+ DINO CRISIS + NFL BLITZ 2000 + GAUNTLET LEGENDS + HYBRID HEAVEN + ROGUE SPEAR + G-POLICE 2 AND MORE... THE WORLD’S FASTEST HEDGEHOG SPINS BACK INTO ACTION! ^ ERmE! □ FRLLTim next gaming SPECIAL 6TH BIRTHDAY ISSUE - WIN A DREAMCAST PLUS 6 GAMES — rr- ^ r A Happy Birthday to us. Happy Birthday to ua! Hyper iA a big SIX yearA old and we*re happy to Aay that the laAt 73 iAAueA have been a great big blur 0t gratuitouA gaming. When we were drooling over the fact that the Super Nintendo could do Apeech AampleA, and that the Mega Drive waA Atate-ot-the-art gaming hardware, we could never have imagined we would be here today looking at Aomething like the new Sega DreamcaAt which goeA on-Aale thiA month. Lordy! Sonic Adventure iA a Atunning game and proof that Sega Atill know what they're doing, they juAt have to make Aure their great new comole goeA the diAtance. We're hearing more and more reportA of the PlayStation 2 becoming more of a reality tor a launch in Japan Aometime in the new year, and we alAo have the next Nintendo ccnAcle and even a brand new 32-bit Game Boy to look forward to. In termA of where PC gaming iA headed, it juAt kind ct boggleA the mind. Some of the tech¬ nology on the horizon iA going to make our current Aet-upA lock abAolutely pathetic. I gueAA that'A a good thing! In any caAe, thiA next year of Hyper iA going to be one of the moAt exciting yet. In the meantime, we can loAe 0urAelveA in SyAtem Shock 2, Dine CriAiA, Gauntlet LegendA and the inAanely good Wip3cut. Or it you don't feel like gaming, Atick the Wipgout diAc in your CD-player and groove along to the Alammin' beat a. you could alAo Atick your Sonic Adventure diAc in your PC ter a tew little 'extraA'. Maybe you Ahculd juAt kick back on the couch and let ua entertain you with our feature on the Top 50 games of All Time (alwayA a touchy Aubject) which will either have you Aobbing becauAe of the ncAtalgia f or becauAe we didn't include "inAert your favourite retro game here". Oh, and one more thing, it ever there waA a time to AubAcribe to Hyper, that time iA now! Why? Well, maybe you Ahould juAt go take a look at our AubAcriptionA page... bang on. 6 NEWS 30 FEATURE Brand new 32-bit Came Boy on the way. Nintendo’s 64DD comes back from the dead. Experience share-living on your Dreamcast. Colin McRae 2 comes burning down the track. New PlayStation 2 technology. Thrasher gets a hot soundtrack... and more! 14 EYE CANDY 16 PREVIEWS WCW Mayhem - PlayStation/N64 Dead of Alive 2 - Arcade/Dreamcast Ready 2 Rumble Boxing - Dreamcast/N64/PlayStation Shenmue - Dreamcast Trickstyle - Dreamcast/PC Tomb Raider 4 - PlayStation/PC Grand Theft Auto 2 - PlayStation/PC Age of Empires 2 - PC Force Commander - PC Rayman 2 - N64/PC Speed Devils - Dreamcast Hydro Thunder - Dreamcast/ 64/PlayStation 26 UPCOMING LIST 27 WIN WIN WIN Up for grabs - copies of Hybrid Heaven for the Nintendo 64 and Dino Crisis for the PlayStation. Also, subscribe to Hyper this issue and you could win yourself a brand new Sega Dreamcast with six hot games! The Top 50 Games of All Time! See who makes the grade... 38 REVIEWS More massive releases than you can swing a hedgehog at. 83 IMPORT Japanese Mech action. 84 MULTIPLAYER LANs go off and see if Strober can solve your problems... 85 ARCADE 86 NET TRAWLIN’ 87 RETROSPECT It could be a shock to your system. 88 ANIME 90 CHEAT MODE 94 LETTERS 98 HYPERMART DREAMCAST PLAYSTATION NINTENDO 64 PC 40 SONIC ADVENTURE 44 EXPENDABLE 45 MONACO GP 2 46 WIP30UT 54 DINO CRISIS 57 SLED STORM 58 MADDEN 2000 59 BEATMANIA 60 G-POUCE 2 62 EVERYBODY’S GOLF 2 64 GAUNTLET LEGENDS 66 HYBRID HEAVEN 68 NFL BLITZ 2000 70 NEW TETRIS 71 MONSTER TRUCK MADNESS 64 72 40 WINKS 82 SHAD0WGATE 64 74 SYSTEM SHOCK 2 76 ROGUE SPEAR 78 FORCE 21 80 JAGGED ALLIANCE 2 MAC 82 CAESAR III Clict CONTENTS ISSUE 73 November 1999 Editor: Eliot Fish Art Director: Brooke-Star Elliott Deputy Editor: Cam Shea Publisher: Jim Flynn ADVBlTlSmG National Sales Director Steve Watson Senior Advertising Manager. Julie Ann-Kwok Sales Executive: Kylie Evans Advertising Production Manager Emma Beck Ph: 02 9699 0333 Fax: 02 9310 2012 Production Manager Melissa Doyle Circulation Director Mark Rogan Group Accountant Mick Molloy Managing Director Phillip Keir Subscriptions Enquiries ph: 02 9699 0319 Fax: 02 9699 0334 email: subs@nextcom.au CONTRIBUTORS: Kevin Cheung, Tony Montana, Malcolm Campbell, Dan Toose, Singe Graham, Nick O'Shea, Arthur Adam, Hugh Norton-Smith, DMC, Adam Roff, March Stepnik, Tim Levy. Strober, lots of coffee. Printed CTP by: Offset Alpine Distribution by: Gordon & Gotch Customer Service Ph: 1300 65 0666 Fax: 1300 650777 All copyrights reserved by Next Publishing Pty Ltd ACN 002 647 645 ISSN 1320-7458 WRITE TO HYP®! 78 Renwick St Redfern, NSW 2016 Fax: (02)9281 6188 E-mail: freakscene@nextcom.au page 28 THE RETURN OF SONIC... AND SEGA 30 THE TOP SO GAMES OF ALL TIME! ^ Take a peek inside the Hyper crystal ball to see which hot games from the last 27 years of gaming are worthy of our Top 50. We guarantee that you’ll be surprised by a few. This is all about games we’d still want to play... 46 WIP 30 UT LEAVES THEM ALL FOR DEAD Psygnosis have finished the much anticipated Wipeout 3, and we can tell you now that you might as well just super-glue it into your PlayStation. Have we just seen the last great PlayStation game? Sonic Adventure gets the Hyper once-over to see if the Sega mascot has lost any of his magic. This is the month you can get your hands on a Dreamcast, so check these reviews out now! »HYPER 3 ii DREAMTIME Sonic Team is apparently working on four new titles. No details have been released as yet, aside from four mysterious logos. Each logo has been given a codename. They are: Kaigi, Samba, Chu 2 and Pso. Check ’em out and see if you can pick what the games will be. More details when they come to light. <© Z E L D A G A I D E N In addition to the 64DD Ura Zelda, a completely new Zelda adventure is on the way. It takes place not long after the conclusion to Ocarina of Time and sees Link venture into an alternate dimension - almost a parallel universe to Hyrule. The landscape seems eerily familiar, as do the faces he encounters. However, this world is in crisis, as a gigantic moon is falling to Earth and will surely destroy all life. From the footage we’ve seen, Zelda Gaiden will keep fans very very happy. It’s more of the same classic Zelda gameplay, with some VERY cool innovations. The most important of which is the new mask system. Putting on a mask turns Link into a completely different creature (many of whom were in Ocarina of Time), with its own powers. There will be around 20 masks to collect, and each creature enables Link to do radically different things. You’ll need to be familiar with the traits of each mask to progess in the game. Each mask/creature also has its own instrument, so rather than just an Ocarina, Link will be able to play different tunes with each mask for different results. Another interesting gameplay quirk will be the role that time plays, as you must race to save the world from destruction. The detail and variety in the graphics are a step up from Ocarina of Time, as Gaiden requires the 4MB expansion pak to run. Rather than just upping the resolution though, the pak will be used for higher framerates and displaying more enemies on screen at once. Zelda Gaiden is currently due to be released in March 2000 in Japan. ROOMMANIA #203 Sega are developing the world’s first “room mate simulation’’. Yep, his name’s Neji and he looks like a right tosser (no offence to all you clean cut, skivvy wearing, "wind blowing through your hair on a sunny Autumn day" types out there). From what we can gather, Roommania #203 is a bit like a tamagotchi game... only it’s not some cute little blob, it’s a virtual human. The concept definitely has potential, but at this stage looks far too wholesome. Where’s the anarchy? The real fun would be in seeing how far you can push the roommate, by doing things like: never washing the dishes; leaving clothes everywhere; buying a PA and holding house parties the night before his exams; chatting up his girlie; or playing pranks like blindfolding him with the promise of a “really big surprise”, only to reveal that you’ve thrown all his belongings out onto the street. Indeed, just how much of a bastard you can be is yet to be determined. We wait with bated breath. F X 64DD CAPABILITIES 64DD ON THE WAY (ft Well, the 64DD is coming to the land of the rising sun, and there are plenty of games with "hooks” already imbedded in their code to enable 64DD capabilities. F Zero X was the first game with 64DD capabilities built right in, and what exciting possibilities they are! Whack the F Zero X expansion disk into your DD and you’re in for a treat. First up, there are two new championships to compete in, but that’s only the beginning, because it’s all about customisation. You can build a racer from the ground up - pick all the body types, then give it a going over with the paint tools, before configuring your racer’s all important speed/boost and grip options. Not all that excited? Then imagine the possibilities of creating your own tracks. With a 3D grid at your disposal, you can add track elements like jumps, booster pads, corkscrews and loop the loops to forge the ultimate ride. Around 100 tracks can be saved to the disk. Awesome eh? Apple have unleashed the new PowerMac C4 into the fray, boasting even more of a gaming set-up than any of their previous systems. The G4 chip uses something called the Velocity Engine which processes information in 128-bit chunks as opposed to 32 or 64 bit chunks like in most PCs. The C4 can calculate one billion floating calculations per second - that’s one Gigaflop in tech terms - which is basically a staggering amount of processing power. According to Apple, the G4 outperforms the Pentium III 600 by roughly three times! Here are some specs for the boffins amongst you... Processor ■ 400, 450, or 500MHz PowerPC G4 processor ■ Velocity Engine vector processing unit with 162 integrated Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) instructions ■ Full 128-bit internal memory data paths ■ Powerful new floating¬ point unit supporting single-cycle, double¬ precision calculations ■ iMB backside level 2 cache running at half the processor speed ■ 100-MHz system bus supporting up to 800- MBps data throughput Graphics support ■ ATI RAGE 128 graphics card with 16MB of SDRAM graphics memory installed in a dedicated graphics slot (either a 66-MHz PCI slot or a 133-MHz AGP 2X slot) Memory ■ 64MB, 128MB or 256MB of PC100 SDRAM ■ Four DIMM slots support up to 1.5GB of PC100 SDRAM (999MB maximum per application) After a gestation period longer than the African elephant, it looks like Nintendo’s 64DD will finally see the light of day... in japan only, that is. Even so, it’s going to be a pretty unique addition to the N64, end we have some juicy new informa¬ tion it the software that will make or break the system. First up is the communi¬ cation software that sets up (for God’s sake don’t call it educational), rather than just games. At the forefront of this creative charge is the Mario Artist range. This encompasses: Paint Studio. A deluxe update of SNES Mario Paint. You can create your own pictures, animations and video and then apply filters and tools to them. Polygon Studio. Build your in creating your character (much like WWF Attitude), from the body to the clothes and even items for him/her to hold. As if dressing a digital you up isn’t surreal enough, you’ll even be able to select a scenario for your character to be in, which is executed with some great motion capturing. Other games that are in development for the 64DD pLjTS 3 EM oQH —- p[ la ra \ -^0 • ~rss- 1 ~\ jail 1 the DD’s network capabilities. You’ll be able to surf the web, send and receive email, and download mini games. Online software will also be available, including "Digital Horse Racing Newspaper”, which is an information service dedicated to the exciting world of horse racing (we kid you not), and many of the games will be playable against human opponents over the network. The niche that the 64DD will really be pushing is in creative software applications own polygonal models, and texture them. There may also be the option of exporting the models into compatible games. Talent Studio. A full character creation suite. The first step is to take a piccie of your face or body parts with the Game Boy Camera, then import it into Talent Studio. From there you can edit and colour the image and map it onto the head of your polygonal character. There’s heaps of versatility include: Ura Zelda (A different interpretation of Ocarina of Time). Doshin the Giant (from the makers of Tail of the Sun and Aquanaut’s Holiday). Game Maker F-Zero X Expansion Kit Sim City 64 Nintendo Pro Golf Tour 64 Mahjong Cabbage (whilst the name isn’t final, this is the most exciting title on the list as it’s a virtual pet game from Shigeru Miyamoto). COMPETITION WINNERS Rejoice! For free games and goodies are yours! POKEMON Nathan Ellerby, SA Zac van Wees, WA Elana Pelosi, Vic Grant Armitage, NSW John Pace, Vic SHADOWMAN David Flodine, Qld Michael Donelli, Vic Yulangi Bardon, Qld Mike Williams, NSW Daniel Tam, WA Paul Heavens, WA P. Petherbridge, NSW Andrew Radich, Qld V-RALLY 2 Chris Loney, Qld Carl Rogers, SA HYPER» 7 Codemasters, the legends behind Colin McRae Rally, have just snapped up an upcoming off-road driving game called Off the Road for PC and PlayStation. Hopefully out by Christmas, Off the Road allows you to get behind the wheel of 4X4S, trucks, buggies and military vehicles in 18 huge ’go-anywhere’ environments. Of course, there’s a multiplayer feature which should provide some hardcore competitive racing, with a crazy reckless twist. Gameplay is looking a little like Monster Truck Madness, but with faster vehicles at hand. Off the Road has the potential to be a real blast, and Codemasters seem to know a good game when they see one, so we’re very curious to see how this one turns out. PlayStation owners are finally going to get the chance to hoe into some X-Files kookiness. The game is based on the PC title, which you may recall we gave 90% back in Issue 57 (July '98). Expect the game to play very much like an interactive X-Files episode, with the player exploring locations, finding and deciphering clues, and talking to other characters, in order to solve whatever weirdness is going down. The video quality is looking awesome, and this should be the best game of its type on the PlayStation by a long way. The X-Files will ship on four discs, to eight planets, spanning three galaxies and two million light years. Look out for it soon. COLIN MCRAE RALLY 2 ANNOUNCED! It owned us for many months, it was a gorgeous creation, it oozed sex appeal and made life worth living. It was Colin McRae Rally from Codemasters. Thank the maker, as Colin McRae Rally 2 has been announced for PC and PlayStation! We’re going to pump the office full of bubble-bath and strip down in celebration! The focus this time around will be on McRae’s Ford Focus team rather than the Suburus of the first game. Codemasters are making sure that CMR2 will have some of the best graphics seen yet, whilst retaining the wonderful driving feel of the original. There’s no doubt this is going to be one of the big games of 2000 for driving game fans. Charts kindly supplied by Hitech World PLAYSTATION NINTENDO 64 PC V-RALLY 2 1 GOLDENEYE 007 1 KINGPIN DRIVER 2 STAR WARS: RACER 2 TIBERIAN SUN APE ESCAPE 3 ZELDA64 3 BRAVEHEART TONY HAWK SKATEBOARDING 4 QUAKE 2 4 MECHWARRIOR 3 METAL GEAR SOLID 5 P0KEM0NSNAP 5 LANDER OMEGA BOOST 6 MARIO GOLF 6 EVERQUEST FINAL FANTASY VII 7 COMMAND & CONQUER 30 7 BALDUR’S GATE CROC 2 8 SHADOWMAN 8 QUAKE 2 SYPHON FILTER 9 F-1 WORLD GRAND PRIX 9 SHADOWMAN 1 SOUL REAVER 10 SUPER MARIO 64 10 HEAVY GEAR 2 CHARTS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS f/m r*cjF=no rmaNts Luom-m CHFmr^icjNsi-nn 9 VLrlnl -between Actual Screen Shots Real Speed, Real Teams, Real Bikes... Can you handle the power of the fastest accelerating and breaking machine in the world today? BPSOO lets you race the main event: the SOOcc World Championship. Can you take it to the limit under pressure from the best riders in the world? It's about technique, knowing the track, knowing your opponents, understanding your SOOcc powerhouse. “This game gave me the biggest adrenaline rush Vve ever had _ without hitting 180 mph on a real track ." Kenny Roberts Jr. Team Suzuki HASBRO Interactive © 1999 Hasbro Interactive. Inc. All Rights Reserved 10 »HYPER V KI R BY 64^ THE PINK BLOB RISES AGAIN Remember Kirby’s Air Ride? It was originally shown at Nintendo's 1995 Spaceworld expo. It was a hoverboard/racing game of sorts, with weird undulating checkerboard levels. After being in the works for a couple of years it disappeared off the release lists, never to be seen again. Well, it’s time to party like it’s 1999 ’cos Kirby’s finally coming home to roost (c’mon - he looks like the roosting type!). Only, it’s not Kirby’s Air Ride, it’s a new Kirby adventure, in the mould of an old school 2D platform game. Unsurprisingly, the ultimate objective is to save a kidnapped princess, but the gameplay is much less run of the mill. The variety of Kirby’s abilities is quite amazing, as he can acquire a huge number of skills and weapons from the enemies he meets. Taking a pseudo 3D approach, this new Kirby title is looking to be a colourful and challenging romp. More details soon. PLAYSTATION 2 RUMOURINGS A weird new feature that could be included in some of the upcoming PlayStation 2 games is random fractal generating code. What this means is that any game which would normally use repeating textures - like an adventure game which displays a brick texture on the walls of the dungeon - will now be able to generate those fractals randomly allowing for the environment to never look the same. That way environments will seem more realistic than ever, as you will never see any textures repeated. Cool stuff. THRASHER Rockstar’s upcoming "Thrasher: Skate and Destroy” skateboarding title is set to have one of the greatest soundtracks in a game thus far. The track listing features a phenomenal collection of hip-hop classics well suited to a skate game. Here they are: • Sugar Hill Gang - Rappers’ Delight • Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - White Lines (Don’t Do It) • Afrika Bambaataa and Soul Sonic Force - Planet Rock • Run DMC - King of Rock • Stetsasonic - Talkin’ All That Jazz • Ultramagnetic MC’s - Kool Keith Housin' Things • Eric B. and Rakim - I Know You Got Soul • EPMD - I’m Housin’ • Public Enemy - Rebel Without A Pause • A Tribe Called Quest - Award Tour • Gang Starr - Just To Get A Rep In addition to this fantastic lineup are some more dance-orientated tracks for the levels set in London and Germany: • The Freestylers -Freestyle Noize • Deejay Punk Roc - My Beatbox • Sniper - Crossfader Dominator • Hardknox - Coz I Can PETT 991953 M PlaySiation 3 © 1998 RSE Holdings. Inc. AH rights reserved, fffed Storm Entertainment is a trademark of Ja$ Ryan Enterprises, lilffnd firry Bond. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six is a trademark Jack of All Games holds the exclusive license to Rainbow Six in the territories of Australia and New Zealand. NINTENDO®. NINTENDO 64 and Q are trademarks #f It The Take 2 logo is a registered trademark of Take 2 Interactive (Europe) Ltd. All other logos and marks are registered properties of their owners. of Refi Swnr Entertainment. Inc. (•.Nintendo Co.. Ltd. 12 »HYPER OVERFLOW (/) 3 u GAME BOY 2! ■■ Nintendo have finally put to rest endless speculation on how they would follow up their stupidly successful Game Boy hand-held. Temporarily titled the Game Boy Advance, this would finally be an actual Game Boy 2 as opposed to simple technology updates like Nintendo have done with Game Boy Pocket and Came Boy Color. The Game Boy Advance will house a 32-bit RISC CPU, have twenty hours of battery life, a reflective colour LCD, be capable of 65,000 colours with a resolution of 240X160 and even have the ability to connect to the internet via a mobile phone so users can download software and play games multiplayer. In another awesome move, we’ve heard that the new Game Boy will be backwards-compatible with all the Game Boy and Game Boy Color games already on the market. We smell another massive success story. Currently, Nintendo have their sights set on an August 2000 release for japan which could mean we won’t see the Game Boy Advance in Australia until the year 2001. JORDAN GETS SIGNED Gran Turismo 2 will ship on two CDs (they’ve packed a LOT of licenses into that sucker). It should be out in Japan by the time you read this. The upcoming mother of all N64 first person shooters, Perfect Dark, will take advantage of the Game Boy Pak. This device enables gamers to take photos of themselves with the Game Boy Camera, then upload that image into Perfect Dark to be mapped onto a character’s face. Just think of the possibilities... whack your teacher's ugly mug on a character and then kick his ass! Deathmatch will never be the same again. The Sony vs Bleem! legal battle is still being waged, despite the fact that Bleem! has legally been on sale for several months in the US. Sony has failed for the fourth time to get an injunction passed to stop sales of Bleem! software. Despite this, it’s unlikely that this is the last we’ll hear from Sony on the subject of Bleem! FOR NBA LIVE 2000! That’s right you heard it here first! Robert Jordan, bearded author of the fantasy series Wheel of Time, has been asked to sign on as the main star attraction of NBA Live 2000 and... eh, what’s that? Oh. Er... well then, in a move which is sure to have cost EA Sports an amount of money that could buy a small island in the South Pacific, Michael "Basketball Legend” Jordan has been signed by EA Sports to appear in NBA Live 2000, as well as hopefully contribute to the motion-capturing process. The main reason Jordan signed was to feature in the 'Legends of the game’ mode which will be included in the final game. After Space Jam, we get the feeling that Michael could possibly have been looking for something to restore a little credibility to his resume. Heh. If you’re not a Michael Jordan fan, then there’s always the create a player feature along the lines of the custom wrestler modes seen in the WWF games. But no-one would dis Jordan, would they? Naaaaah. Blizzard’s Diablo 2 has been revealed as an elaborate hoax - the game never was or will be in development. Apparently, screenshots were created using cows in costumes superimposed over a scale plasticine set. Umm... yeah. Actually, Diablo 2 is finally nearing completion, and will (hopefully) be out by Christmas. At the moment the game is being tweaked and bug- tested. For an early look, keep an eye out for the Diablo 2 beta testing program sometime soon. Legend entertainment are currently working on Unreal 2, much to the delight of the Hyper crew. Since they have put the finishing touches on the fantastic looking Wheel of Time (details next issue), Unreal 2 is very much underway, as well as a mysterious secret project. The PlayStation 2 may ship with software which enables users to import pictures from their digital cameras. The pictures will then be able to be used on custom-made email postcards and even transformed into 3D graphics. More details will be available as Sony begin lifting the veil of secrecy on the machine towards the end of this year... The Resident Evil movie still trundles along, even though Director George Romero had his script rejected. Capcom are eyeing all the details carefully to ensure the movie follows their successful game series to the letter. We hope the caliber of acting in the movie is better than the voice acting in the game! “What IS IT?!’’ YET TO BE CLASSIFIED Jock of Al Gooks bolds ike eidesive tcrase to GTA2 io tke territories of Aisle oka and New Zealood. PlayStation and tke PlayStation k are registered trod e awrks of Sony (ompoter btertnioairnl Inc. aod are osed ooder Iceose io Aostrolo by Jodi of Al Gooes. DMA aod DMA (090 are trademarks of DMA Design Ltd. Rockstm Genes, tke Rodslar logo, Grood Tbeft Aoto 2, aod Grood TWft Aato 2 logo trademarks of Take Two loteractive Software, lac. © 1999 Al rights reserved. fflTW22S4 PlayStation TAKE 2 14 »HYPER > < o m MAC/PC BUNGIE Bungie seem to have a knack for pulling out something cool for the Mac when we least expect it. Halo is looking like one of those titles that will put most PC games to shame, although we wouldn’t be surprised to see this one pop up on other platforms such as the PC shortly after it’s Macintosh birth. The 3D world, character models and potentially magnificent gameplay all add up to one possibly life-altering ex¬ perience for Mac Gamers out there hankering for some¬ thing new. Games don’t look much sexier than this one at the moment. Let’s hope that when Halo arrives, it still looks as shiny and golden as it does now. For the moment, it’s just more goodness for your peepers. > Starfleet Command PC INTERPLAY Now that Bones is a bunch of bones, we thought we should honour the legend with a look at this sexy-looking Real Time Tactical combat game from Interplay. As far as a Star Trek experience goes, this looks like it will be hard to beat. Even the menus are designed to make you feel like you’re sitting at a starship control station. If you like a bit of colour in your strategy titles, then get a gander at this 3D engine - pretty indeed. There’s a whole bunch of new Star Trek games coming our | way from Interplay, so start ironing your Starfleet uniform and dig out your pointy ears. o HYPER» IS 16 »HYPER J i in S in K a WCW Mayhem PLAYSTATION/N64 AVAILABLE: NOVEMBER CATEGORY: WRESTLING PLAYERS: 1-2 PUBLISHER: ELECTRONIC ARTS The dream lives on. Unfortunately the rest of the world wishes that who¬ ever is dreaming would just wake up. Those wrestling freaks are coming back to console this Christmas and ee they’re bringing their tZ stretchy undies and gimp masks with them. ^ WCW Mayhem is defi- = nitely going to be one for fans of the sport, with more wrestling celebrities than you can smack chairs over the heads of and the new ability to keep pummeling them sense¬ less in the change rooms. We’re serious. WCW Mayhem allows you to fight backstage, rather than under the pretty lights of the wrestling ring. So if you thought it was all smiles and cups of tea in the green room... well, actually you’d probably be right, but at least we can pretend that they real¬ ly hate each other in the game. As you may have suspected, you can also create your own mad wrestler by choosing facial features and body parts until you’ve created the strangest freak known to humanity. Better motion capture this time around, coupled with the digitised wrestlers, should hopefully result in some very entertaining bouts. Play-by-play commen¬ tary, rad music and a good sense of humour adds the icing on the cake to this upcoming muscle meet. Dead Or Alive 2 siries, whilst encouraging ARCADE/DREAMCAST AVAILABLE: TBA CATEGORY: 3D FIGHTER PLAYERS: 1-2 PUBLISHER: TECMO The evolution of 3D fighting games continues unabat¬ ed... and damn we love it! There’s been a steady stream of innovation ever since Virtua Fighter first hit the arcades. The genre has moved steadily from (essentially) 2D play mechanics to true 3D movement. Tecmo’s Dead Or Alive 2 looks 25 like it may take the next step in the evolu- cb tion of the 3D fighter, 9 to make it a cinematic ^ _ experience. The concept is like a mix between the wide open envi¬ ronments of Bushido Blade and the fighting mechanics of the original Dead or Alive. Unlike a game like Powerstone, Dead Or Alive 2 won’t be interactive in the sense that you can swing around poles and pick up boxes to hurl at your opposi¬ tion. Instead, it will remain true to the origin of the strategic use of the huge and complex arenas. GETTING JIG®LY WITH IT As the screenshots show, the environs are large, with the freedom to fight anywhere. Each arena features several sections, the most stunning example of which is the out¬ door mountaineous area. It’s a huge outdoor arena, com¬ plete with interconnecting open temples, trees, rocky outcrops and a I — waterfall. One of the most awesome scenes we’ve seen from the game sees one charac¬ ter getting knocked off the waterfall into a pool below only to have the other player jump down after him and pick up the fight on the lower platform. Other stages include an industrial ware¬ house, a cathedral and a snowy outdoor level com¬ plete with Easter Island stone heads. The potential for thrilling, cinematic fight scenes is huge. Indeed, watching skilled players fight will rival watching a Hong Kong kung fu film. The detail in each of the arenas we ve seen is absolutely mind boggling - especially given their size and the detail of the smoothly rendered characters. Dead Or Alive 2’s graphics also scream with vivacity - this game is bright. Not in a garish way, but in a crisp, striking way. Dead Or Alive 2 will also include a tag team option. Thus, the fighting will be fast paced and unpredictable, and really push the Naomi hardware - as three^and pos¬ sibly even four) characters may be on screen at the one time. Dead Or Alive 2 wilrbe out in the arcades first, but a Dreamcast version is in the works. Dead Or Alive 2 is cer¬ tainly going to be an innova¬ tive game, and with the return of all the female char¬ acters from the original (plus some new ones) you can rest assured it’ll be bouncy too. (ft 3 in HYPER» 17 Ready Rumb DREAMCAST/N64/ PLAYSTATION AVAILABLE: NOVEMBER CATEGORY: 3D BOXING PLAYERS: 1-2 PUBLISHER: MIDWAY Boxing, it’s truly the sport of kings. You’d be hard pressed to find a more majestic and beautiful discipline this side of a good stint in the army... or perhaps a medieval torture room. That said, a career in boxing doesn’t necessarily lead to cauliflower ears, rapid brain cell loss and the phrase "I love youse all”. Indeed, if Ready 2 Rumble is anything to go by, RSI may be your only concern. Ready 2 Rumble is being billed (by us that is) as the first truly worthy successor to Super Punch Out on the SNES. Not since those hallowed days has a boxing game had so much character, playability and sense of fun. There’s no anal realism to be found here, just solid arcade action. Midway have gone all out putting this one together. Everything from the presen¬ tation, to the character ani¬ mations and the game mechanics will rock your world. There’s a cast of 16 wacky boxers to choose from, each sporting their own style and attitude. From Jet "Iron” Chin, with his martial arts inflected fists of fury, to Afro Thunder, with his... er, mas¬ sive afro, Ready 2 Rumble will have plenty of replaya¬ bility, especially in champi¬ onship mode. In this mode you’re in the role of both boxer and trainer. You’ll be signing new recruits, boost¬ ing your boxer’s stats in training, and generally keep¬ ing your stable in order. The fighting mechanics aren’t as hardcore as VF3TB, but there’ll be plenty of strat¬ egy to go around, especially given the 3D movement. The basic boxing moves and dodges are common to all characters, but each also has many unique moves, not to mention rumble moves. Charge up the rumble meter and for a short time you’ll be more powerful and have the "rumble moves” at your dis¬ posal... or rather, for your opponent’s disposal. There are also several useful camera angles. The default is the standard side on position, but you can also play from a first person perspective (a la Super Punch Out), or from the other fighters perspective - if you’ve got to go down, you might as well watch yourself getting pummeled #? Ready 2 Rumble isAeing developed for Dreamcast, and PlayStation, but it’s th^ Dreamcast version that has us frothing at the mouth - it looks phenomenal. The visu¬ als are almost verging on claymation (that’s a good thing by the way). The char¬ acter models are beautifully rendered, they move smooth¬ ly and you can really see the force when a blow lands. Better yet, as a character takes damage, so does their model. Eyes blacken and lips fatten until all that’s left is a bloody mess on the canvas. Woo hoo! Woo hoo! Woo hoo! Woo hoo! doubt that Sega’s team have slaved over this g game until it has become something truly remarkable. We’ve all heard the reports from E3 that ep I Shenmue’s gameplay ||| was a disappointing ^1 return to the retarded days of Dragons Lair, yet there seems to be more than meets the eye here in terms of depth of gameplay. Sure, the action sequences involve simply pressing the right button at the right time, and conversations were definitely a linear experience, however there seemed to be a level of interaction with the environ¬ ment that should keep most gamers busy for a very long time. From playing a game of darts, to buying a can of Coke from a vending machine, there seemed to be lots to do everywhere your character could explore. But Shenmue is play it simply so you can see everything - the environments, the characters and how the plot pans out. In one hilarious AVAILABLE: TBA CATEGORY: ADVENTURE PLAYERS: 1 PUBLISHER: SEGA sequence, you must chase the head of Sega down a series of streets, the relevence to the plot we couldn’t quite fathom at the time, but heck it was cool. There’s also a real sense of personality from all the characters that you can meet, thanks to the detail and depth of facial expres¬ sions. In terms of an adven¬ ture game, Shenmue will have you captivated for days simply with bumping into characters in the street to talk to. Apparently, Sega will be releasing the game in a series of "episodes” - as many as 18 - which is unheard of in the console domain. Hopefully, next issue we will be able to give you a full review of this seri¬ ously fascinating game. Sega have been hyping Shenmue as the game which truly shows off the Dream- cast’s next generation power. Now that we’ve seen and played some of the game with our own eyes, we can tell you that they weren’t bluff¬ ing. Shenmue is truly stun- j^ng. You’ll get goosebumps wien you see the beautiful gravies shimmering on your -< "0 PREVIEWS 3 ui IU a o Cl DREAMCAST/PC AVAILABLE: NOW Trick Style CATEGORY: FUTURE RACING PLAYERS: 1-2 PUBLISHER: ACCLAIM TURN SOME TRICKS Trick Style isn’t just straight racing. Stunts are an integral part of winning races, since landing them successfully boosts your speed. The moves are looking very cool indeed, with all sorts of spinning, flipping and breakdancing just waiting to be unleashed. Each racer even has their own stances, which can be used to access additional tricks. We’re quite pleased with how Trick Style is looking at the moment - the graphics are incredibly detailed and techy, the handling is good and the tricks show potential. With a little frame-rate tweaking, Trick Style will be totally valid. for After the likes of Streak and Air Boarders USA, gamers could be forgiven for think¬ ing that the "futuristic hover- board racing dudes” game genre was dead in the water. Extreme games and gameplay seemed like polar oppo¬ sites... until now. Criterion Studios are looking to bring a "Marty McFly on acid” vibe to the Dreamcast and PC with their futuristic, 1 techy title Trick Style. ! Part skateboarding, part j surfing, and part street : luge, Trick Style is already a real contender your hard earned dosh. As one of nine funky racers, you’ll compete in high speed, stunt-filled races through the highs and lows of three cityscapes of the future. Each city - London, Manhattan and Tokyo, has five vibrant and detailed courses to take on. Some landmarks, like Big Ben and the Statue of Liberty, will be instantly familiar, but much of the cities will be barely recognisable. Manhattan, for instance, is a far cry from the decaf-swilling cultural trend¬ setter it is today. Worldwide climate change has left the old city decaying amidst a dense tropical jungle floor, with the new city’s skyscrapers rising up above the canopy. The best part though, is that races take place through both the old and the new. imva ivttww i ivviiix Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation PLAYSTATION/PC AVAILABLE: NOVEMBER CATEGORY: ACTION/ADVENTURE PLAYERS: 1 PUBLISHER: EIDOS Is Lara Croft the Antichrist? Okay, maybe not, but in the Last Revelation, she does take part in some weird plot to do with the alignment of the stars on the eve of the new millennium. Sounds suitably apoca¬ lyptic to us. Down in Egypt, there’s a hidden ac ■ tomb to be raided and a cl strange mystery to be ^ ^ solved, so it’s a job for Lara "Indy” Croft, of g | course. The fourth Tomb Raider installment is almost here, and it promises to be a seamless gaming experience. Set completely in Egypt (that’s right, no more globe¬ trotting this time around) Lara’s got a whole new bag of tricks. One of these new tricks we can actually thank those clever boffins at Eidos for - no loading times! The dread¬ ed loading times have been cleverly hidden beneath streaming FMV, so that game- play appears conveniently fluid. No more sitting around staring at the stains on the carpet, chewing on your nails and day-dreaming about Lara whilst the next bunch of brown polygons loads up. THE 4TH COMING Now, we’re sure the question on the tippy tips of your tongues is "how does Lara look this time around?” Well, besides the fact that we’ve only seen her getting dirty in her ’classic’ outfit, the actual game character has been completely remodelled to look smoother and er... rounder all over again. We’re not sure on any new outfits ’Barbie-style’ like last time, but frankly, we always pref- ered Lara in her stretchy green top. Better tex¬ turing in both Lara and I her environment is obvious too. New lighting techniques (again) allow for reflecting light, spot¬ lighting and other funky effects, which will obvious be used to a great extent considering that something to do with the plot involves staring up at the stars to observe some mystical event. Lara’s inven¬ tory system has also changed, with a handy new map feature (which will even let loose the odd gameplay hint) and a ’diary’, though we’re not sure why we would really want access to Lara's inner-most thoughts and desires. Okay, well... so maybe we would. Eidos have also promised even more new 'moves’ for Lara herself. Hopefully we can convince someone in the office to play another Tomb Raider game and bring you a review soon. PREVIEWS 22 »HYPER 111 K a Grand Theft Auto 2 PLAYSTATION/PC AVAILABLE: NOVEMBER CATEGORY: THUG SIM PLAYERS: 1 PUBLISHER: ROCKSTAR Right, then. You’ve survived the right-royal rumble with the terry tit ’eads and cloth eared tarts back in merry old 1969? Then step forth my son, and look to the future... Grand Theft Auto 2 is a free¬ wheelin’ ride through an anar¬ chistic city collapsing from its own crime and corrup¬ tion. The philosophy of the game is basically the same as in GTA (do what the hell you want, but don’t get caught) but £ taken to a new glorious- ^ ly potent level. GTA 2 claims to simulate a liv¬ ing, breathing city with an amazing freedom to TCB (take care of business) your own way. Freedom is key to GTA2. You can approach the game any way you want, and there’ll be many ways to acquire work. You could become a vigilante and systematically eliminate the city’s undesirables, get behind the wheel of a cab and ferry people around for cash, start dealing dope (Tony montana style - "say hello to my little friend"), or even lose the plot as a serial killer... y’know, just for fun. The city is dominated by seven gangs - the Hari Krishnas, the Loonies, the Rednecks (complete with trail¬ er park complex - yeehah!), the Russian Mafia, the SRS, the Yakuza, and the Zaibatsu Corporation (a commercial facade for a drug ring). Each gang has their own turf, poli¬ tics and areas of interest. The Russian Mafia, for instance, run the weapons trade and contract killings, whereas the Yakuza control extortion, prostitution, and illegal gam¬ bling. You’ll be able to form an allegiance with one or several of the gangs, and possibly start some serious turf warfare BREAKIN' THE LAW The city will seem more alive and the inhabitants more intelligent than in GTA. Your actions will have real conse¬ quences, and other citizens will react to your actions. The graphics engine will also help the impression of a bustling city, with up to 50 vehicles and 200 pedestrians on screen at once. Compared to the ’ello ello ’ello bobbies of London in 1969, GTA2 ’s law enforcement is just a tad more oppressive. If the cops can’t bring you down, they’ll call in a SWAT team. If they fail, you’ll have the special forces on your tail. Last but not least the military will take control, complete with tanks and armoured personnel carriers. Bring it on baby! As you can see, the graphics are lightyears ahead of the original, with fantastic lighting and explosion effects - not to mention gibs (with the requisite blood spray). GTA2 is going to improve on the original in every way, without losing its unique and addictive chemistry. Full review as soon as possible. I HI Age of Empires 2 PC AVAILABLE: NOVEMBER CATEGORY: STRATEGY PLAYERS: 1-MULTI PUBLISHER: MICROSOFT Seeing as Bill Cates is pretty good at commanding large armies in the pursuit of world domination, we can only guess that Age of Empires 2 is going to be absolute¬ ly awesome. Well, we do also know that the first game was dam brilliant, 5 I so there’s a little more £1 substance to our argu- ca I ment. Age of Empires 2^1 takes us deeper into the ^ £ ancient art of war. Subtitled "the Age of Kings”, the sequel offers far more depth in terms of resources and trading, as well as a far more complex of combat units and a host of other improve¬ ments over the original. Almost everything which was an issue in Age of Empires has been addressed this time around, without affecting the game’s subtle balance between empire building and actual strategic combat. Graphically, the game is look¬ ing stunning with far more detailed and realistic environ¬ ments. The game’s developer, Ensemble Studios, have been very careful though to not make the game too complex or daunting for the average gamer. So whilst there’s going to be enough goodness here to satisfy the I hardcore strate¬ gy nuts, just about anyone will be able to get a handle on all aspects of the game. Look for¬ ward to bump¬ ing into historical fig¬ ures, and maybe even learning a little some¬ thing when you lock yourself away for six months to play the game to death. Hyper has already put aside the Christmas holidays to play this one. (/) 3 in IT U"'l |-*fel to focus more on the exciting action depicted in the films rather than how exactly the Imperials power their AT-ATs. Budding rebels and green Sith Lords will be allocated a number of units and be faced with achieving certain mis¬ sion goals with the resources you already have. Thanks to the 3D engine, we can now zoom right between the legs of walkers and observe the laser fights from the ground level. LucasArts have successfully trans¬ ported us into the Star Wars space com¬ bat with the X-Wing games, and now it looks like we’ll final¬ ly get a taste what it’s like to get down and dirty with hordes of Stormtroopers. Expect thundering sound straight from the LucasFilm sound library, and combat on all your favourite Star Wars plan¬ ets - including some we’ve never had a chance to visit before. Big review hy¬ perspacing your way soon. Force Commander PC AVAILABLE: NOVEMBER CATEGORY: 3D STRATEGY PLAYERS: 1-MULTI PUBLISHER: LUCASARTS Finally, Force Commander is back on track for release. It’s been a while since we’ve had a good look at the promising Star Wars strat- egy-fest from LucasArts, but we’re happy to report as that not only will we be playing the final game * soon, but some massive improvements have been » made to the game since * we last took a peek. Instead of resource manage¬ ment (which had a bantha- full of in Rebellion), Force Commander has been altered -< m 50 K> 04 ■ 3 u III K a CL > CM we had a romp through the version that’s currently being polished to perfection. Rayman 2 had platform- ■ ing quality stamped all j over it. The little guy himself, Rayman, was M j bristling with ability, from a funky helicopter * I hair manouevre to a ^ I series of beautiful limb- = I less animations which made navigating the sprawling environments a breeze. Some Nintendo 64 titles have the blurry disease, but Rayman 2 was nothing but sharp textures and vibrant colour, with no dodgy fogging or horrid redraw — the game looks incredibly solid and promis¬ es to be a glitch-free gaming experience. Whilst there was no speech exactly, Rayman and the variety of creatures in the game use the old Banjo Kazooie dialect of gobbles and chirps that come across more like an alien dialect with english subtitles I so we know exactly what it is they're all blabbing on about. Cameplay was fairly standard platforming action of collecting hidden objects and jumping around like a mad flea, but there was an alluring element of adventuring in Rayman 2 that a lot of platformers seem to lack these days. The^opulation of Rayman’s but in a quirky good way world is#eing kidnapped by rather than a gormless patro- a band of p^tes to be sold to nising way. The bad guy is an intergalac^p: circus and Razor Face (good name!) and the only hope for^iem is the he sure ain’t to be messed awakening of Poloduis the with. The final bells and whis- magician... of course STyman’s ties are still being added to task is to wake Polochu®and the game, so we’ll have to save the world. Sidekicks lft wait just a little longer before the hilarious Clobox (who# we can get lost in this magi- looks like a cross between <*$ world. Looks wonderful. Cookie Monster and Glottis £ from the LucasArts adventure £ Grim Fandango) £ Rayman 2 *r..v Disney vibe. AVAILABLE: DECEMBER CATEGORY: 3D PLATFORMER PLAYERS: 1 PUBLISHER: UBI SOFT Looking like something from the storyboards at Disney or Spielberg’s Dreamworks, Rayman 2 is a cinematic car¬ toon videogame - a feast for the eyes even for those of you who’ve devoured everything Rare have released. It’s little surprise that a TV show is in the works for this character, as Rayman 2 was simply brimming with personality when Ml Speed Devils DREAMCAST AVAILABLE: LATE OCTOBER CATEGORY: RACING PLAYERS: 1-2 PUBLISHER: UBI SOFT We know the Dreamcast can pump out pretty graphics, but it’s hard to not say ’wow’ everytime you see the machine do something cool. Speed Devils has some of the coolest looking cars you’ll be able to get your hands on this Christmas. Bursting with colour, detail and charac¬ ter, the hot-rods in Speed Devils look fantastic and thankfully they’re a blast to drive as well. M Feeling like a weird mix- gf ture of gameplay from S ® Beetle Adventure Racing g #nd Cruisin’ USA, Speed De®is is all about fun over realis® Tracks lead you through ^ovie sets crawling in giant m^ianic dinosaurs, to snowy Europ^n towns with more hazards tffin vou’ll find on a German AutoMm during Oktoberfest. Each cal^comes equipped with a fat ftibrbo booster, (which you can only use for a limited amount of £ times during each race), and you’ll find yourself crashing through obstacles and getting lost on alternate routes fre¬ quently, so you’ll be needing that turbo to get yourself back in the race. Your car can also be upgraded with all sorts of features once you win a bit of money by gambling on your own races, so it’s not just about coming first over the line. Though careful driving sure isn’t recommended in this game, your car can suffer all sorts of visible damage if you drive recklessly enough. Your shiny Jeep or 70s muscle car just might end up on the scrap heap unless you know what you’re doing. Speed Devils looks like a hell of a lot of fun, and should be a worthy Dreamcast title at their launch. Big phat vrooming review next issue. (A 3 IU Hydro Thunder DREAMCAST/N64/ PLAYSTATION AVAILABLE: NOVEMBER CATEGORY: RACING PLAYERS: 1-2 PUBLISHER: MIDWAY The sea, the sun, the fresh air... none of us here at Hyper know what it’s like. We’re too busy sitting in a small dark room playing videogames. But we’re told that Hydro Thunder simulates ’real life’ very well. Whilst some may think that could inspire us to check out what this 'real life’ is all about, the game is actually just another good reason to stay indoors with our consoles. Midway are bringing Dreamcast owners an exciting racing game which looks like it could combine the thrills of Wipeout and Star Wars: Racer. Hyrdo Thunder takes speed boats into the future with a huge array of beefed-up boats that race secretly as part of the Hydro Thunder Racing Association. You have been selected to join them in their elite pursuit of death-defying speed a^oss a variety of dif¬ ferent loflftions. The boats are closed de¬ pending upon fbeed, handling and speQjal functions. The design| are excellent, with the Thresher and Miss Behave looking more like something out of a space combat game. The locations vary from an icy arctic circle to the Greek isles, littered with giant obstacles and deadly twists and turns. Having orig¬ inated as an arcade game, we can expect Hydro Thunder on the Dreamcast to be the most impressive version on the shelf. We’ll be reviewing the game next issue, but in the meantime, why not win Ourself a copy with a Dreamcas#on our subscrip¬ tions page issue! TJ m JO k> C/1 26 »HYPER O 2 e o & UPCOMING RELEASES The complete guide to what is coming out over the next month here in Australia... ★ Stuff to get sweaty over! Dreamcast OCTOBER Coolboarders D-Jump Expendable Get Bass House of the Dead 2 ★ Hydro Thunder Incoming Jimmy White 2 Cue Ball Marvel Versus Capcom Monaco GP 2 Mortal Kombat Gold NBA Showtime NFL Blitz 2000 Powerstone ★ Ready 2 Rumble Boxing ★ Red Dog Sega Rally 2 * Sonic Adventure it Speed Devils Suzuki All-Star Racing Tokyo Highway Challenge Toy Commander UEFA Striker Virtua Fighter 3tb ★ Gameboy OCTOBER Duke Nukem Evel Knievel Grand Theft Auto Mahki Micro Machines 1&2 Missile Command Roadster Test Drive Off Road 3 Test Drive 6 Tom & Jerry PlayStation OCTOBER Championship Motocross Dark Messiah Darkstone Dino Crisis it Dune 2000 EA Sports Cyber Tiger European PGA Gold FIFA 2000 ★ Fighting Force 2 Fisherman's Bait GTA 2 ★ ISS Pro Evolution Legend of Kartia MGS VR Missions Mission Impossible NBA Live 2000 NFL Blitz 2000 it Nascar 2000 No Fear Downhill Biking Prince Naseem Boxing Pro Pinball Fantastic Journey Rainbow Six Roadster Ronin Blade Silicon Valley Smurfs Spec Ops Star Wars: The Phantom Menace EA Sports Supercross UEFA Striker Xena Warrior Princess N64 OCTOBER Hot Wheels Hybrid Heaven NBA Pro 99 NFL Blitz 2000 it NHL Pro 99 PC OCTOBER Abomination Age of Wonders Airport Inc. Army Men: Toys in Space Battlezone 2 ★ Big Game Hunter III Codename Eagle Deer Hunt Challenge FA/18 Super Hornet FIFA 2000 ★ Foxsports NHL Freespace 2 ★ Gabriel Knight 3 ★ GTA 2 Homeworld ★ 1-War Defiance Martian Gothic Unification Mission Impossible NBA 2000 Nascar 3 Nascar Legends Nascar Revolution SE Nocturne Nomad Soul Pro Pilot 2000 Pro Pinball Fantastic Journey Rayman 2 Revenant Star Trek New Worlds Tonic Trouble UEFA Manager 2000 USAF Jets Road Rash Roadster World Driver Championship ALL ENTRIES CLOSE NOVEMBER 3RD 1009 WIH WHO CHIS IS FOR PSH! They’re lurking. Those gnashing jaws, deadly claws and killer instincts of the raptors in Dino Crisis simply scare the living bejesus out of us. Playing this game with the lights out, sound up loud and the door to the back garden open should be enough to have anyone sleeping with the lights on after an intense gaming session. Thanks to Ozisoft, we have FIVE copies of this awesome Capcom experience to giveaway to those of you who can send us the coolest Dino Crisis artwork of your own devise. Simply get out your coloured pens and start sketching together something dino-rific for us to print in our hallowed pages, and you could score yourself a copy of the game for PlayStation. Send your artwork, labelled with your name and address, to Crayon Crisis, Hyper, 78 Renwick St, Redfern, NSW 2016. Rowrl! J WIN WIH HYBRID HIMHF0RHB4! Hybrid Heaven is a unique experience on the Nintendo 64, with a combat system unlike anything else you’ve seen on the machine. We can heartily recommend this top title to any of you looking for a Christmas purchase. However, if you’re blessed, you just might score yourself a copy of the game thanks to CT Interactive! To be in with a chance to win a copy of the game for your Nintendo 64, answer us this question... Does Heaven exist? Why? Send your answer in loo words or less to Hyper Heaven, Hyper, 78 Renwick St, Redfern, NSW 2016. Thank the maker! LZ «a3dAH 28 »HYPER ' .u iffl i i &TW - rj&iaB 1 i' £8 r4'- Jr'llX 3 ft JarM T ]^ | V <^1 (T/ It’s finally the month where we can go to the shop and hug a Dreamcast! What a sexy piece of gaming hardware It Is too. To celebrate our 6th birthday issue and the launch of the those of you wh st In Australia, we have this amazing giveaway to offer to ! to HYPER this month. Thanks to Ozlsoft, Playcorp, Acclaim and Utrf Soft, we are able to offer a Sega DREAMCAST console (which comes with a controller and net access) and SIX huge games - SOUL CALBUR, SEGA RALLY 2, READY 2 RUMBLE BOXING, HYDRO THUNDER, MONACO GP RACING SIMULATION 2 AND TRICKSTYLE!! Woah, that Is one serious bundle of gaming to be won - that’s a huge $1039 prize! One lucky subscriber will be drawn to take home this total score of a prize. This Is your only chance to win such an Incredible package. Get your subscription In to HYPER Immediately to be In with a chance to win, and you’ll also be saving a massive 30% off the cover price! Excited? You should be!! HOW TO SUBSCRIBE Call us tollfree on 1300 36 1146 Monday to Friday 9am-6pm EST Fax a copy of the completed form, with credit card details, to: 02 9699 0334 Cut or copy the form and post it with a cheque or money order, or your credit card details, to: Hyper Subscriptions Reply Paid 634, 78 Renwick St. Redfern, NSW 2016 check out our website at http://publishing.next. com.au/subs Fill out this coupon and mail it to HYPER SUBSCRIPTIONS, Reply Paid 634, 78 Renwick St. Redfern, NSW 2016 SUBSCRIBER DETAILS Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms: Address Suburb State Postcode Phone number Email PAYMENT DETAILS Enclosed is my cheque/money order, or debit my credit card for S49.95 payable to Next Publishing Pty Ltd □ Sign me up for 1 year/12 issues (S49.95 saving 30%) □ Bankcard □ Mastercard □ Visa Expiry Date_ I Signature I_ PH: SEPTEMBER SUBSCRIPTION WINNER Prize - Dreamcast console & three games. Winner: Robert Reinking, Old T«n» A Ccndtone: 1 EnVy s open to al rt**Jerta with a lethal arsenal under your wings. Oh baby... Hold me back... Now we’re at the mercy of Wip30ut (no the three is not a mistake, that’s B their funky way of saying Wipeout 3). Either there’s going to be a lot of pale chil- *^^***4fg^his summer, or there’s Boasting one of the gom^W , b«^^ best pumping sound- dren this summer.^M^wowr tracks ever heard in a Wipeout! rcade herl(Capcom) How can you not honour the videogame which invented the quarter-circle fireball move?! Street Fighter is responsible for the massive popularity of fighting games today - Street Fighter II being the 2D fighter roSI-coloured glasses. Un- that spawned a^tmi-religion. fortunately, it’s also res- 0 We can all happily r&rget the ponsible for some people V Street Fighter movie ever exist- thinking bandannas were N ed, and just look back at tlfca* coolVagain, but we won’t beauties from Capcom witn^namefiames. 1 boats, air units, high-resolution options and charac¬ ters that had a lot personality more w than ever before. It was the game that really made programs such as Kali such a huge success, and people can still be seen play¬ ing it on servers across the world today. Blizzard’s creed once again is heard as ’’qual¬ ity over quantity”. PC/Mac (Blizzard) The first Warcraft had poten¬ tial, but not a whole lot of sparkle. It was functional, and people played it, but it paled in the shadow of Warcraft II. With Warcraft II came the introduction of SMS/MD/SAT/DC (Sega) Whilst his glory days were certainly back in the age of the Mega Drive, Sonic the Hedgehog is by no means old news. After a couple of Adventure. The spikfey blite mediocre attempts on the guy really is Sega’s mosV Saturn, Sonic shines again on identifiable mascot, whether the Dreamcast in Sonic they still like it or not. # mne (Microprose/Activisi PC/Mac An obsession. I grew a long grey beard play¬ ing this game and I i’t even hit puberty yet! Sid ir is the man to thank for this geniis strategy title which pos- sessfc the brains of many small children. Civ is cool. Civ also lives on with some recently releas¬ ed sequels that i haven’t failed ; to entertain. M We tip our I hats to you I Mr. Meier. PC/Amiga/Q64/Others (Origin) ^ ^ vthione, bfet no-one will ever being played on our synonymous with the term forget what he did for com- office computers up until RPC. Lord British may not cur- puter gaming with his Ultima only a few months ago! rently be relaxing on the series. Ultima IV was still r£‘ !• X 'v - h III *11 TETRIS Where can’t you get this game? (Alexey Pazhitnov) Falling blocks haunting our sleep, falling blocks in our breakfast cereal, falling blocks in the eyes of our school teach¬ ers, falling blocks out the win¬ dow of the bus on the way home, falling blocks in the coloured dots on the TV screen, falling blocks on the walls of the cell in the mental institution. \ \ \ \ 12 HARK) KART SERIES SNES/N64 (Nintendo) Cutesy racing genius at its best. Mario Kart kept Hyper entertained through months of lunchtimes. Its simplicity was possibly the key to its huge success. It’s also responsible for a flurry of copycat titles that haven’t come close to the same magical formula. # 13 GOLDENEVE N64 (Rare) We don’t mean to take credit away from Rare, but Goldeneye is often thought of as the poor- i^an’s Q^ake. The N64S resolu¬ tion is blurry and the action sometimes gets cluttered when you’v\oot 3 other mates playing with y\, but it\ James Bond AND it sold (and is still selling) like hotcakes. Why? The game- play is tops. Pushing the N64 to its limits, it showed gamers just what the FPS is all about for those of us without PCs. DIABLO PC/Mac (Blizzard) Descend the devilish depths of Diablo to defeat the dark demons of death and destroy the Duke of the damned (say that 5 times fast). When Diablo was first released it was noth¬ ing short of a jaw-dropper for the majority of us. Stunning graphics WITHOUT a 3D card! With the imminent release of Diablo 2 we can only hope for more of the best. VIRTUA FIGHTER SERIES Arcade/Saturn/Dream cast (Sega) The first three-dimensional fighting game ever to hit the scene was Virtua Fighter. It was a bit of an adjustment for those of us still growing accustomed to the 2D fighting game, but it took off like nobody’s business. People were instantly drawn to the arcades to see Sarah £ lacky in action. Prior to VF, fighting games were very much an exaggerated experience, with fireballs flying left, right and center. VF took a risk when it created fighters with a more lifelike style of fighting. No fireballs and super jumps here. However, it attracted hardcore fighting game fans and the result today is that we have Virtua Fighter 3tb - the best VF to date. The Dreamcast could¬ n’t do with a better launch title. # 16 SAFI & RAH HIT THE ROAD PC/Mac (LucasArts) A psychotic rabbit and a hound dressed in a suit - you know it’s a recipe for some¬ thing insanely good. SSM (ahem) is Lucasarts' crowning achievement in the adventure game department, and is always good for a laugh even today. Whilst the Monkey Island series was gut-burst- ingly good, Sam 6 Max made a bigger impact with main¬ stream gamers. ELITE C64/Amiga (David Braben & Ian Bell) The world’s first non-linear 3D gaming experience? Well, Elite certainly offered us the brilliant ’go-anywhere’ space trading and combat that we had only dreamt about after coming home from Star Wars and Star Trek movies. A classic. It looks like Freelancer from Microsoft will take us on a similar journey in the next millennium. # 18 FIHAL FAHTASV SERIES NES/SNES/PSX/PC (SquareSoft) With a whop¬ ping EIGHT installments in the series (and a ninth in produc¬ tion), Final Fantasy is right up there with games such to choose from it’s one those games that, if you’re a part-time gamer, could months to complete. GT’s really comes from scope of the cars you’re to drive and the realism them. Two very big up. SERIES (Namco) its superbly graphics and annoyingly gameplay, (and in partic¬ ular Tekken 3) is RETAL GEAR SOLID PSX (Konami) The hype surrounding this game was quite phenomenal, but it proved to be the engag¬ ing PlayStation experience they said it would be. There’s almost without question, