three dimensions: Street Fighter EX. Nishitani isn't happy with how games have progressed — he'd like to see more innovation. And at this moment, he is developing a game called Diver for the PS2 at Arika. "Remember Diver!" he says. "la Gamester Rap: What makes this creative mind tick? Favorite Movie? “Titanic. | was almost crying in the movie theater, but the film also has an action element as well—that’s why | liked it.” Favorite Music? “Mostly I listen to game music." Favorite Food? “1 used to enjoy a lot of meat and beer, but perhaps because of my age | now eat lighter meals— Japanese, like mother used to make. No more half-cooked onion!" Favorite Game? “Crazy Climber, from Nichibutsu, is the best, most innovative game of all time. The idea of climbing a building and the two joysticks for control is so original. | haven’t seen any other game surpass that in my opinion.” What is your motto? “Life is a game.” Are you happy with how your video games have progressed? “Street Fighter has evolved and diversified. If you compared SF to a man, he could be a middle-aged and austere guy. So | think it's about time for him to take a break!” How would you like to be remembered? “Pd be happy if someone remembered me by starting a story with “there was this huge video-game freak...!” Gameography: Lost World, Mad Gear, Final Fight, Street Fighter Il, Street Fighter II Dash (Championship Edition), X- Men: Children of the Atom, Street Fighter EX, Street Fighter EX plus, Fighting Layer, Street Fighter EX3 (plus many others ina consulting or supervisory role). ы pm 3 А ы Ж ШЕП 190 | 3 tfr gab in nif y 25 | » was creating % Photography by * Claudia Goetzelmann Entipede’ Logg mefather of the Classic Arcade Game He helped create Super Breakout, Asteroids and Centipede. Now Ed Logg talks about Gauntlet, paper trails, the power of vector graphics—and the bugs in Centipede that weren't for shooting. precursor sic). mes,” he tells us. Lucky gg attended a friend's “In tose fede it was е half the games killed > along the process," mple, | isc game using real Runner cartoon footage, је videodisc market ; thes games was a prit ШИ e affair. For 1978's 3 ogg and the guys E He enter our itten pages into rograms and give us computer printout and We would debug ive tools and a says he would create the graphics by entering the data by hand. “| personally created the graphics you see in both Asteroids and Centipede,” he says. By 1985, however, professional artists created and animated the characters in Gauntlet. When Logg wasn't creating. games at work, he was Sleeping on the job. “I would frequently play the game in my dreams while | was creating it!” he says. This in turn led him to solve problems he'd been working on in the waking world. But that’s not the only reason coworkers were happy to see Logg head home for nocturnal brainstorming. “Others at Atari would ask me when | was going home so they could play my game on my development station,” he says. Logg's many contributions and creations started so many genres that he himself isn't sure how many he's responsible for. *The success of Asteroids created a boom for vector-monitor-style games,” he says, while Gauntlet “caused a whole number of similar four-player games, such as the Simpsons game.” But don’t let your teary-eyed nostalgia for Logg’s creations lure you into thinking they were perfect in every way. “There was one rumor that a player was so good at Asteroids that he amassed so many extra ships that the game would slow down and eventually crash,” Logg says. “I’ve never seen this, nor reproduced this bug, but things like that can happen. The crash is probably the watchdog circuit on the PCB deciding the game is hung and resetting itself.” Er, obviously. Asteroids wasn’t the only game to bug out. Logg also heard a tale “that someone could start a new game of Millipede with 1,100,000 [points]. Some of my friends were trying to discredit the person who said he could do this. | went back and found a bug in my code that would indeed allow this to happen. Whoops!” On another occasion, Logg was walking by the cocktail- table version of Centipede (on which play switches vertically from one end of the monitor to the other) when a colleague asked Logg why player two always seemed to get higher scores. “I watched him play when | noticed something unusual,” Logg says. “It turns out the spider does not reduce its range for the second player, which would mean the spider would stay away from the player once the score gets large.” The culprit? “Oops, another programming bug,” he says. “There are way too many stories that would fill this article. Maybe another time...” Where is he now? After working on Othello for the VCS, Logg programmed Centipede for the NES. Then he became one of the first folks enthralled by Tetris. While asking Atari’s legal counsel to grab the rights, Logg created an NES version that was sold under the company name Tengen, thus kicking off one of the biggest legal brouhaha's in the industry's history. Nintendo bought the rights *with some slick maneuvering after we'd already started selling [Tetris],” Logg says. After losing the court battle over Logg's version of Tetris, Atari had to pull and destroy all its unsold copies. “It is still considered the best version of Tetris on the NES and commanded a $150 price tag for several years," he tells us. For the past five years, Logg has been programming away at Midway, his most recent title being Rush 2049 for the Dream- cast and Nintendo 64. And when he plays Gauntlet, he always uses the wizard. Electronic Gaming Monthly - 99 - www.zdnet.com/egm Gamester Rap: What makes this creative mind tick? Favorite Movies? “Рт a sucker for a well-done , romantic movie such as Ever After. | really like movies where I can't tell what comes next, [like] Animal House.” Favorite Music? “Sixties Rock ‘n’ Roll. However, in the past 10 years, Гуе gotten into Country.” Favorite Game? “Robotron [is] my favorite coin- op game—it’s like an О.р. of caffeine. Spaceward Ho is my favorite computer game. If I had to pick one of my games, this would be tough. І guess Centipede because | still haven't perfected several of the strategies I’ve seen.” What is your motto? “Persistence! Persistence! Persistence!” Are you happy with how games have progressed? “Actually, no for the most part. 1 don’t like the fact that it takes two years to do a solid, quality, major game. | like games that give me all the information but require me to try different strategies. Most games now hide so much information and require the player to spend large amounts of time before [you get] into the game. Most older games were unique in their day, but almost every game out now is similar to one from the past.” Gameography: Othello, Super Breakout, Video Pinball, 4 Player Football, Asteroids, Centipede, Millipede, Gauntlet, Gauntlet 11, Xybots, Steel Talons, Space Lords, Tengen Tetris, Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey, San Francisco Rush, Rush 2: More Extreme, Rush 2049. Alexey "Tetris" Pajitnov Gamefather of the Puzzle Genre After 10 years without royalties, the creator of the most infuriatingly addictive puzzle game talks vodka, student drivers, Bust-a-Move and getting his due. apartment in Moscow. The year is 1985, anda young Alexey Pajitnov is mulling over an idea. Just as the Hungarian Erno Rubik proposed a puzzle cube blueprint 11 years earlier, Pajitnov is on the verge of designing a fiendishly addictive puzzler of his own. But this involves a different spark of brilliance, and a different method for moving square blocks. Pajitnov had originally worked on a two-player board game called Pentamino, where the objective was to pack different shapes into a small box. Expanding from this, he applied these ideas to a computer program. “The moment piece rotation started working on my computer screen,” Pajitnov says, “the idea of a real-time game came to me.” That game was Tetris, the most popular, most-cloned puzzle phenomenon in gaming history. “The first version [of Tetris] was done on an alphanumeric screen, with no graphics at all, and certainly no colors,” Pajitnov explains. “To draw the Tetris pieces, | used pairs of squared brackets.” These brackets were linked together to form all possible shapes made of four squares— the end result being a brain-mangling conundrum of falling blocks that Pajitnov himself couldn’t stop playing. “I remember very well when the falling shapes appeared for the first time on my | magine а small studio Pajitnov’s Tetris has surfaced again and again over the years on every platform, in every shape and size. We've played it on our keychains (right). Heck, students at the Brown University Tech House in Providence, R.I., played it on a building (far right). screen," he says. “| had no score, no text, no [block] acceleration, but | couldn't go and finish these parts of the game because I just sat and played with my half- working program." When a red-eyed Pajitnov finally unhooked himself from his prototype, he proudly showed the game to the dozen colleagues who Shared the computer room = with him at Moscow's Academy of Sciences. It was at this point that he realized he'd invented the puzzle-game version of crack. “It was not just myself who was hooked but everyone else who touched the game,” Pajitnov says. Next came the plan to turn everyone else into Tetris addicts, and the game was ported from the venerable Russian computer “Electronika- 60” to the PC in 1986. Copied from disk to disk, Tetris started to spread across Europe. Eventually, the infection became global. “My friend Henk Rogers was the first in Japan to publish Tetris,” Pajitnov says, “and he proposed the game to Nintendo.” The game soon wound up at the center of a legal maelstrom over the rights to the console version. Pajitnov meanwhile—who didn’t receive a dime in royalties until the mid- ’gos—first realized Tetris’ worldwide blockbuster appeal in 1989 on his first trip out of Russia. “It was in Japan,” he says. “1 saw people playing Tetris on arcades in the game centers...everywhere." After Tetris’ success came the questions: What does Tetris mean? Why wasn't Pajitnov paid royalties? And that rumor about him inventing the game after a Vodka binge— was it true? Pajitnov is happy to elaborate, firstly, about the name: “Tetra is ‘four’ in Greek, and 'Tetramino' is the shape made out of four squares. So, | took ‘Tetr’ for the name and added ‘is’ to make it sound better,” he explains. And about those royalties? Pajitnov says, “I didn’t get any money for Tetris for the first 10 years. [In the] last four years, the rights are back to me and | am getting royalties. 1 am happy with what | have. OK, but what about that Vodka rumor? Completely false: “I don't even like Vodka," he says, “and never drink it ‘voluntarily.’ | can't drink while | work, and the pleasure of Tetris is much stronger than that of drinking [laughs].” In fact, Pajitnov has been told that Tetris is good psychological training for student-drivers. (“It trains them to make good decisions in a limited time,” he says.) Tetris’ edutainment value aside, this game definitely has a different set of addictive qualities, a mystery that not even its creator can describe. “| wish to know myself what the nature of [the] magic of my game is,” he says. Where is he now? Once the worldwide clamor for Tetris had somewhat subsided, Pajitnov spent more of his time creating cranium-straining follow-ups. “1 made the game called Welltris,” he tells us. “I participated in Super Tetris, and Electronic Gaming Monthly - 100 - www.zdnet.com/egm Gamester Rap: What makes this creative mind tick? Favorite Movies? “Old Italian, French and Russian films.” Favorite Music? “Classical: Chopin, Beethoven.” Favorite Food? “Almost all cuisine. | love Asian food.” Favorite Game? “Cards and board games. | play lots of puzzle games on computer and consoles. Today, my favorite is Bust-a-Move.” Favorite Game Character? “Pac-Man —he is never tired.” “Kind of. [There has been] tremendous visual and technological progress [but] with the obvious intellectual degradation." How would you like to be remembered? “As a good man.” Gameography: Tetris, Welltris, Hatris, Faces, Knight Move and Pandora's Box. | looked after the Next Tetris development." Recently, Pajitnov moved to the West coast, and is currently “working full time at Microsoft," he says. *| am involved in several projects." One of these was a huge collection of visual puzzles called Pandora's Box—a must for gamers still enthralled by moving rapidly falling shapes to infuriatingly catchy music. % To be continued... We liked catching up with our heroes so much we're going to profile a different pioneer each month in news. Next up: Toru “Pac-Man” Iwatani. How did one slice of pizza lead to the creation of gaming's oldest icon? Find out in 30 days. —Alexey Pajitnov o Ww p. - - This Month... eason change, people change, Review Crews change." So the great song goes and so it is this month, with new and returning faces on the crew. Don't be afraid, gentle readers. It's nature's way. Watch Disney's The Lion King a few times if you're still having trouble dealing with it. But enough of our self-absorbed jibber-jabber— what we really want to know is about you; what do The Crew Crispin Boyer It didn't win our RPG Maker contest, but “Crispin’s Quest" is still Crispin's favorite entry. He says it's the best RPG starring Crispin Boyer he's ever played. Favorite Genres: Action, Adventure After leaving Chicago and spending a year wandering the dotcom wasteland, Che is back on EGM, ready and waiting to feel the love. Favorite Genres: Fighting, Driving, RPG Having spent lots of time with the Devil May Cry and MGS2 CDs this month, Jon is now resorting to flight and rigidity tests to decide which is better. Favorite Genre: Fighting, Action It's baseball time again. Dean wishes he could take the best parts of All-Star, Triple Play and High Heat Baseball to create the perfect game. Favorite Genres: Sports, Racing Chris Johnston Anyone who's ridden in Chris' car gets to hear bands like They Might Be Giants and Pizzicato Five. They may not like it, but it gets horribly stuck in their heads. Favorite Genres: Adventure, Puzzle GAME BOY CoLoR you think of reviews? Too long? Too short? More bigger reviews, or more bite-size ones? More or less handheld reviews? Are the smaller ratings for visuals and stuff handy or worthless? We want to know what you think, and we wanna know now! E- mail us at EGM@ziffdavis.com, subject REVIEWS and let us know. Who knows, you might even get to see your name here! (No, not really.) + *Start Transmission* Greetings gamers. I come in peace. Do not let my appear- ance fool you. *End Transmission* (Gwa- ha-ha! Got ’em right where | want ’em.) Favorite Genres: RPG, Adventure EGM's debate about baseball games has been interesting, but Kraig figures the first to let you hit a dove at 90 mph with a pitch will take the gold. Favorite Genres: Sports, Strategy Mark MacDonald The result of an experiment combining the DNA of Kubla Khan, Napoleon and other great leaders, Mark disappointed his creators by just reviewing games. Favorite Genres: Action, Adventure James Mielke Possessed by Castlevania: COTM for the GBA, Milky can be found lurking about the streets of San Francisco squinting at the overly dark GBA screen. Got a light? Favorite Genres: Action, Fighting Greg Sewart With the release of DDR 4th Mix, Sewart’s been a dancing fool. You thought Travolta was good in Saturday Night Fever? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Favorite Genres: Racing, RPG, Action O6. 0 EGM rates games based on how they com- pare with other titles on the same system. The highest score we'll give a game is a 10. When a game receives a 10, you can rest assured it’s one of the best games ever made—a revolutionary title that truly stands above everything else in its genre for its time. At the other end of the spectrum sits the lowest score a game can receive: a 0.0. This is the kind of game you want to avoid at all costs. It’s pure crap, as our scale (above) explains. In the middle lies the average grade, 5.0. We repeat: 5.0 IS AN AVERAGE GRADE. Simple, ain’t it? 51 О ocn п Rumble Racing Pg.109 No, the RPG Maker contest winner doesn’t count—we rated it only against other con- test entries. Game of the Month actually goes to EA’s PS2 driving/jumping/flip- ping/shooting/exploding sextravaganza, Rumble Racing. It’s thrilling San Francisco Rush-esque over-the-top racing reborn. EDITORS’ CURRENT FAVES Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (2,7771 Konami F-Zero Maximum Velocity Nintendo Devil May Cry (Demo) Capcom "TE Sega Super Mario Advance Nintendo Zone of the Enders Our Awards Platinum Awards go to We know Ethan is the secret identity t. games that get three Ethan Einhorn some Еа: we just aren't EM ich. 10's, the best and rarest " 1 1 Mem a hn is looking forward to cutting his load review a game can get. John Davison Mn ta a et. So-hourwork week. ^. We moved Dan here to mak for th Gold Awards go to Dan Leahy new eit Don't worry, he's still reviewin games whose average Ryan is on to bigger and better things, and Fe 9001 Вуап Lockhart we wish him luci E Huzzah and god Speed! Visit Todd’s Web si his ium- Todd Zuniga magazine.com ШИ йыр еер him quiet. Games that average at least an 8.0 receive Silver Awards. 102 Konami Paper Mario Nintendo ер ел Soo‏ ~ دہ ص څح Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix Konami mie Triple Play Baseball = EA Sports. | mie NFL2KI Publisher: AIA, USA Developer: Crazy Games Featured In: EGM #139 Players: 4 Supports: Jump Pack Best Feature: Crisp, creepy visuals Worst Feature: Super-weak voice acting Also Try: Resident Evil Code: Veronica As the sun sets on the novelty of games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, one game picks up the dying sur- vival-horror torch, douses it in gasoline, and throws it into your treehouse, laughing all the while. That game's Illbleed. Make your way through a virtual- horror theme park to rescue lost friends, marking traps before they spring and nail you. Each stage offers something different as far as completion goals and gameplay but the psychotically gorgeous visuals and enemies are persistent 'til the bitter end. Illbleed can't be taken too seriously; the gallons of blood and frequent behind-the-scenes looks at the park's operators trying to keep you immersed in the horrific world will convince you of that. | can't even begin to describe some of the insane circumstances and disturbing occurrences popping up left and right in this game, though, which make for a totally unorthodox gaming experience. Still, there are a few crippling attributes that drag down some of Illbleed’s finer moments. The voice acting is not only poorly executed and confusing at times, it's also damn diffi- cult to understand thanks to some sub-par sound design. The controls could use a touch-up, as well. The difference between walking and running can mean life or death, and the analog control seldom lets you choose one with certainty over the other. Nonetheless, Illbleed had me totally intrigued and won't disappoint horror fans. Jonathan As hilarious and campy as Illbleed is, it made me jump out of my seat quite a number of times. It's a B- grade game designed to emulate the cheap thrills often associated with B-grade horror flicks. It's true, the gameplay isn't much to write home about, but it certainly doesn't get in the way of exploration either. You don't actually fight until later on ín the game and this is both a blessing and a curse—a curse because the game can get quite frustrating when all you do is run from danger...but a blessing because mastering combat proves to be quite a chore. It's a strange game full of great moments, but be warned, it's not everyone's cup of tea. Che Pig butts farting in your face, killer carrots, psycho baseball players: This game is beyond odd—it's freaking bizarre. But being a fan of both survival-hor- ror and quirky, offbeat games, | find Illbleed’s goofy voices, hilarious parodies and over-the-top camp (The Home Run of Death!) a hard combination to resist. The gameplay certainly should be better: Controls are frustrating (especially the whole walk/dash thing), combat is simplistic and awkward, and constantly switching to first-person mode to search for traps isn’t really much fun. But the freaky plots and (often unin- tentional) humor kept me wanting to see more. A fun rental with like-minded friends. Mark INGENUITY REPLAY VISUALS SOUND [Nr E un Acclaim ADT EGM #141 B | 12 Great selec- tion of Ducati bikes Jump Pack Lacking in several areas www.acclaim.com It looks like Acclaim simply adapted this PS game to the DC with little attempt to spruce things up. It could've been a lot prettier—sadly, it's on the plain side (some parts are downright ugly). To be fair, it is smoother than its PS counterpart, but that won't stop me from wishing for more—more speed, wider and longer tracks, authentic Ducati motor sounds, and on and on. The courses are compact and pep- pered with sudden corners, surprise dips and far too many tunnels. Negotiating them with the faster bikes. is a lesson in frustration— plunge from side to side, scrape the wall, drive halfway up the wall, have hor- rendous crash, etc. Additional open terrain and long sweeping curves would've done wonders. The AI bikes are a puzzling bunch as well. Their crash-induc- ing maneuvers are tailor-made for Road Rash but seem out of character here, especially since the game strives to be a sim experience. On the upside, the vast selection of Ducati bikes (40 +) is fantastic— especially fora fan like myself. But all told the game doesn't generate much excitement. Dean VISUALS REPLAY SOUND INGENUITY Ubi Soft Xilam EGM #141 3 4 1 Funny story The game's Mouse too buggy www.ubisoft.com Nice cartoon-style graphics, tons of transitional cine- matic snippets, good voice work, and darn tricky puz- zles that'll get any hardcore adventure gamer scratching his head more than he'd probably like to admit put Stupid Invaders at the top of the (admit- tedly short) list of Dreamcast point-and-click adven- tures. The jokes, albeit a bit childish at times, (toilet humor, anyone?) can be written off as just silly, but underlying this loose facade is a tight story about some funny, unintelligent life-forms who crash land on Mother Earth. Bud, Candy, Stereo, Etno and Gorgious have personalities ranging from girly-girl hyper-effemenism to disgusting Ren *n' Stimpy-like goofiness. It's actually quite heartwarming seeing how well these aliens have adopted humanity's age-old practices of foul language, toilet humor, gluttony, using the bathroom, and of course, TV. The only major gripe worth mentioning concerns some bugs DC gamers may not be used to dealing with (DC, not PC, mind you). So be wary of inventory problems or flaky action cursors. Jeanne VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY 103 Pokémon Stadium 2 Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Nintendo Featured In: EGM #140 Players: 14 Supports: Transfer Pak Best Feature: Worst Feature: Web Site: Playing Pokémon in 3D The cheating computer www.pokemon.com If you've never played a Pokémon game in your life, then stop reading this review—Stadium 2 is not for you. It's definitely a game for fans of Nintendo's crit- ters, and not just any fans, but really hardcore Pokéfreaks only. The tutorials are handy, but if you don't already know how to play Pokémon by the time you've put this cartridge in your N64, you've made a big purchasing mistake. That's because, like the first Stadium, the computer is one big bad cheating mofo, except now it's even more blatant. In the GBC Pokémon games, the combat is pretty straightfor- ward: It's almost like a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, but with the possibility that with persistence and plenty of health, Scissors could actually beat Rock. Stadium 2 turns that all topsy-turvy, so it doesn't really matter if you're the same level and have the upper-hand type-wise against the computer—you can still get your arse whupped. And not just barely, but one-hit kills. It's super-annoying. That's why this game won't appeal to the non-hardcore Pokémon fan. Gameplay has evolved from the GB versions, but not in a fair way. The addition of monsters from Gold and Silver and new mini-games are the only bright points of this game. Graphics and animation are almost identical to the previous version: character animations looks fine, but the attacks and hits are pretty weak. Even if you're a Pokémon fan, I'd think twice before stepping into Stadium 2. Chris If you're still hot for Pokémon, then Stadium 2 will fit right into your bloated collection. With improved graphics, sleeker interfaces, more dynamic and var- ied animations, and of course the ability to interact with the GBC titles, Stadium 2 offers a bit more poké- cud to chew for those who have yet to say their long overdue farewells. But don't expect Stadium 2 to greatly surpass its predecessor, since it doesn't really offer any more (as far as gameplay goes) than a visual makeover. So, if you're on the been- there-done-that kick with all this Pokémon stuff like me, go with your instincts. If you're a poké-fiend, knock yourself out. Jeanne For dedicated followers of the franchise, this cart is a must-have: Finally, all the Gold and Silver Pokémon you've been spending months training can be seen in full 3D! But if you don't have any of your own collect- ed Game Boy Pokémon to bring to the party (via Transfer Pak, which is not included in the box this time), don't bother with this package— using "rental" Pokémon in battles gets boring fast. Apart from a slew of new minigames and a terrific "Training University" sequence (even Pokémaniacs will learn a few things here), the game is virtually identical to the first, save for the new monsters. Translated: lots of turn- based fighting, and little else. Just for fans. Ethan VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY 1 6 4 5 Aidyn Chronicles Minotaur loses 15 hit points Publisher: THQ Developer: H20 Featured In: ЕСМ #140 Players: 1 Supports: Expansion Pak Best Feature: Well, it is an RPG for the N64 Worst Feature: Don’t get me started... Web Site: www.thq.com Can't blame someone for trying, but RPGs are an easy thing to botch, considering how many elements must come together harmoniously. Cutting to the chase, Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage is a well- intentioned RPG for sure, but role-playing is more than applying the clichéd trappings of every sword- and-sorcery "epic" that has come before it. In spite of all the tiny woodland creatures basically dissing you up and down with sub-Yoda-speak through the first half of the game, you never quite feel sorry for the much-underrated Alaron, who comes across like a medieval Keanu Reeves (Will you drop the item? "Oops! No way!"). Finding your way around is a chal- lenge, due to the tree-ish wallpaper that surrounds you outdoors, and the camera-placement night- mares that the interiors level at you. A more efficient overworld map would have been great. The worst part is the battle system. Despite being an "action RPG" in the Zelda-sense of the term, it's really more of a turn-based effort—an effort that finds you sur- rounded by lava-lamp-like barriers that indicate your available range. The creatures you fight are also restricted by the same rules, but the battles are lack- ing any sort of snap, crackle or pop, with giant rats mooing cowtastically when.slain. The sound effects are muddy as hell, and the visuals are rough. Between this and Quest 64, N64-owning RPG fans have it rough. Milkman Give a guy a sword, shield and quest, and you've got an RPG, right? Heck no! But that's about all The First Mage offers, besides leaving you dumfounded by how much the game takes itself and you for granted. The battle system is especially unpolished, unimaginative and counter-intuitive. It's hard enough trying to play a PC-style RPG with an N64 controller, let alone working with utterly useless movement points in a turn-based system, a problem- atic inventory screen (which doesn't let you equip your guy by clicking and dragging items on him— why it's there, god knows), and shamelessly dull ani- mations. RPGers stay far, far away. Jeanne Oh my—it looks like someone nearly beat this game to death with an ugly stick. Never has there been an N64 game with muddier textures or choppier ani- mation. And to those who say an RPG is all about the story, not the graphics, be forewarned: Aidyn fum- bles in that category, too. The narrative is a yawn- inducing “Young man uncovering his forgotten past" type of thing, complete with poorly developed char- acters and awkward dialogue. The battle system is the game’s only high point, and even there, it’s little more than a lift of the Shining Force engine. If you haven’t gotten Ogre Battle 64 yet, get that instead, and if you already have it...play it again. Ethan INGENUITY REPLAY VISUALS SOUND 3 3 3 3 Publisher: Sony Developer: Argonaut Featured In: EGM #137 = Players: 1 Supports: Dual Shock Best Feature: Voices from TV Show Worst Feature: Lackluster gameplay Web Site: www.playstation.com Disney properties made into games are a rare event, especially ones coming from Sony. No, wait, that’s a silly lie. Aladdin comes straight on the heels of Sony’s game adaptation of The Emperor’s New Groove, also from developers Argonaut, and also seemingly using a modified Croc engine. There is one major difference, though (aside from the themes, of course): Aladdin is nowhere near as good. | don’t know what it is; New Groove was a slightly unin- spired Spyro clone that was still fun to play, while Aladdin, to put it simply, is not. Perhaps it’s the lack- luster graphics, or the muddy gameplay, or the way the freaking genie has the need to remind you exact- ly what the fruit are used for nearly every time you pick them up. Oh, and the music. When | turned up the volume for the “end stage” screen, | actually heard laughter emanating from nearby cubicles. But what it all boils down to is Aladdin suffers from some major control and camera problems—trying to leap from rope to rope (with burning coals under your feet, of course) is aggravating to the point of being ludicrous, and fighting the many foes you face is just frustrating (did | hit him? Or not? баћђ; it almost seems like moves come out a half second after you hit the button. Seriously, this game is for kids, but thanks to the unresponsive control, even us older kids might find ourselves belting out adult words from time to time. Ryan Somehow this one got past quality control. Why oh why did they use FMV of barely animated, badly tex- tured in-game models for cutscenes? If it's FMV at least make it look good! Nasira’s Revenge is basical- ly a hodge-podge of action-platform clichés non- sensically cut and pasted together. Control is poor, especially on the ridiculously difficult “bonus” stages and areas where you do anything besides run and jump (like swing on ropes/vines/etc.). Polygon draw-in is really distracting and animation on charac- ters and enemies aren't what you'd expect from a Disney title. It’s got plenty of levels, and it'll keep you busy for a while— it's just not a good game. Garis Maybe it's my soft spot for the original Aladdin movie, but I think Nasira' s Revenge would be a fun title for anyone inexperienced enough to appreci- ate a very simple 3D platformer and tolerate the dodgy controls. It’s definitely not breaking any ground, and the story is drier than the desert setting it takes place in, but there's lots of emphasis on the familiar cast (play as several different characters at scripted points during the game) and reprised Aladdin music that fans should appreciate. | felt frus- trated trying to land critical jumps at times, so it requires some patience, but Aladdin rubbed my lamp the right way for a little while. Jonathan INGENUITY REPLAY VISUALS SOUND 104 Publisher: Activision Developer: Fox Interactive Featured In: EGM #133 = Players: 1-2 Question: Why do all Simpsons games suck? Best Feature: Worst Feature: Web Site: Realistic voices www.activision.com Look on up there and read that title again if it didn’t quite sink in the first time. Now, | know that pesky old intuition is probably saying, “Man, this can’t be good.” Give that defense mechanism a pat on the back, 'cause in the immortal words of Bart Simpson, it’s craptacular. The title could be taken as an insult by games like SmackDown! and No Mercy, since the combat consists entirely of sloppy, flailing-limb attacks and annoying special moves that are either useless or totally crippling toward opponents. The only grappling move | could pull off was a toss into the ropes, and there's really по good way to finish it, since it's nearly impossible to fling your opponent with any accuracy. What's more, with such a huge, familiar cast on the show, it's a wonder that there are only seven unlockable fighters. | suppose when playing each character requires no strategy or individuality whatso- ever, what's the point in expanding the roster, eh? Instead, those cel-shaded Springfieldites not fighting line the edges ofthe ring like cardboard cutouts, occa- sionally adding a forced-sounding remark to the mix. The only consolation is the realistic voice-over work by the show's cast, though the frequency with which catchphrases are uttered is cranked way up to obnox- ious. This thing's only for hardcore Simpsons fans trying to round out their ridiculous collections of memorabilia—or anyone actually looking for a fun game forget it. Jonathan When Fox started shopping around for someone else to publish this title, you knew there was a problem. I'm sure the characters alone will sell loads of Simpsons Wrestling stock, but personally I’m not impressed. What this comes down to is a kind of sloppy-looking game that's nothing more than a button-masher. Yeah, there are a few neat moves you can do when you power up, and having so many Simpsons characters and voices is a definite plus, but boredom set in for me almost immediately after | started playing. Imagine this thing with a game engine close to something like SmackDown! 2. Now that would be loads of fun. would take graphics a bit more seriously, especially for big licenses. Unfortunately, the "big license-so- it's-OK-to-skimp-on-graphics" demons got their claws on this one. When | think about how much fun | could be having if this game didn't look so unfinished, messy and pixelated, | just want to “doh!” out in agony. Distorted faces, broken, flimsy outlines, a bad cardboard cut-out crowd, and lazily designed inter- faces make this game look like it came off some dude's fan site. But at least then it'd be excusable. In fact, think about it like that and it's fun; that is if, and only if, you can take the visual nausea. Jeanne VISUALS REPLAY SOUND INGENUITY Time Crisis: Project Titan ЧЕТИ Ги haa a dH ke —— Namco Hometek Publisher: Developer: Namco Featured In: EGM #140 Players: 1 Supports: Guncon Best Feature: Solid light-gun action Worst Feature: Dated graphics, mediocre design Web Site: www.namco.com Project Titan, Namco’s latest Time Crisis home offer- ing is a tough pill to swallow. If there wasn’t already a perfectly capable single-player version on the PlayStation, a thrilling two-player version in the arcade, and an absolutely kick-ass sub-machinegun simulator called Crisis Zone, then PT wouldn't feel nearly as mediocre as it does. The story this time involves the assassination of some president in a banana republic and Richard Miller has been framed for the crime. There's an action/reload button that you use to duck in and out of cover, and in this respect, PT feels patently Crisis-esque. It isn’t the gameplay | take issue with in PT, but rather, the game's style—or lack thereof. The first TC had all Sorts of cool design elements that are missing in PT. Instead of medieval castles and dagger-throwing mini-bosses, we get warehouses and cleaver-tossing chefs. TC also always had an incredible sense of ten- Sion as you moved from one area to the next. Everything felt cohesive. PT loses the suspense as Miller hops on airplanes and takes cabs from one zone to the other. What PT needs is pacing— some- thing which the original TC had in spades. And if you're going to use a four-year-old graphics engine, make sure it looks better in 2001 than it did in 1997. PT isn't a bad gun game, but this is a Crisis game— it shouldn't look and feel like that Area 51 arcade shoot- er you see in dive bars all across America. Che Many of you are probably wondering what’s new about Project Titan, as compared to the original Time Crisis. Well, if you look past the main title, you'll notice Namco’s added a very distinct “Project Titan” epithet. This will be the major distinguishing feature of the game. Keep the two very separate on your shelf, and never swap the discs and cases— you'll never figure out which is which. Graphically, there's literally no improvement, and the new shootout venues are highly forgettable. Didn't we see all these areas in TC 1 and 2? PT's fun for a short time if you're just looking for some action, but it plays like an expansion pack at best. Jonathan The first Time Crisis was a nice diversion from the Virtua Cop style of non-challenging gameplay, adding the innovative duck feature and a time ele- ment that gave TC1 a tension lacking in most light- gun games at the time. Project Titan, TC1's pseudo- sequel (not the TC2 that appeared in arcades) for the PS one, is certainly more of the same, but it con- tains neither the spark of its predecessor nor the hallmark level of quality Namco is usually known for. Once you memorize the level layout and enemy placements, the game becomes a breeze, something | don't recall saying after playing the first game. The original is better. Milkman REPLAY VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY 4 RPG Maker: Remote Control Winner: 1st Prize EGM's RPG Maker Contest Developer: David Erwin Featured In: ЕСМ #142 Players: 1 Prize: PS2 and games Best Feature: Incredible minigames Worst Feature: Silly story Find it at: www.zdnet.com/egm In an industry that seems to fear breaking new ground, it's unusual to put your hands on a piece of work that's both inventive and massively entertain- ing. “Remote Control” fits this description—its author, David Erwin, has taken RPG Maker's generic templates and crafted a gem that is more engaging than most published titles in the genre. The story: Three teenage suburbanites get trapped inside a television set. To make their way back home, the trio has to fight through a series of elaborate television parodies. It's a flimsy narrative, but the vignettes are so well-written and imaginatively conceived, you quickly forget about the absurdity of it all. Xena, Monty Python and Pokémon are cleverly decon- structed, and the game's dialogue is rife with funny pop-culture references, but the title's crowning fea- ture is an “arcade” stocked with a set of playable minigames, each one entertaining in its own right. The best of them: an incredibly intricate, gut-bust- ingly funny dating simulation. Interestingly, very little emphasis is placed on turn-based fighting; battles don't pop up until a good half hour into the game, and even then, they're creatively integrated into the narrative itself. | picked up a personal copy of RPG maker and a couple memory cards just so | could share Remote Control with friends outside of EGM— it's that good. If you can obtain a Dex Drive copy of this, do so— you'll be blown away. Ethan Back when we kicked off this contest (like, nine years ago), our guidelines for the ideal home-brewed RPG were simple: We wanted witty, fun games we could beat in a short amount of time— not the next Final Fantasy. Didn't matter. We still got a lot of epic quests anyway, and though enjoyable, too many of them overflowed with RPG clichés. Then came Remote Control. If only more “real” RPGs offered as much variety and humor as David Erwin's little gem. You want minigames? It's got them. You want parodies? They're there. Sure, it lacks custom art, and fewer inside jokes would be nice, but Remote Control still overflows with ingenuity. Crispin One of the best measures of a game is how effective- ly it uses the available development resources, a fac- tor that really turned me on to Remote Control. Instead of just stamping out a linear quest, RC digs into RPG Maker's po: ies with minigames, side-quests and an intricate story that comes across really well. Taking itself just seriously enough to make it feel like a sincere adventure, Remote Control also flashes its humorous side now and again, with countless film and game references throughout. What's more, all the dialogue is coher- ent and spelled correctly (which is more than we can say for a lot of the entries)! Nice work. Jonathan VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY 10 105 REPLAY Point Blank 3 Publisher: Namco Hometek Developer: Namco Featured In: EGM #140 Players: 1-8 Supports: Guncon, Dual Shock Web Site: www.namco.com +. Do ruris) Best Feature: Party mode Worst Feature: Do we really need another Point Blank? In light of the video-game violence stuff in the media lately, it's no surprise companies have kept light-gun titles on the down-low. However, unlike Sega's gut- less stance on light gun support for fine titles like House of the Dead 2 and Confidential Mission, Namco's pushing two Guncon games out the door this month (also see the Time Crisis: Project Titan review). What | do like about PB3 is that it ditches the "quest" aspect from PB2 and gets straight to the wacky mini-games. And in that respect, PB3 suc- ceeds in being a lighthearted romp through a pixe- lated carnival wonderland. PB3 really shines in its "Party Mode" where up to eight players compete to take the top spot. (And like most party games, PB3’s fun-factor is somewhat enhanced by the magical properties of alcohol.) But after your friends have gone home, all you're left with is a pair of Guncons, a nasty hangover and a handful (more than 80 new mini-games!) of distractions that get old after 15 long minutes. Basically, if you've seen one Point Blank, you've pretty much seen them all. Che INGENUITY REPLAY 3 1 VISUALS SOUND 5 5 4X4 Evolution Publisher: г= г = GODGames Developer: Terminal Reality Featured In: EGM #139 Players: 1-2 Best Feature: Lots of SUVs, Supports: trucks and modifications None Worst Feature: Sluggish Web Site: gameplay www.godgames.com Off-road racing is like politics: The dirtier it is, the better it gets. With that mantra in mind, this squeaky-clean off-roading romp isn't as nasty as it should have been. | looked forward to taking its Gran Turismo-like laundry list of vehicles on a hellish test drive through mud, rock and rain, but | never got the feeling that | was putting the vehicles through a rigorous test. No matter how much sludge | drove through, how many walls | hit, how many trailer homes I side-swiped, my SUV still came out untar- nished, without a speck of dust on its exterior. And why can't | plow through those wimpy bushes and trees in my way? Visuals aren’t the most important thing, but this sluggish game could have used peppi- er sights to make it more exciting. The speed on these souped-up off-roaders isn’t fast enough to get the blood pumping, and even worse, sometimes your 4X4 will even get stuck in terrain. Since one mistake can cost you the race, 4X4 often turns into a method- ical game of playing not to lose instead of letting your hair down in a rampage to victory. Kraig REPLAY VISUALS SOUND 1 4 INGENUITY All Star Baseball 2002 эшш. К d т. 0 кашады mm ТЄХ Б. шашады, Bo-o-i oux. a n! ТРЕТЯ шахзаада, Publisher: Acclaim Developer: Acclaim Studios Austin Featured In: EGM #141 Le Players: 12 Supports: None Best Feature: Realistic batting Worst Feature: Buggy Web Site: www.acclaim.com Hats off to Acclaim Studios Austin —certain portions of ASB 2002 are amazingly well-done. The flight of the pitch is killer—the arc is subtle, the velocity just about right, and most importantly, the ball (while on the small side) stays in focus from the pitcher to the strike zone. It's pretty damn hard to hit, especially since the batting cursors are small as well. I’m not complaining though. Yes it's challenging, but in a very realistic way—something we haven't seen in console baseball. Unfortunately other portions aren't as spectacular. More than a few things stand out: The “bat to ball" contact animation is missing (I hate that). You only witness a millisecond of swing before the camera abruptly pulls back— cheap. Half the fun of hitting is watching the ball launch off the bat. The camera woes aren't restricted to hitting alone: Fly balls are followed too closely, cutting out much of the surrounding view. A traditional, wide- angle perspective would be much more useful. There's no manual replay, and last but certainly not least, it’s a bit buggy— mostly in fielding (players suck up balls like a hoover), bad calls and outfield weirdness. The verdict? It isn't as tight as its N64 forefathers but it's not bad either. If for no other rea- son, rent it to experience the hyper-fast batting inter- face. If you can hit well on All-Star Mode, you're a god amongst boys—it's really fun. With some polish | think ASB 2003 could be a serious threat. ean If there's ever a poster child for a buggy game that should have been great, it's this one. ASB strikes a great balance between realism and fun, but its widespread glitches collectively bring it dangerously close to mediocrity. The batting interface and direc- tional hitting cursor are very cool and intuitive, but you can't see the ball leave the bat. So much for get- ting a jump on it with your fielders. And once you do get within scooping distance, beware: The computer may pick a canned animation you didn't expect, mak- ing you miss the grab. Acclaim should have taken time to smooth this out, and | suspect that it will be a bigger contender next year. Kraig While All-Star Baseball doesn't reach the train-wreck proportions of Quarterback Club, it is pretty sad con- sidering its roots as the top sports franchise on the N64. After the nice looks, there isn't much there. The game has a fatal flaw in the batting cursor, where analog control acts as if it's digital, resulting in a lack of ability to gently feather the cursor to track the pitch. Set it to top difficulty and it's a nightmare. Deplorable baserunning Al and a considerable delay between the swing, hit and transition to the field also mar the fun. And get these sequences: ball fielded by foot, thrown over head..magically in mitt! Collision detection anyone? Dan VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY 8 1 1 1 Publisher: 3D0 Developer: 3D0 Featured In: EGM #137 = ге Players: 1-2 Supports: None Best Feature: Smooth graphics Worst Feature: Seen this before Web Site: www.3do.com Army Men: Air Attack 2 for the PlayStation 2 is just like Air Attack 2 for the original PlayStation, it just looks a whole lot better. And, considering the PS one version wasn’t that bad to begin with, 300 has final- ly delivered a PS2 game that doesn’t make me cringe. Wait, that’s harsh. Air Attack 2 is actually a good game by any standards, one that’s certainly worth trying out, even moreso if you were a fan of the old Strike series from EA. For those who’ve passed up on the previous Air Attack games, the basic premise is a simple one: You control a small toy heli- copter and must fly over evil Tan Army-controlled “real world” areas (like a backyard, back alleyway, or park), trying to take out their forces by hooking onto “life-sized” items (such as huge frisbees and the such) and throwing them into your foes. The main thing that comes to mind while playing isn’t that the game just looks better texture-wise—and it most certainly does—but it’s also stunningly clean and fast. The framerate always stays smooth, and the control and physics are excellent. | do wish they would have taken the time to really update the game and make a true sequel instead of just a pretty remake, but I'm still more than happy with the results. It’s a strange feeling actually looking forward to a new 300 game, but | can’t help but be interest- ed to see what they do with this series in the future— there’s definite potential here. Ryan In a sea of mediocre games for the PS2, here is one that’s actually worth purchasing. Air Attack 2 is basi- cally a clever lift of EA’s Strike games, but where that franchise concentrated on strategy, this title sets its sights on arcade action. Control is tight and intuitive, levels are intelligently designed, and the graphics are surprisingly good. It’s a tough one to put down, especially when you play in cooperative mode (no slowdown, kids!). If there's one con, it's that the game is a bit on the easy side. But a staggering num- ber of levels more than makes up for that. This is substantially better than any other Army Men release; Sarge might make a fan of me yet. Ethan | know what you're thinking—a good Army Men game? But let's face it, Air Attack is still the only Army Men game worth playing. Graphics may be plain, but they fit the toy-world atmosphere. The framerate might've been better kept at a constant 30 fps and the collision detection is occasionally sus- pect, but it's still a fun game. Playing co-op is a blast (*Oh crap! It's the toy clowns! Cover me!"), and you're given a fair amount of lives to complete a mission before having to start over. Too bad 3DO opted for a port instead of using this opportunity to make this a new game or hybrid of missions from 1&2 using the cleaned-up PS2 game engine. Give it a try. Ghris VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY 106 Army Men: Green Rogue Publisher: 3DO Developer: 3DO Featured In: EGM #139 Le Players: 1-2 Supports: None Best Feature: Lots of fire! Worst Feature: The most mundane shooter ever Web Site: www.3do.com Creating a half-decent shooter isn’t rocket science, so it’s hard to understand how this creatively bankrupt action game was conceived. The goal is to kill hordes of boring tan soldiers that retaliate by fir- ing slow-moving bullets. To spice things up, a "spe- Cial" blue and gray soldier armed with a slow-firing rocket launcher or a slower-spewing flamethrower will attack. This "variety" is what makes Army Men an incredibly boring license, and to top it off, you'll fight the most spectacularly unspectacular end-level "bosses" you've ever come across in a game. The surfaced shark sub and the platoon of army men hid- ing under a tree are a couple of my personal favorites, but there's plenty of others whose mun- daneness will awe you. After a while, the slow- motion gameplay turns the battle against the Tan Army into a struggle to stay awake. If you aren't comatose after playing a few levels, you'll be wired with frustration over the problems that stem from the ugly, sparse terrain. Rambo has never been done in by an encounter with a tree, but your beefy comman- do gets stuck helplessly behind a bush or a rock as the camera moves forward. Even worse, invisible walls are arbitrarily placed throughout levels that bait you into making a dangerous run for a power-up, only to be stopped right in front of it. At that point, the battle isn't against the Army Men. Instead, you're actually fighting the game itself. Kraig This game is so obviously unfinished, so obviously rushed out the door, so obviously completely half- assed that | feel sorry for anyone who has or will come into contact with it. Personally, the idea of some old-school Ikari Warriors-style shooting action sounded great; little did | know it would be saddled with amateurish graphics, next to no effects, lame power-ups, and plodding, monotonous, repetitive gameplay. How about some cool bosses? Satisfying explosions? Background interaction? Different ene- mies (and no, blue soldiers instead of tan ones don’t count as different)? Something! Anything! Mindless fun for 15 minutes, then just mindless. Mark When you consider the Green Rogue is an amalga- mation of Sarge and his heroes, is it any wonder this game never stood a chance? | really like the idea behind it—an old-school shooter with control reminiscent of classics like Robotron and Smash TV. The problem is that Green Rogue's collision detection is so picky that you can fire off a bazooka into an enemy's face and he won't so much as flinch, let alone take any damage. To cap it off, the animation sucks, the levels are bland, and the baddies only come in one flavor, albeit in different colors. This game needed to be faster, with nicer graphics and more forgiving collision detection. Greg VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY 4 3 4 1 Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes 2 Publisher: 3D0 Developer: 3D0 Featured In: EGM #135 “Te Players: 4-2 Supports: None Best Feature: Great CG movies Worst Feature: Tons of cheap one-hit deaths Web Site: www.3do.com Before popping Sarge 2 into your PS2, make sure you're playing with a durable controller. Why? Because if you play this on normal or hard mode, that pad will be hurled against the wall of your living room countless times with great force. Yes, boys and girls, this is the type of game that likes to kill you 10 minutes into a mission with one hit from a rock- et-toting tan soldier. Often times these enemy forces will be off screen when they attack, making it impossible to avoid their fire. | may have had more patience with this if the game offered exciting tacti- cal gunfights—a la Winback—but capping tan sol- diers with dinky plastic weaponry is not very satisfy- ing. Oddly, though, despite these frustrating issues, when the game was turned on, | found myself hard- pressed to stop playing. This was due in good part to the beautiful CG sequences, which are a great reward for progressing through the missions. It was also due to the inventive settings (the pinball machine being my personal favorite), and the impressive graphics. The title's enormous explosions and real-time reflec- tions are just flat-out gorgeous. Cooler still, this is more than just a straight N64 port; the developers have thrown in a few exclusive PS2 stages and a handful of brand-new items to pick up. If you can handle the intense frustration factor, there are a cou- ple of good things to be seen here, but on the whole, Air Attack 2 is a better buy. Ethan ESPN National Hockey Night " CETTE D И Publisher: Konami Developer: Konami of Europe Featured In: EGM#139 Lc Players: 1-2 Supports: None Best Feature: Some good goalie cam replays Worst Feature: Slow gameplay Web Site: www.konami.com Konami's timing with their latest sports release is, as always, atrocious. It might be wrong to automatically downgrade a game because it's late, but them's the breaks. Sports gamers are a fickle bunch, and unless a game is exceedingly good, we don't want it a full six months after the start of the real season. Please. The funny part is, you'd think Hockey Night would have the most up-to-date rosters, right? Wrong. No sign of the Keith Tkachuk trade or any other mid-season moves. Heck, goalies who have been bumped up or benched since the first game of the season are still in the wrong spot. Sad. Even sadder is the game's basic engine, which sports almost zero Al and moves at a snail's pace. Defensemen inch backward into the zone with no regard for where the puck is, while typically blazing forwards lurch into the zone. Even the controls are slowed to a crawl, as each pass or speed burst is represented a full second after the press of the button. Try doing a quick cut or deke near the goal and you'll find your player careening into the goalie. Blech. Other lowlights include a lack of options and the hilarious inability to use in-game menu options. For example, go to change anything during the game (strategy, sub, goalie pull) and it will boot out to a loading screen instead of a pop-up menu. What the hell is that? No worries, though — as if you really needed a hockey game in June, right? Not recommended. Dan Whether you like Army Men games or not, Sarge's Heroes 2 comes "this close" to being a worthwhile purchase. Mission objectives are fair, the graphics are occasionally slick, control is decent (but not great), and the variety of things to do is fine. Yet, 3DO needs to learn how to button up the things that could take their games to the next level. The Al is so stupid that Vicky will stand there and vacantly fire away at a crate (even if you stand in the way) during one early mission. The Tan Army is even worse. And why does Sarge have a real-time shadow but Vicky only a grey blob? Inconsistency mars what would otherwise have been a very decent game. Milkman ESPN Hockey Night—among other things—suffers from sluggish control and a slow game pace. | could live with the funky animation, so-so graphics and other minor quirks, but Al, good control and a decent tempo are a must. To compensate you spend a lot of time holding down speed burst trying to catch up with the puck. It's not the best way to play hockey, especially when more speed isn't necessarily the answer. Unfortunately there's nothing to cover for the Al. While the goalies aren't half bad, the other players often hesitate around the puck or just make bonehead decisions. In general, it's not unplayable but next to EA's NHL, it's below par. Dean This sequel should be mindless fun. It ain't, and | blame the shoddy control. It’s too touchy when уоште turning or trying to snipe in first-person view, and overall the control just feels too jerky. To make matters worse, most objects seem to have an invisi- ble force field around them, which makes it impossi- ble to blast enemies while you're trying to creep out from behind cover— your bullets just disappear into thin air. The game looks OK, with crisp textures and some detailed environments (namely those levels set in our world). And you do get a lot of missions. Trouble is they're all boring, and the crap control just makes later levels frustrating. — Grispin VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY 6 6 4 5 Electronic бат! What was Konami thinking releasing this game? The rosters are older than my great-grandmother, and Super Mario’s nowhere to be seen! There are a cou- ple of nice features: The camera options are great, especially being able to choose which end of the ice you're skating toward. The color commentary's pret- ty detailed, too, but it’s about a minute behind the action. It’s too bad the game controls like crap. The players look like zombies—they're so slow it makes the rink seem a mile long sometimes. Plus they're dumb, just standing over the puck half the time. Konami should hire Don Cherry as creative director— then this would never happen. Greg REPLAY VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY ESPN MLS ExtraTime EVERYONE | Publisher: Konami Developer: Konami Honolulu Featured In: EGM #139 Le Players: 1-2 Supports: None Best Feature: Lots of teams to play with Worst Feature: Atrocious defense Al Web Site: www.konami.com There was a time when I'd have been pushing people aside to get my hands on the latest variant on Konami's ISS game. Screw FIFA, it just didn’t have what it took to be the seminal soccer sim. So what the hell happened? EA Sports has established itself as the king of soccer, and somehow the team at Konami has managed to mess it all up. Ever since they signed the ESPN license, things have been going downhill, but | have to say that this is the biggest disappointment yet. Sure, it has the requisite armies of international teams, supplemented by 12 MLS and two All-Star teams, but if you were to use this game as a way of judging the world’s finest, you'd be convinced that there isn't a team in the world that knows how to play effective defense. If you'll permit me to show my age for a moment, many of the games reminded me of the soccer game in the Disney movie Bedknobs and Broomsticks, where the players diligently chase after the ball with scant regard for the position they're supposed to be play- ing. While this is somewhat amusing at first, it morphs into a trait that is absolutely unforgivable in a soccer game; it's truly dull. Very often you'll find that your opponent can nonchalantly trot the ball into your box with little or no interference from the defenders...thanks to the fact that they'd been gal- loping after the ball up the field 20 seconds previ- ously. Go and buy FIFA. It’s much better. John Let's get this out of the way quickly. This game is not better than PS2's FIFA. That said, it’s an OK soccer game plagued by some dicey Al. | mean, too often | found that my opponent or | could saunter down the majority of the field unmolested. This could be a result of the auto-player switching, as the CPU assigns your control to whoever it feels is closest (without a button press). Offense is fun enough, and players animate and move fluidly. Visuals are just a notch above-average, and the presentation is spiffy. But taken as a whole, it's still all a bit bland. You'd think a game built around the old ISS engine would be a bit better. Dan All you really need to know about ExtraTime is that it uses Konami's ISS Soccer engine. It's a damn fine engine indeed. The only problem—the automatic player switching is a major kick in the ass. You know the story on that stuff: You're busy fronting a player when the computer abruptly moves control to the next closest man. It really sucks; | have to deduct a point or so just for that crap. Otherwise it's pretty good. Control is smooth and responsive, the anima- tion is life-like and believable, and the Al does the right thing most of the time. Having only 60+ teams is a positive in my book as well—it keeps things on the simplistic side. The best ESPN game yet. Bean VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY 1 6 5 5 High Heat Major League Basehall 2002 #07 1st Kip Weis: | 5 Ronoeut 7 тн ave „330 M Publisher: 3D0 Developer: 3D0 Featured In: EGM#141 = ге Players: 1-2 Supports: None Best Feature: Immersive realism Worst Feature: Graphics Web Site: www.3do.com High Heat Baseball 2002 is a different animal from anything you've played before. That's a good thing. While I've always been a fan of the batting cursor setup, HH aims for a true sim experience, and that means reading pitches. If you don't like that kind of guesswork and prefer the minigame within a game appeal of the cursor, then this game is not for you. For the rest of you stat-loving, reality-grounded base- ball fans, | think you will find that High Heat offers the best all-around baseball experience on the PS2 this year. Hitting is appropriately hard against the league's best pitchers, which means moving run- ners from base to base becomes the goal. It's not all about the three-run homer. That makes for a bit more excitement to the actual event of hitting a home run. It's just too bad that HH is hard to love right out of the box. There's no wow factor to be sure. The graph- ics are poor and, in my opinion, don't even edge out last years version of All-Star Baseball for the Nintendo 64. Empty dugouts, flat backdrops and col- lision detection problems plague HH. It's sad, really, because there are some nice details included. Umpires make check-swing calls on the spot, fans return home runs by opposing players, and there is a seemingly endless variety of hits that can occur. Still, it takes extended replay to appreciate these finer points. But extended replay isn't a bad thing now, is it? Dan If you're tired of arcadey baseball games, then this offers a haven for you. But at a steep price: It don't look that pretty. While High Heat games of the past were visually dreadful, this one uses the power of the PS2 to be, well, tolerable. At least it’s a step up. | didn't even grit my teeth as | played. I found myself enjoying the process of stringing base hits together to generate runs and dealing with a smart opponent that made key subs and fielding decisions. | liked thinking about pitches and strategic hits— something baseball games rarely do. But | wish | could have enjoyed the sights and sounds of the game—those count for something too. Kraig PlayStation baseball has been a joke. Make no mis- take. Any hardball you've seen has been so flawed graphically or gameplay wise, it makes me sad. Only now, with PS2's power, has a game come along to rem- edy that. While Triple Play Baseball feels like batting practice with fielders, and All-Star Baseball is about 50 percent of a video game, High Heat is everything and more. It’s not perfect, but it is a legitimate baseball experience for legitimate baseball fans. Some will whine about the annoying lack of animations, others will bemoan the tough-to-master pitcher/batter inter- face. But no game is as airtight as HH. If you love base- ball, buy it. If you don’t, go away. Todd VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY MDK2 Armageddon Publisher: Interplay Developer: Bioware/Digital Mayhem Featured In: EGM #138 Te Players: 1 Supports: None Best Feature: Improved difficulty settings Worst Feature: Some lame textures Web Site: www.interplay.com Already acclaimed for its superior brand of third-per- son platforming action, MDK2’s appearance on the PS2 brings with it a host of improvements almost anyone can appreciate. The most significant change is an easing-up on the difficulty scale. Instead of being a controller-throwing hardcase, Armageddon (more of a director’s cut) offers a number of difficulty settings so that even novice players stand a chance of seeing the end of the game. The problem with hav- ing various difficulty settings is that it sidesteps the things that made the game so hard in the first place, and simply makes enemies go down faster, with less effort. It often feels as if you are being led by the hand. Another subtle change is a brighter, sharper- looking game (the DC version was extremely dark at times), although there have been some texture com- promises made to accommodate the PS2’s limited memory. The control also suffers somewhat, as the default Turok-style controls of the DC version have been replaced with over a half-dozen different map- pings to the PS2 controller, none of which seem to emulate the “just right” feeling of the former. Annoying controls aside, once you get used to it, you'll quickly discover the humor, great graphics and overall diversity of MDK2's gameplay. Sometimes, | wish the shooting action was a bit more intense, but little niggles aside, for PS2 owners craving sheer invention, MDK2 delivers. Milkman Although lacking some of the graphical loveliness of its DC brethren, MDK2 is still a damn fine shooter. I'm not sure it would be on my “absolute must-buy” list of PS2 games, but it’s something different from the usual fare of robots boring each other to death. | also like it as it manages to introduce a concept sadly lacking in the majority of games: humor. While none of it is going to make you lose control of your bowels, there are certainly some chuckle-worthy moments involving household appliances. The three-character thing keeps the pace interesting, and there are some genuinely challenging moments. An acquired taste, but not an unpleasant one. John Agame comes out for the PS2 and most people auto- matically assume it looks better than its DC counter- part. Armaggedon is a nice example of why this isn’t always the case. While the game certainly doesn’t look half bad on the PS2, the environments lack the lush textures of its DC brother. Luckily, Armaggedon makes up for some of the washed-out textures by improving other details such as better explosions and bloodier deaths. Overall, a better package thanks to the difficulty select. | personally found the dual analog sticks to feel more natural than a DC pad in MDK2. Definitely check this out if you haven't played the DC version before. Che VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY 8 8 8 1 108 Publisher: EA Developer: Bullfrog Also on: Dreamcast, PC “TS Players: 1-4 Also Try: TimeSplitters, Unreal Tournament Best Feature: Smooth, crisp graphics Worst Feature: Horrible Al Web Site: www.ea.com From day one, Quake ||| was conceived and built as a multiplayer game only—even when you weren't play- ing online, the single-player game was meant to make it feel like you were. The fact that poor enemy Al never really pulled that off could be forgiven on the PC and DC, since the excellent online matches more than made up for it. Unfortunately, that's not the case on the PS2. The huge, gaping wound left in gameplay from the necessary removal of the online option has been given a tiny children's band-aid of added bells and whistles that just can't cover the hole, leaving Revolution with the best version of the worst part of Quake ||. A few nice new stages, the odd ability to level up your character in different attributes, new weapons (the gratifying chaingun and not-bad nailgun), and a couple more modes are cool, but the horrendous Al and lack of options severely limit QUII otherwise. It just isn't much fun fighting the computer— you learn its weird quirks in deathmatch, and in any other mode it behaves like a raving idiot. Other, admittedly minor, complaints: no mouse and keyboard support, horrible load times, and you can't give the Al bots orders. It's too bad, really, ‘cause it's certainly a beautiful game: gor- geous levels, cool enemy and weapon designs, and a smooth framerate, even in split-screen. Only for DC and PC-less llamas into same-screen multiplayer (which | personally don't really care for). Mark This may be the best-looking Quake game of the bunch, but it's also the worst-playing one. The only "revolution" this has undergone is an aesthetic one: The levels are more detailed and colorful than any other Quake game. Once the novelty wears off, the tired game behind it rears its ugly head. Without an online component, Quake has no heart. The split- screen multiplayer action helps to pump the blood, but the firefights are unsatisfying since the four-play- er split screen makes it hard to navigate. The single- player mode could have been a saving grace had the enemy intelligence been better. But they fight like this game is designed: half-assedly. Kraig As radical as the changes are, QIIIR is still a very playable game, and probably the best FPS you can buy for your PS2. | like the new weapons and Bullfrog's humorous touches throughout. The graph- ics are also impressive, considering there's none of the slowdown here that plagued the DC version. In four-player split screen, the game moves briskly along. But why didn't they include USB mouse support? | know we shouldn't get into the mindset that consoles should have mouse controllers, blah blah...but give me a break. Just because you move О!!! into the “mainstream” doesn't mean you should also drop the option to use a mouse. Dig? Che VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY 8 6 4 6 a -00.0 Mantee Publisher: Electronic Arts Developer: Electronic Arts Featured In: ЕСМ #142 Lc Players: 12 Supports: None Best Feature: Super-smooth framerate Worst Feature: Some pretty bland cars Web Site: www.ea.com | was a big fan of NASCAR Rumble on the PS one, and since Rumble Racing is the unofficial sequel to that arcade racer, my expectations were high when | fired it up. | must say I’m not disappointed. Since MGS2 and ZOE have raised the bar significantly for PS2 games nowadays, some might not find Rumble’s graphics to be overly impressive. Even so, the reso- lution is nice and the framerate never falters. Plus EA threw in some slick, if conservative, special effects when you use certain weapons. On the gameplay side, Rumble Racing really delivers. Lots of cool, arcadey tracks (some from NASCAR Rumble), and loads of cars to choose from make for some real vari- ety as you work your way through the game trying to unlock everything. The biggest upgrade to this sequel would have to be the addition of stunts. Whenever you get airborne, pressing the stunt but- ton and moving the control stick will flip the car in various ways. Land on all four wheels and you get a speed boost based on how difficult the stunt you just completed was. It's too bad you can only flip, but it does add some strategy to the game as winning a lot of races depends on finding ramps all around the track. Sure, GT3 it ain't, but Rumble is definitely one of the better arcade racers on the PS2 to date. Fans of San Francisco Rush in particular should be sure to check it out. It's just too bad the NASCAR license is gone; the cars don’t look as cool anymore. Greg At first Rumble Racing seems like it’s strictly for the kiddies—it’s not. | usually only get jacked up for sims like NASCAR, Gran Turismo or other such fair. | gotta admit, RR is a blast—kiddie or not. It plays a lot like the PS version but there's enough new tracks and variables to keep it fresh. | like that you can collect more than one power-up at a time. It comes in handy when it's road-clearin' time. Speaking of that, the tor- nado effect is awesome! It literally darkens the entire sky and clears a path for miles with its swirlin’ good- ness. Replay value is very high as well—unlocking cars, finding shortcuts, and experimenting with diffi- culty levels will hook you for a longtime. Dean Doth mine eyes deceive me, or has EA actually made a good racing game? Instead of trying to force out another realistic driving sim, they’ve expanded their stunt-race concept from the PS days and pulled it off beautifully on the Р52. It controls like a dream, never chugs while running some pretty darn good graphics, and promises tons (literally) of unlockable cars. The best way to describe the gameplay is SSX on wheels—it’s quick, aggressive, and very exhilarat- ing. The stunt possibilities are a little limited—it's basically a matter of choosing a direction to flip in — but the superb level design and intelligent use of shortcuts more than make upforit. Jonathan VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY Star Wars: — Super Bombad Racing = y 00'23787 a Lucas Learning Publisher: Developer: Lucas Learning Featured In: EGM #140 mE Players: 1-4 Supports: Multi-tap Best Feature: Cartoon Star Wars characters Worst Feature: Total lack of fun Web Site: www.lucasarts.com Cool, super-deformed characters in a kart racing game on the PS2? What could possibly go wrong? Apparently, almost everything. Once the novelty of the Star Wars license wears off (somewhere in the 10 minute range), it becomes painfully obvious that this game is a total waste of time. It looks like nothing more than a high-res PS one game with some major clipping problems. And the slowdown! Man, some of it’s just painful to watch. Hook up a four-player game and watch the entire thing slow to a crawl, making your character next to impossible to control. Even putting that aside, the balance here just sucks. While the computer controlled characters receive a bit of a boost if you take the lead, you don’t seem to get that benefit should you fall behind the pack. That would almost be forgivable in a kart game that had effective weapons, but Bombad doesn’t even do that right. The weapons are all so generic and useless that they’re almost no help in getting your racer to the head of the field. Oh, getting a rundown of which characters have the best acceleration or speed would have been nice in the selection screen, too, even though their individual characteristics don’t seem to make much difference in the race. Personally 1 suggest buying Star Wars Racer on the PC, DC or N64 before even considering buying Bombad. If you must have a kart racer, however, get Crash Team Racing instead. It should be cheap by now. Greg This is not the Star Wars kart game we're looking for. First off, pay no mind to the license—the Episode | characters here are so deformed beyond recognition that this might as well be a kart game starring midget circus clowns. And the gameplay...ugh. Bombad Racing ignores a cardinal rule of the crowded kart genre: Vehicles lagging at the back of the pack should get artificial aid to help catch up (for instance, better power-ups). That doesn't happen here. Get behind and you'll likely stay behind. Control feels clunky, too; some walls jerk your vehicle a few inches to the side. Even multiplayer is blah. When you see this game in the store, just move along, move along. Grispin Under any other circumstances | would be delight- ed to launch weaponry at Jar Jar and other annoying Episode 1 characters, but this kart game really took the fun out of it. Every hover-vehicle can be outfitted with a boring “arsenal” that consists of rainbow-col- ored streamers, neon green blocks, and other offen- sively cute power-ups. They're almost all useless at changing the outcome of the race since very few of them are geared to help you catch up. Instead, you're forced to find every little shortcut in the huge tracks in order to keep your lead, shifting the focus away from fun racing vehicle combat to a trial-and-error hunt for the shortest route to the finish line. Kraig VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY 1 6 4 6 109 Publisher: EA Sports Developer: EA Sports Featured In: EGM#140 = ге Players: 1-2 Supports: None Best Feature: Big Air Worst Feature: Cheatin’ Al Web Site: www.ea.com What happened to the “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game” spirit that made EA games great? Remember the ambulance in Madden? The blood in NHL? The saber-toothed goalie in Mutant League Hockey? | do. Those extras, along with rock-solid gameplay, gave EA games a flair and personality all their own. Lately, however, it’s as if EA has become the McDonald's of sports games. This is no more evident than in Triple Play for the PS2. It just feels so watered-down from what a baseball fan would really want. TP gives us a taste of what could have been, with control that is decent, a nice batter/pitcher interface (cursor-style batting), and the best graphics of this year's baseball games (aside from the short, stubby player models). But after that, it just feels a little fake and unfulfill- ing. Scores tend to be on the bloated side, and man- aging your roster is nowhere near as important, or flexible, as it should be. The gameplay is also a bit weak, as TP remains true to its homer-heavy, arcade- style roots. | can only witness so many slugfests before the excitement is sapped away. On the options side, TP.is at the back of the bus for EA games, with no franchise mode, one camera angle, one replay angle, and single-player trades only. TP is OK for an occasional dash of fun, but if you appreci- ate the intricacies, strategy and action of real major- league baseball, | recommend giving High Heat Baseball a try. Dan This is one of the few games that really nails the pitcher-batter duel. Don't get me wrong: This isn't the most realistic game in the world, but it doesn't try to be. What this excels in is letting you “see” the ball as a hitter instead of just guessing and swinging wildly. The ball hitting and leaving the bat just looks and feels right. Now if only the fielding were as refined. Catching incoming balls can be a pain in the ass when your fielders refuse to get a jump on them, and it's even worse when they miss the bag on a rou- tine out. There's enough of these frustrating flubs to make you lose a game or two, but the addictive bat- ting will keep you coming back for more. Kraig EA has remained faithful to its 40/60 ratio—1 mean, 40 percent arcade, 60 simulation. It's a good mix for casual fans and may even attract moderate baseball elitists. Hardcore players, however, will scoff at the game's quirks and less-than-authentic approach. For example, the batting cursor is giant. If you can't hit using the humongous crosshairs you're hopeless. The sound effects and wild camera angles are bril- liant as far as I’m concerned, yet may seem hokey to hardcores. Neither camp will like the sluggish field- ing—especially during a double-play attempt. Still, overall TPB is an entertaining, albeit limited, baseball experience —arcade or otherwise. Dean VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY 8 1 1 8 Publisher: Konami Developer: Konami СЕЈ West Featured In: EGM #142 = ге Players: 1-2 Supports: None Best Feature: Best-looking mech game yet Worst Feature: Horrid voice acting Web Site: www.konami.com ow that the Review Crew has finally put down the MGS2 Trial Version to check out the free game that came with the $50 demo, our general vibe is that ZOE is... well, anticlimactic. As a giant-robot-running- amok type of game, ZOE is peerless in its visual panache. Graphically, this is stuff that makes you sit back and marvel at the fact that it’s actually being played in your living room. A number of elements help make the game look so opulent: As you soar over cities, sub- urbs, and industrial factories in the space colony, you get a pressing sense that every- thing around you hangs in the delicate bal- ance of your actions. Houses and skyscrapers all crumble beautifully if you're careless about where and how you engage the enemy. Another, more superficial way ZOE puts just about everything else on the PS2 to shame is how it handles under pressure, with a gazil- Zone of the Ende AWG th ч: J | We're not sure why many of the cutscenes in ZOE are done via FMV when the in-game engine looks nearly as good. lion visual effects going on simultaneously. Now, couple the icy glide of the steady 60 fps action with an intelligent camera system, and you’ve got a game engine that just begs to be used for other types of games. Take our word for it: ZOE looks fantastic. However, this is pretty much where the amazing stuff stops. Underneath the pretty exterior is a game that doesn’t quite know what it really wants to be. As an action game, ZOE feels too bare-bones and simplistic; your choice of weapons, the number of moves you can perform, and the obligatory versus mode are all on the under- whelming side. Without the story (as you skip through cinemas the second time around), what was once exhilarating becomes rather repetitive. Nobody in their right mind would call this game an RPG, but even as an adven- ture title, it lacks the puzzles and narrative to make for a compelling experience. ZOE, while technically impressive, ultimately lacks the depth and longevity we look for in all truly great games. Now for the individual takes: 110 Finish ZOE once to unlock the two-player versus mode. Go through the game twice and you'll have access to a couple of the more powerful “boss” mechs. Check out that excellent blurring effect! Theoretically, ZOE should have been right up my alley. As a freak for anything giant-robot-related, how could I not have fallen for the sleek, Evangelion-esque designs, the moral ambivalence of the story or the Sky-high production values? But it wasn't enough to just like the game from a technical point-of-view. I was looking for some soul, and | came up empty with ZOE. Aside from the graphics and controls, there's just nothing exceptional about this game. Story-wise, the tale of a young boy forced to do the job of a sol- dier has almost become an anime cliché since Gundam was first introduced back in 1979. Of course, that's not to say that the formula doesn't work. However, in order for the story to carry any weight, you need a protagonist who can pull off the emotion- al transformation. Unfortunately, Leo just doesn't get the job done. Maybe it's a localization issue; or maybe it's just more convincing in Japanese —what- ever the case, ZOE has one of the most annoying main characters ever. Another problem with the story line is that it's way too didactic. Any subtlety it could have toyed with is shot to hell because ZOE has a way of driving home its moral ambiguity with a baseball bat. Still, you might enjoy ZOE if you think of it as just an action game with a really elaborate story. It's difficult not to come down hard on ZOE because it's just pissing away so much potential. As it is, ZOE is decent, but alas, not great. Che ZOE is to Konami what Omega Boost is to Polyphony Digital—a flashy mech-blaster long on style, short on substance. The technical level of detail is amazing, and it’s currently the most striking game, visually, on the PS2. However, while the control and the funda- mental gameplay is quite superb, you basically run the same routines throughout the 15 or so hours it may take you to finish the game. Tedium aside, the heavy-handed story has you listening to your on- board computer, and some of the worst voice-acting known to man, for almost half the game. You'll play it to death for a few days, but ZOE will fade from memory sooner than you think. Milkman With a name like Hideo Kojima attached to ZOE, some would say there's no way the game could live up to the lofty expectations of most gamers. While | wouldn't call it a disappointment, the game could have been better. The graphics are so good the entire experience looks like one big cinema scene, which is great. Huge buildings and bigger mechs, plus the ability to destroy everything in each area are totally cool. But the game is way too short, and unlike MGS (another short game), doesn't seem to reach a real climax. Plus what is here is a heavy-handed tale of morality that wears thin really quickly. Still worth playing through once. VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY 10 10 1 5 REPLAY re VAT X se <= SUAE 5 Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Nintendo Cour OR Featured In: EGM #136 Players: 1 Supports: None Best Feature: Kirby’s back! Worst Feature: Tilt response technology Web Site: www.nintendo.com So you can fight, shoot and headbutt, but can you tilt? That’s right, tilt. Well, Nintendo’s new GBC plat- form-style action game, utilizing what they’ve coined “Tilt Response Technology,” lets you do just that to shake, rattle and roll who else but Kirby?! Everyone’s portly pink friend is back and looking, sounding and chomping better than ever. Watch Kirby roll his spherical self over icy, sandy, rocky and grassy ter- rain, all the while dodging toy robots, spikeys and other baddies in order to smite King Dedede's vora- cious appetite for stars. Everything seem kosher enough? Well, there’s a problem. In fact, a pretty fat one. See, the point is now to play the game by tilting your GBC “every which way,” right? Well, what if tilt- ing your GBC means the screen gets lost in shadow and you can’t see what the heck Kirby’s doing? Try rolling Kirby straight down a narrow platform, Marble Madness-style, without seeing where he’s going to end up. You'll soon grow accustomed to hearing Kirby’s screams as he fades into the void. Even if you grit your teeth and play on, it's tough. The game is designed for TRT, so when you tilt “every which way," Kirby gets lost “every which way." In fact, if the TRT was tweaked or just not so hyped, then Kirby Tilt ‘n’ Tumble would be a solid GBC game. But unless you have patience, night vision, or an undying ado- ration for Kirby, let a friend buy the game and just borrow it for those long road trips. Mickey's Speedway USA Tw: 2 Publisher: Nintendo or Developer: Rare/Disney Interactive COLOR Also Try: San Francisco Rush GBC Players: 1-2 Supports: Link cable, IR Port, Printer Best Feature: Driving animals are funny Worst Feature: Holy slowdown Web Site: www.nintendo.com Rare may have overshot the mark a little on Speedway for the GBC. They were able to cram in a lot of nice features like time trials, a two-player mode, a tour scrapbook where you can print post- cards from tracks around the U.S., and a driving school skill course. But while MSGBC mimics the N64 version in almost every respect (playable characters, story, unlockables), it lacks the friendly control and smooth gameplay of its console cousin. I’m all for powersliding, but races against even more surefoot- ed kart jockeys end up in a battle for controlled skid- ding. The framerate tanks when things get too hectic, and by hectic | mean more than two racers at once— not good. It would help if they zoomed out the view; the draw distance is way too short, making it impos- sible to read the course ahead of time. A little arrow atop the screen warns you of upcoming bends, but it seems like that was an afterthought and doesn't real- ly help when heading into a series of s-curves. Add to that some very worthless power-ups (the speed burst sends you flying, then actually slows you down like a brake rather than letting you coast—what's the deal?) and Speedway goes south pretty quickly. By the time you get used to the super-sensitive con- trols and pinball physics, you've already squeaked through the game on third-place trophies and feel more like tossing it indifferently over your shoulder than playing through it again. Jonathan would’ve been better if there was an option to play it with the control pad. Its biggest problem is the tilt technology. You need to have the GB under direct light to see what you're doing, but you have to tilt it for control, making it nearly impossible to play unless you're in an area flooded with light (like outside on a sunny day). Forget about playing it on a plane, in a car, or with a third-party light. Plus it's not always easy to get the tilt calibrated. Aside from that, | love the mini-games (especially Do the Kirby) and the graphics are up to what you'd expect from Nintendo. Good fun, but the tilt drags it down. Chris This is a quality game, no doubt: a nice mix of plat- forming and puzzle elements, with imaginative and varied level designs, including all sorts of clever devices that make use of the surprisingly responsive Tilt feature in ways | would have never thought of. There's just one problem: It's hard to appreciate all this when you can't actually see what the hell is going on half the time. See, you have to actually tilt the Game boy in different directions to make the game work, and anyone familiar with Nintendo's handheld knows how hard the screen is to see on an angle, especially indoors. Innovative, but held back by the very feature that makes it so unique. Mark VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY 8 1 8 5 | | | | | was happy when Rare announced they'd be doing some Disney games, since at last they'd be working with genuinely endearing characters rather than the vomit-by-numbers cutesy crap they'd been designing themselves as of late. MSUSA is a decent game, top- loaded with enough modes, options and incentives to make one want to play through and beat it. The gameplay is smooth and responsive, but the over- head perspective smacks of Micro Machines with a Disney tilt. The game doesn't let you off easy just 'cause it's cute either. Younger gamers may be put off by the subtlety needed to master this above- average kart racer. Milkman Micro-machine-style racing featuring cute little Disney characters is what you get with MSUSA. The other portions, such as driving school, only serve as a mild diversion and certainly don't hold as much weight as the racing. So essentially, if you're not a fan of the ever tricky, overhead perspective, you'll end up frustrated here. The problem, of course, is the lim- ited amount of track visible on the screen at any one moment. The direction arrow helps somewhat, but in the end it's all about memorizing each and every turn. Once you do that, and learn the intricacies of the vehicles, it's a good time. | only wish it had more of everything— tracks, cars, etc. VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY 1 6 6 1 П Publisher: Crave Entertainment es Developer: Crawfish Coir OR Featured In: EGM #141 Players: 1 Also try: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 Best Feature: Sharp looks Worst Feature: Poor control Web Site: www.cravegames.com On the PlayStation, Razor was an entertaining Tony Hawk clone designed for the younger set. Now we’re getting the Game Boy Color port nobody asked for, and—big surpri in no way captures the fun of the set-top edition. This one focuses more on rac- ing and less on pulling off stunts, which might have been acceptable if the cart had a solid game engine—but it doesn’t. Everything is presented from a terribly awkward isometric perspective, and the control is horribly clunky. | mean, c'mon...a default setting in a racer that forces you to press up to go for- ward, instead of using the A or B button? What's up with that? Worse still, Razor GBC is quite possibly the easiest title in the history of video games to play through: Within one half-hour, | had managed to play through both the “novice” and “expert” modes in their entireties. Now, I grant, it's tricky to port a title like this over to the underpowered Game Boy: Watching an ant-sized figure pull off crazy stunts lacks drama, particularly when he's confined to 2D play fields. But both Dave Mirra and BXS managed to turn out well regardless, so there's little excuse for Razor's ridiculously dummied-down play mechanics. On the upside: The graphics are good, the backdrops are interesting, and the scooter theme is novel. If the game didn't control like mud, and the stages weren't so darn easy, this might have been worth a look. As it stands, though, it’s not worth the cash. Ethan When | first turned on Razor | was pretty impressed. Large, colorful graphics with interesting back- grounds and excellent animation (by GBC standards) greet any first-time player. | liked it right up until the moment | had finished the entire game less than an hour later. Now that I've done that, I’m glad I didn't pay full price for Razor Freestyle Scooter. This game has no longevity. Even though all the levels are pretty varied, it doesn't take long to realize that they all play exactly the same. The developers need to be given credit for re-creating the Tony Hawk-type theme so well on the Game Boy, but at the end of the day you'll only ever play this once. Greg Freestyle Scooter is a surprisingly fun little game, and it's obvious that developer Crawfish has “bor- rowed" a few gameplay elements from Paper Boy. The courses pack a lot of the same goofball obsta- cles (clutzy pedestrians, kids racing R.C. cars, etc.). Unfortunately, like most 8-bit games that try too hard, this thing suffers from sprite flicker; invisible objects will trip your dude once in a while. Although it's easy to pull tricks, the screen is zoomed in just a tad too much on the action, making it hard to align yourself for combo grinds. This game Killed my thumb after a while, too, since you have to hold up on the pad to keep your scooter moving. Crispin VISUALS SOUND INGENUITY REPLAY 8 5 5 4 m Tricks Trade By Trickman Terry tricks@ziffdavis.com = © SELECT TERM. (@Y ko 4 АТ, ~~ EEE EOT THE MONTH screen, enter these codes with the Turbo, Shoot and Pass but- tons the number of times shown, and then press the D- pad in the direction indicated by the code (For 4-3-2 Up, you would press Turbo four times, Shoot three times, Pass two times and then press Up). Show Shot Percentage: 0-1-1 Down Beach Court: 0-2-3 Left Show Hotspot: 1-1-0 Down No Fouls (2P must agree): 2-2-2 Right Away Uniform: o-2-4 Right No Hotspots (2P must agree): 3-0-1 Up Big Heads: 3-0-0 Right Tiny Heads: 3-3-0 Left Infinite Turbo: 3-1-2 Up Street Court: 3-2-0 Left Home Uniform: 0-1-4 Right ABA Ball: 1-1-1 Right Tiny Players: 5-4-3 Left Granny Shots: 1-2-1 Left No Goaltending: 4-4-4 Left AND AMMO In the middle of the game, press the SELECT button. Move down and highlight the “Help” option. Now press 12, L1, L2, Square, Circle, Square. This is the first part of the codes shown below. After entering this part first, put in the rest of the codes as shown below for these results. (Note: The L3 and R3 commands 112 are performed by pressing in the left analog stick for L3 and pressing in the right analog stick for R3) Stronger Hits R3, L3, Circle, Square Get Big R3, Square, Circle, L3 One Hit Kill L3, R3, Circle, Square All Ammo and Hypo Circle, Circle, Circle, R3 Infinite Ammo La, РА laLa: Invisibility La, R3, L2, 13 Star Wars: Starfighter LEVEL UNLOCK AND MORE On the main menu, access the Options. From the Options, access Code Setup. Now enter the following passwords to unlock each cheat as shown. Unlock All Levels Put in OVERSEER for the pass- word. This will give you every- thing except the bonus multi- player missions. Bonus Multiplayer Missions ANDREW Secret Ship for Bonus Missions BLUESNF Disable Cockpit Display NOHUD Ship and Cast Pics HEROES Pre-production Art PLANETS Pictures of Simon SIMON Development Team Pics TEAM View Credits CREDITS Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes VARIOUS CODES From the main menu, access the Input Code option. On the Input Code screen, enter any one of these codes for the results as shown. Every Character in Multiplayer BTTLN Test Info THDTST Eî Behind the Scenes SFFRMV NBA 2K1 CHEAT CODES From the main menu, access the options screen, then select “Codes.” On the “Cheat Codes” screen, type in your password as one of these shown below. Be the Ball: betheball Giant Heads: heliumbrain Weird Commentary: whatamisaying Taunt After Shot is Made: sohappy NUMEROUS CODES On the “Tonight’s Matchup” screen, enter these codes with the Turbo, Shoot and Pass but- tons the number of times shown, and then press the D- pad in the direction indicated by the code (for 4-3-2 Up, you would press Turbo four times, Shoot three times, Pass two times and then press Up). Show Shot Percentage: o-1-1 Down Beach Court: 0-2-3 Left Show Hotspot: 1-1-0 Down No Fouls (2P must agree): 2-2-2 Right Away Uniform: 0-2-4 Right No Hotspots (2P must agree): 3-0-1 Up Big Heads: 3-0-0 Right Tiny Heads: 3-3-0 Left Infinite Turbo: 3-1-2 Up Street Court: 3-2-0 Left Home Uniform: 0-1-4 Right ABA Ball: 1-1-1 Right Tiny Players: 5-4-3 Left Granny Shots: 1-2-1 Left No Goaltending: 4-4-4 Left Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear CHEAT MENU In the middle of the game, press and hold the L-Trigger+X+Y+A+B. With these held, press Down on the D-pad. A Cheat Codes menu will appear with four names. Choose one of the names to get a list of cheats you can activate. Here are the four names and what they give you. Sherman: Avatargod, Teamgod, 5 30! НК МР5/10$р (о Herder ES cH DIDI RICO Explore, Win Mission. E Rommel: Big Noggin, Mega Noggin, Clod Hopper, Stumpy Ike: 5 Finger Discount, 1-900, Turn Punch Kick, Silent but Deadly. Grant: The Shadow Knows, Team Shadow, Fast Action Team, No Brainer. Ready 2 Rumble: Round 2 [3 UNLOCK ALL BOXERS From the main menu, choose Arcade Mode. Then select one or two players. On the boxer select screen, press Left, Right, Left, Left, Right, Up, Down, R-Trigger, R-Trigger, R-Trigger, R-Trigger, R- Trigger, L-Trigger. A bell will sound and all the characters will now be available. Hi Rise Chicago, IL Unreal Tournament LEVEL SKIP From the main menu, choose Tournament. Begin a new game. Choose your name, skill level and skin. Then begin the Deathmatch. On the match select screen, choose Oblivion. In the middle of the game, press START to pause. Then press Up, Down, Left, Right, Right, Left. The game will take you back to the match select screen, and the next level will be open to play. Do this trick multiple times to open up every level and new ladders along the way. [нит ҮШ [ЕШШ HOLO Conker's Bad Fur Day BAD FUR CODES From the main menu (where you can choose chapters, options, etc.), access the options screen. Move down and select “Cheats. On the “Cheats” screen, put in any of these passwords for the results as shown. Play as Weasel Henchman in Multi Games: CHINDITVICTORY (Deathmatch and Race games.) Play as the Cavemen in Multi Games: EATBOX (Deathmatch and Race games.) Play as Villager and Zombies in Multi Games: BEEFCURTAINS (Deathmatch and Race games.) Play as Sergeant and Tedi Leader in Multi Games: RUSTYSHERIFFSBADGE (Deathmatch and Race games.) Play as Grim Reaper and Skeleton in Multi Games: BILLYMILLROUNDABOUT (Deathmatch and Race games.) Play as Conker in Multi Games: WELLYTOP (Deathmatch and Race games.) Play as Neo Conker in Multi Games: EASTEREGGSRUS (Deathmatch and Race games.) Ed Decapitation Effect in Deathmatch: SPUNKJOCKEY (In the Multi Deathmatch (skull icon) game, choose a one-player game. TOP 10 TRICKS The top 10 games of the last month given the full- on Trickman treatment: 1. Pokémon .... Gold/Silver Color Duplicate Pokémon and Items WARNING: THIS TRICK AFFECTS YOUR SAVED GAMES. USE WITH CAUTION! First, you must decide on the Pokémon and item you want to clone. At any time during the game, press Start and access the Pokémon option. Choose the Pokémon you want to clone and make it hold an item that you also want to clone (such as a Master Ball). Next, go into a town and find a Pokémon Center. Move in front of the PC and press START. Move down the menu and access the Save option. After saving your game, press the A button to turn on the PC. Access Bill's PC and deposit the Pokémon you want to clone into one of the boxes. Then choose “Change Box” and move to an empty box. Press A and choose “Switch.” When it asks if you want to save the game, choose "Yes." Now, this part is very important and requires precise timing. The game will tell you that there is already a save file, and it will ask you if it is OK to overwrite the file. Choose "Yes" and immediately turn off the Game Boy. Be sure to turn it off before any words other than "Saving" appear on the screen, or the trick will not work. Turn the Game Boy back on again. Check your party status and you should see the Pokémon you wanted to clone still in your party. Access Bill's PC and look at the box in which you deposited the Pokémon. The Pokémon and the item it was holding will be cloned inside the box, and still in your party! You can clone up to five Pokémon and items at one time by doing. this trick. 2. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater2 — Cool Codes From the main menu screen, access Career Mode and choose to continue a career or start a new one. On the Select Player screen, choose a char- acter and begin your game. In the middle of play, press START to pause the game and then press and hold the L1 button. While holding this button, enter any of these TRICKS TOP 10 TRICKS (6 codes to unlock the following features. The screen will shake when each of these tricks is entered correctly. Unlimited Special Meter: Х, Triangle, Circle, Up, Left, Triangle, Square. Fast Motion: Down, Square, Triangle, Right, Up, Circle, Down, Square, Triangle, Right, Up, Circle. Full Statistics: X, Triangle, Circle, Square, Triangle, Up, Down. No Blood: Right, Up, Square, Triangle. Skinny Skater: X, X, X, X, Square, X, X, X, X, Square, X, X, X, X, Square. Obese Skater: X, X, X, X, Left, X, X, X, X, Left, X, X, X, X, Left. 3. Donkey | Kong 64 М Play Jetpac Anytime After acquiring 15 Banana Medals, go to Cranky and play the Jetpac game. To obtain the Rareware Coin, you must get 5,000 points in the game. After you do this, take pic- tures of six fairies with your camera and you will be able to play the Jetpac game any time. Just go to the "Mystery" menu to find this option! 4. Mario Tennis Cup Passwords From the main menu, access the “Special Games" option. In the Special Games menu, choose the Ring Tournament. Now, on the “Code Entry” screen, put in the password for the Cup you want to play. After you play one of these tournaments, you will receive a new code to rank you on the mariotennis.com Web site. Mario Cup: A3W5KQA3C Luigi Cup: M1C2YQM1W Peach Cup: OFoXFQOFR Donkey Kong Cup: ММ55МОММЈ Wario Cup: UOUFMPUOM маште! Cup: LA98JRLAR Bowser Cup: N24K8QN2P Mariotennis.com Cup: 48HWOR482 Blockbuster Cup: ARM6JQARU 5. Super Smash Bros. MN Borrow a Life When playing a team multi- player match, if you are defeated but your teammate When you have a sword or chainsaw, hit an opponent. Some of the time you will get a cool rotation effect with the decapitation, but it is random.) Open Heist Chapter: CHOCOLATESTARFISH Open It’s War Chapter: BEELZEBUBSBUM Open Spooky Chapter: SPANIELSEARS Open Uga Buga Chapter: MONKEYSCHIN Open Sloprano Chapter: ANCHOVYBAY Open Bats Tower Chapter: CLAMPIRATE Open Barn Boys Chapter: PRINCEALBERT Open All Chapters and Scenes: WELDERSBENCH E] NO DAMAGE On the main menu screen, press R-Shift, R-Shift, B, R-Shift, R- Shift, B. When you begin a one- player game, your wrestler will not take any damage from the CPU opponent. [ЁЛ PLAYSTATION | Fear Effect 2 To do these tricks, you must beat the game at least once. Then begin a new game and wait until the cinema ends. After Rain goes into the next room, move Hana forward until the view changes. You will see a control panel on the left side of the screen. Move up to the panel until you see the “Use” command appear. Press the Triangle button to access the panel. Once you do this, enter one of the following number codes to initiate these tricks. Huge Head: 10397 Every Weapon: 11692 Infinite Ammo: 61166 Medal of Honor: Underground From the main menu screen, choose the options. Access the “Passwords” screen, put in ENTREZVOUS and press the Send key. Enter the password screen again, put in LEMONSTRE for the code and press the Send key. Now go to the Save, Load and Records screen and access the Mission Log. You will see the Panzerknacker Unleashed mis- sion available on the bottom of the screen. NBA Hoopz On the “Tonight’s Matchup” screen, enter these codes with the Turbo, Shoot and Pass but- tons the number of times shown, and then press the D- pad in the direction indicated by the code (for 4-3-2 Up, you would press Turbo four times, Shoot three times, Pass two times and then press Up). ABA Ball: 1-1-1 Right Show Hotspot: 1-1-0 Down No Goaltending: 4-4-4 Left No Fouls (2P must agree): 2-2-2 Right Big Heads: 3-0-0 Right Tiny Heads: 3-3-0 Left Infinite Turbo: 3-1-2 Up Beach Court: 0-2-3 Left Granny Shots: 1-2-1 Left No Hotspots (2P must agree): 3-0-1 Up Street Court: 3-2-0 Left Home Uniform: 0-1-4 Right Tiny Players: 5-4-3 Left Show Shot Percentage: 0-1-1 Down Away Uniform: 0-2-4 Right HEY, YOU; WANNA WIN FREE STUFF? If your trick is selected as Trick of the Month, you will win a free GameShark pro- vided by InterAct, and a Twin Shock, or a Hyper64, or an Advanced Pad, or a DC carry- ing case from Blaze. If you are given credit for submit- ting a hot trick in this sec- tion, you will win a free game. See page 120 for rules. Note: If you send your trick by e-mail, you must include your real name and address. Send your best tricks, codes, Web sites, anything that can help make games more fun or interesting to: Tricks of the Trade Р.О. Box 3338 Oak Brook IL 60522-3338 or send e-mail to: tricks@ziffdavis.com Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue VARIOUS CHEATS From the main menu, access the codes option. On the Codes screen, put in any of these pass- words to unlock these features. Once you've entered the ones you want, move down to initiate the codes on the Activate Codes screen. Level Select: OMEGA Unlimited Health: D4B7E109G7 (Note: O = the letter O, not Zero) Titanium Ranger: ULTIMATE Continues: FOREVER All Galleries: SHOWCASE Unlimited Lives: IMMORTAL Unlimited RPE Moves: N7F6U2A5A1 Supercross RIDERS GALORE On the main menu, access the Game Options. Then move down and access the Enter Codes option. Put in these passwords to unlock many different riders as shown. Р Tricky The Clown: POLKADOT MR-34 Robot: METALDUDE Billy Ray MudMullet: POSSUMPANCAKES Happy Smiley: HAVEANICEDAY Bones: MARROWMAN Sarcophagus Jones: PYRAMIDSCHEME Space Overlord: BUNGAVEE Harry Bigfoot: MMMSQUIRREL Astro Nut: ONESMALLSTEP Hot Tub Harvey: HARVEYSAYSRELAX Moto Samurai: HONORFIRST Some Guy: WHOSTHAT Doctor Invisso: LOOKMANOBODY TieDye Guy: MELLOWOUT The King: SIDEBURNS Smitty Sugarlegs: ENDZONEDANCE EA Guy: EASPORTSRIDE Supercross Avenger: TRIPLELEAPER Agent Albert: PEANUTBUTTER Bob Page: FORTYFOUR Brave Scotsman: PLAIDROCKS David Bailey: IRONMAN EA Gal: LETSGOEAGAL The Zombie: LOVESBRAINS Ecko Rider: WWWECKOCOM El Luchador: MASKEDMAN Freedom Fighter: AMERICAN Johnny O'Marra: 4XUSMXDNCHAMP Roger DeCoster: 9XBELGIANCHAMP Spitt Polish: THREEPIECESUIT Dave Davis: MACK DADDY Triple Play Baseball TRIPLE PLAY DREAM TEAM On the main menu screen, choose Single Game. Then choose any difficulty setting, number of innings and con- trollers. When you reach the Team Select screen, press Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right. Now the Triple Play Dream Team will appear as a playable team. GAME BOY COLOR Army Men: Air Combat LEVEL SELECT On the main menu, press Down until the Password option appears. Now put in the follow- ing symbols to access these lev- els. Mission 2: Box, Cross Medal, Box, Box Mission 3: Bullet, Bullet, Bullet, Cross Medal Mission 4: Stripes, Bullet, Box, Box 1-900-PRE VIEW The number to call for the Mission 5: Cross Medal, Stripes, Cross Medal, Bullet Mission 6: Helmet, Bullet, Stripes, Helmet Mission 7: Box, Cross Medal, Bullet, Cross Medal Mission 8: Bullet, Stripes, Cross Medal, Helmet Mission 9: Stripes, Stripes, Bullet, Bullet Mission 10: Cross Medal, Helmet, Cross Medal, Helmet Mission 11: Helmet, Stripes, Cross Medal, Helmet Mission 12: Box, Cross Medal, Stripes, Stripes Mission 13: Bullet, Cross Medal, Helmet, Helmet Mission 14: Stripes, Cross Medal, Box, Stripes Mission 15: Cross Medal, Box, Stripes, Helmet Mission 16: Helmet, Cross Medal, Bullet, Stripes Star Wars Episode 1. Obi Wan's Adventures LEVEL SELECT CODES On the main menu screen, access the Password option. On the Password screen, enter any of the codes listed to go to that level. Stage 2 - The Trade Federation Landing Craft: BQVQK Stage 3 - The Naboo Swamp: WNLRM Stage 4 - Naboo Swamp & Sacred Place: SDGNK Stage 5 - Coruscant: CNLML Stage 6 - The Catacombs of Theed: BXGTG Stage 7 - The Streets of Theed: QSRVJ Stage 8 - Queen Amidala’s Palace: TKGJZ Stage 9 - The Final Battle: LPZCP 115 TOP 10 TRICKS still has one or more lives in Stock, you can use one of his lives to get back in the action by pressing A+B+Z+START. Be sure to ask for permission from your friend. Change Outfits You can change your charac- ter's outfits by tapping the four C buttons at the charac- ter select screen. 6. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater +. Blowout Trick This trick will blow open the game and give you a new character. From the menu, access Career Mode. Begin а new game and press START to pause. Press and hold the L1 button and enter Circle, Right, Up, Down, Circle, Right, Up, Square, Triangle. The screen shakes if entered correctly. Go to the main menu screen. Choose to continue the Career Mode and Officer Dick, all tapes, levels, medals, stats. and FMV movies will become available. таи (i Hidden Teams From the main menu, access the options screen, then select “Codes.” On the “Cheat Codes” screen, type in vc as your password and then the Enter key. The screen will then say that the Superstars fea- ture has been unlocked. 8. теккеп 3 $ Ball Mode You must see all 10 of the original characters’ endings. Once you do this, Ball Mode will be available from the main menu. Unlock Everything Down, Left, Up, Right, X, Circle, Triangle, Square. This will give you access to all rid- ers, outfits, boards and cours- es in the game. з=) 10. Driver + Invincibility Go to the Main Menu /Title Screen and enter the tricks as shown. To activate the cheat, move right until you highlight the police car and then access the Cheats Menu. Press L2, L2, R2, R2, L2, R2, L2, La, R2, R1, L2, La, L1. The Invincibility option will now be unlocked in the Cheats Screen. LJ 4 Volume 2 ) Got your own PSO tidbit for us? Send us a letter or e-mail us at EGM@ziffdavis.com, ct: Phantasy Star Online. If we choose your letter you'll get your name in EGM and maybe even a little somethin’ extra. 1] When you fight Hard or Very unleashes most powerful form, he has. major damage. to lessen the damage i: boost your Light defense with armor, shields or Res units (Resist/Saint is good - and easy to find). If you survive Grants, you should immediately heal yourself to full, as Dark Falz’ next attack comes quickly. After he floats back down, he'll swipe at you with his arm for another huge chunk of damage. This is a physical attack, so you'll need high DEF to survive. After Dark Falz's three attacks are completed, you have a chance to hit him. However, whenever he's flashing, your attacks won't do any damage. The one exception to this rule is fire spells, so use your Rafoie if you've got it. His second form of defense rarely comes into play, but it's very significant. If there is ‚ flashing red beam ng you and him on your radar, DO NOT ATTACK at all. If you hit him, you will take the damage instead. ОТА EE Me jc pen e NTASY STAR ONLINE Your Sofrcé-for-anÿthing and everything to do with PSO By Expert Gamer’s Kenneth Miller Playing online with only three people but that door takes four people to open? No problem! Just use the mystical powers of the martial arts to walk right through the door. It takes careful positioning, but once you learn how to do it, it’s easy (unfortunately, this trick only works in the Caves and Mines). Move your character as far into the corner of a door- way as possible, then turn diagonally so that you’re facing the wall and your back is to the door. Unequip your weapon so that you’re bare-handed and use the three-hit punch/kick combo one time. If you were at the right place, you should now be a little closer to the door than when you started. Next, carefully turn slightly toward the wall again and then do the combo a second time. Keep repeating this until your charac- ter is clipping through the door. Once you're there, just push toward the door and wiggle the control to pass the rest of the way through. You can also use this method to pass through some force fields. If there's a wall nearby, you can treat the force field just like a door. Wedge yourself in with your back to the force field and start choppin" away. One of the most useful ways to use this trick is in the offline Mines. Normally, after you beat the boss of the Mines, you must return to the first three levels to activate the pillars that open the door to the Ruins. Why not just walk through the door? It works just like any other closed door. Do this at your own risk, however, as skipping to the Ruins like this can some- times make the game lock up. Got hit by an unexpected ice trap? One of those Chaos Sorcerers nailed you with Gibarta? Either way, there's a good chance you're frozen in a block of ice. If you're surrounded by enemies, this can be one of the quickest ways in the game to die. When you're frozen, you can't use any commands on your con- troller or cast any spells. However, you can use items 16 DICT. from your inventory. This means you can use healing items to restore life or even a Sol Atomizer to just break out of the ice all together. Hit START immediately and do it. Although they aren’t as bad as being frozen, there are other things that will force you to stand still. Specifically, we're talking about the Grass Assassin's breath attack in the Caves and the falling traps in the Ruins. Normally, getting caught in one of those situ- ations means you're gonna take some dam- age, but we found a trick to break free. When you're caught in either trap, drop any item (one Meseta is easiest), then simply walk out. Don't ask us why, but it works. Curious as to what you look like to your fel- low PSO players? It just so happens that you can see the world through their eyes. Whenever you're in a dungeon with other players (it won't work offline or in town), just plug in another controller (it has to be an official Sega Dreamcast pad for some rea- Son...) into any of the open ports on your Dreamcast. Then, hold L and R and press Up to switch between each person's view. Not only is this fun, but it lets you keep tabs on another player who's in a different room. Unfortunately, if the player you're following leaves the level, your view will revert back to your own. NEXT MONTH... Akiko’s frypan, the special katana weapon, playing with the broadband adapter, and more. For real. We promise. games com EB1: 6/01 AOL KEYWORD: EBGAMES electronics boutique Over 600 stores nationwide FINAL WORD Xbox and Sega get friendly Chris Johnston Greg Sewart Che Chou James: When | first picked up the early vibrations that Panzer Dragoon might, inconceivably, make a return, | giggled. “No freakin’ way,” said 1. Then when | learned that it would hit the Xbox, | blacked out. | immediately went back and played through the original Panzer Dragoon and then Panzer Zwei. Looking at what Team Andromeda did then, | could only imagine what Smilebit (composed of some key ex-Andromeda members) would do with the purported power of the Xbox. My dreams, as some would say, had come true. Panzer Dragoon had always been a stunning showcase of expertly used cinematics and simple, but evocative, gameplay. James Mielke • james mielkeGziffdavis.com Chris Johnston • Chris_Johnston@ziffdavis.com Greg Sewart • Greg_Sewart@ziffdavis.com Che Chou • Che_Chou@ziffdavis.com Sewart: l've gotta side with Chris here. While the Panzer Dragoon series is one of my all-time favorites, the mere announcement that the game should be coming to Xbox doesn’t have me excited yet. Nostalgic, yes. | fired up all the old games after the announcement too and got a little teary-eyed over what Team Andromeda had accomplished on the Saturn. But, like CJ, | still remember when we were told that an online Baldur's Gate was a Dreamcast launch title, or seeing that famous Final Fantasy demo on the N64. The announcement isn’t enough to get me that excited, | want screenshots. | want proof that the game is actually running on the Xbox and | “even if the Xbox fails miserably, ТЇЇ Still buy two just to play the new Panzer Dragoon.” Even today Panzer Zwei, and of course, Saga, look amazing, especially considering the hardware they were running on. Now Sega has nothing holding them back, and even if the Xbox fails miserably, l'Il still buy two just to play the new Panzer Dragoon. Zwei and Saga are two of my favorite games ever and | haven’t even discussed Gun Valkyrie and Jet Set Radio Future. Sweet Buddah! Pass the smelling salts, fellas. | feel faint. Johnston: Having Sega develop Xbox games is certainly a plus for Microsoft. The only thing that would be better would be an announcement that Square’s doing a Final Fantasy on it. Then again, Sega’s going to be making games for everyone, including PS2 and GameCube. We still have no idea when these games will come out, and development is probably just getting started on Panzer and Jet Grind Future. Does this make me any more excited about Xbox? No. Maybe when I'm finally playing these games on an Xbox I'll be excited about it, but the mere announce- ment doesn't get me hot ‘n’ bothered for Microsoft's machine. It gets me about as excited as when Square showed off an N64 Final Fantasy-type demo or when Bernie Stolar said that Half Life would be one of the first online games for Dreamcast. that it's going to maintain the same epic look and feel of the original Saturn trilogy. Personally I'm still more excited about most of the upcoming Dreamcast titles than just about anything else right at the moment. Che: Well it wasn't the Microsoft/Square announcement | wanted, but Sega on the Xbox is the next best thing. I’m hoping the list of stuff announced at TGS will just continue to expand as we move into E3 and beyond. Where's Virtua Fighter 4? Where will Sonic reside after his final hurrah on the Dreamcast? And with the popularity of Phantasy Star Online, which console will be the next to walk down Sega's bold new path? Unlike CJ and Greg (those haters!) | am certainly excited about Panzer Dragoon. Hello! This is Panzer Dragoon people! A franchise we thought was left for dead in the annals of vintage gaming. I'll reserve further hype until | actually find out more about the game and see some screens. After all, it could be some sort of Panzer Dragoon first-person shooter. | shudder to think. As for the health of the Xbox in Japan, things don't look so good. MS might have a little fanfare around its launch but without exclusive titles from people like Square or strong first-party developers (Bungie? Gimme a break), it will lose to Nintendo and Sony in the long run. Bring on GameCube! 118 7. —2) ZIFF DAVIS MEDIA ZIFF DAVIS PUBLISHING INC. Chairman, Chief Executive Officer $ nd President) CE ДАУА ИЕ James 0. Dunning, Jr Chief Operating Officer and Senior Executive Vice President ................... Tom McGrade . AI Perlman Scott Crysta President, Business Media Executive Vice President and Publishing Director (Consumer Media) Executive Vice President and Publishing Director (Business Media) dp ONE ON Peter Longc Executive Vice President and Editorial Director ......... Michael J. Mille (Editor-in-Chief, PC Magazine) Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President .. Robert Madore Senior Vice President (Circulation) . . Charles Mas Senior Vice President (Strategic Services) ......... | Rebecca McPheter: Vice President (Corporate Sales) .......................l Ken Beact Vice President (Editor, eWEEK) … John Dodge Vice President . .6. Barry Golsor (Editor-in-Chief, Yat Nice Président: c. 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(Business Media) Director, International Director, Creative Services . Publishing Strategist .. P.O. BOX 234 DEPT 11378 2520 VT. RTE. 100N ROCHESTER,VT 05767 INT'L 802.767.3033 FAX 802.767.3382 Shooter Rel: 05/01 PlayStation. Red Faction THQ Roleplaying Rel: 04/01 Digimon World 2 Triple Play Baseball Aidyn Chronicles Spend the specified amount on any in-stock software and choose one free game from the corresponding list. Request must be made at time of order. Offer good on in-stock items only, while supplies last. Limit 2 per customer. ‘Valid through June 15, 2001. Simulation Rel: 05/01 PlayStation. 2 4 Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec Bistr Mstr Blstng Again Shooter Rel: 03/01 ig PlayStation > Rogue Spear Roleplaying Е" Oracle of Seasons Sports Rel: 01/01 2 PlayStation.? Hot PSX 2 Tiger Woods 2001 $49.95 Star Wars Star Fighter $48.95 Madden Football 2001 $49.95 ATV Off Road Fury $48.95 The Bouncer $48.95 Snowboard SuperX $49.95 Tekken Tag Tournament $48.95 Armored Core 2 $48.95 Hot PSX NBA Live 2001 x WWF Smackdown 2 $39.95 = |Tony Hawk Pro Skater2 $39.95 о ^ Driver 2 $42.95 a eme. Alone in the Dark 4 $39.95 E уй E Breath of Fire IV $44.95 E T, 8 Fear Effect Retro Helix $39.95 5 КОВ MX) Mega Man X5 = ~. FY Chrono Cross HI ; Hot N64 = E Conker's Bad Fur Day Activision Mario Party 3 Donkey Kong 64 Perfect Dark Zelda: Majora’s Mask WWF No Mercy Smash Brothers Pokemon Stadium Hot Gameboy The Simpsons Pokemon Gold Pokemon Silver Scooby Doo Roleplaying Rel: 11/00 ШЕЛ! 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Standard Priority. 5 23 Days Epes Eie Ue, UES” UPS Mall Canada Mali Wand 2005 2208 Day у 47 DNs 7-34 Days 5100 à 8h Бао “Soak и Per Shipment $2.50 50 Per Order — $150 E $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $20 $595 $1450 5200 $600 $1450 — $350 8350 item Total $4.80 — $4.95 $8.55 $19.00 — $5.50 $9.50 $1900 $8.00 — $12.00 EGM 0601 "м C Ka NEXT MONTH July 2001 On sale June 5 It’s only the follow-up to the best-selling system of all time, so you better believe Game Boy Advance will get the blowout treatment next month. We investigate how this “Trojan Horse” system will work hand-in-hand with the GameCube. We pick the best launch games. We'll preview every title in the works. Before you pick up a GBA on June 11, be sure to grab this essential issue first. • 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker reviewed for Dreamcast • First Game Boy Advance reviews • Gran Turismo 3 hands-on preview for PlayStation 2 • Phantasy Star Online version 2 preview for Dreamcast • Dark Cloud and Extermination reviewed for PS2 CAMINE —MONTH LY It's a double-feature feature — we'll deliver insider info on both the Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider summer flicks. "АП editorial content is subject to change PláyStation MAGAZINE Demo Disc Dark Cloud Video Previews “Zelda-killer.” "Sony's Final • Dark Cloud Fantasy.” By now you’ve e Disney's Aladdin surely heard the hype Playables surrounding Sony’s • Grind Session forthcoming “Georama” • Hot Shots Golf 2 RPG. OPM tells you what • Dino Crisis it’s all about in their in- depth feature. Plus, а look at all the latest games on • Klonoa • Pac-Man World ELECTRONIC GAMING == MONTHLY June 2001 On sale May 15 Trick of the Month з. No Purchase Necessary: To enter, send a letter o standard size postcard with your best trick codes for any video game to “Tricks of the Trade,” P.O. Box 3338, Oak Brook, IL 60522:3338, or e-mail us at tricks@ziffdavis com. Be sure to include your name, address, and phone number. No purchase or payment of any money is necessary to enter, One entry per household. Entries must be received by May 14, 2001. Al entries become exclusive property of Sponsors and wil not be acknowledged or retuned. Sponsors assume no responsibilty for lost, mutilated, late, legible, incomplete, postage due, or misdirected entries. Sponsors reserve the right to cancel this contest at any time with appropriate notice. Only one prize per family, organization, or household per issue. Winning entries may be printed in EGM and/or Expert Gamer, however, only one prize shall be awarded 2. Prizes: First Prize winners will have their пате and trick displayed in the magazine and wil receive a video game cartridge selected by Sponsor. First Prize has an approximate retail value of $6.00, The best trick submitted by he First Prize winners wil be declared the Grand Prize Winner receive awards) has an approximate retail value of $99.95, Winners wil be selected by a judging panel whose decisions ate final Winners shall be Selected from all valid entries received. Entries shall be judged on the following cite бана (5 Hovey display at this year’s E3 show, including FFX, Silent Hill 2 and Alone in the Dark. САМЕ June 2001 p А On sale May 22 Zone of the Enders With excellent PS2 games finally starting to come in, it’s no surprise that their lead strategy next month will be Konami’s Zone of the Enders. Get all the info on ZOE and more in XG’s next issue. nd rie wine wi • Zone of the Enders BLOWOUT • Mini-game strategies for Mario Party 3 e Quake Ill for PS2 Slammin’ tactics for Simpsons Wrestling ЖАТК АП prize winners will be notified by mail. Prize(s) are non- 5 winners and the odds of winning will be determined by number of valid entries recived, Electro: Advertiser Index Activision ................ 22-23 www.activision.com Сарсот.................39,124 www.capcom.com Chips & Bits ................119 www.cdmag.com/chips.html Crave Entertainment ....... 67, 69 www.cravegames.com DCShoes ....:.... 0.0.33 www.dcshoes.com Ecko Unlimited............19, 61 www.eckounlimited.com Electronic Arts. ............. 8-9 www.ea.com Electronics Boutique . 41, 47, 57, 65 www.ebworld.com Fluid Milk...................29 www.gotmilk.net Havis-Sierra On-Line ....... 20-21 www.sierra.net Infogrames .........30-31, 44-45 www.infogrames.net Konami of America......... 36-37 www.Konami.com Lucas Learning . . www.lucaslearning.com LucasArts Entertainment11, 122-123 www.Lucasarts.com Namco........... www.namco.com Nyko. www.nyko.com | Sega of America. www.sega.com СЕА www.sony.com Target Stores ....... www.target.com ПОЕ ЕЕ www.THQ.com Ubi Soft Entertainment .........7 www.ubisoft.com Wrigley. 222.2. ы e 22253 www.wrigley.net Метт, www.zdnet.com .. 45 17 A ... 42-43 12-13, 49, 59 SUE costa 2-3, 26a-26d 4. Eligibility: Contest open to residents of United States and Canada, Void in Quebec. Non-compliance with the time parameters contained herein or return of any prize/prize notification as undeliverable will result in disqualification. Winners or their legal guardians shall sign an affidavit eligibility release of liability prize tance within five days of receipt or feit prize. By acceptance of prize, Letter of the Month 1. No Purchase Necessary: To enter, send your letter to EGM Letters, Р.О. Box 3338, Oak Brook, Illinois 60522- 3338, or e-mail us at EGM@ziffdavis,com, Make sure to Include your name, address and phone number. No purchase or payment of any money is necessary to enter, Entries must be received by the 10th day of the month for the next available issue of EGM. 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Winners accepting prizes agree that all prizes are awarded on the condition that "ff Davis Media Inc., InterAct Accessories and their agents, representatives, and. employees will have no abi whatsoever for any injuries, losses, or damages of any kind resulting from acceptance, possession, or use ofthe prizes. 5. Winners ist: For a list of winners, send а stamped, self adéressed envelope identifying the month for which the winners listis requested to “Tricks of the Trade Winners List,” P.O. Box 3338, Oak Brook, Ilinois 60522-3338, Requests for winners lists must be received by the ath day of next month following the on-sale date of the publication. Allow four weeks for delivery of winners list 6. Restrictions: Void where prohibited or restricted by law. Al federal, state and local regulations apply. 7. Sponsors: This contest is sponsored by Zi Davis Media Inc. and IterAct Accessories, Inc. ©2000 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Printed in USA. Your beeper beeps. Your PDA chimes. You can make a quick call wherever you are. Yup, technology is an integral part of everyday life. That's why ZDNet has all the product reviews to help you find the latest gadget. In fact, ZDNet was named “Best Overall Online Site” by the Computer Press Association. However technology touches your life, ZDNet's Reviews Channel has something for you. et www.zdnet.com STAR WARS STARFIGHTER combines intense air and space combat in a fast-paced action-adventure. Live the lives of three fighter pilots in a series of harrowing missions to save the galaxy from the evil Trade Federation. Pilot extraordinary 3D vehicles—including the Naboo N-1 plus a variety of never-before-seen craft—through stunningly real worlds in 14-plus air and space missions. Animated Violence A ~ ТУ © » D / у ње РЕПЕРА 19 de AA) - 2e The Sharpen sword + pa апа AMIE nasce 7 nly Through unyielding Strength la thé Ору dd courage can a Warrior béing-is mullipliea 12913 7 Ие је overcome ЛЕС (anjola by thaw 771 / 7 which at pirat МАО РАТЕ РРА / de /, пореде игид ming: ризи tere. 04 Ché-mind ү / па гр“. Blood and Gore Violence pcom.com of CAPCOM CO.. ГИ). ONIMUSHA ;omputer Entertainment 1 lérnark of the Interactive Digital So! Made with love’ by: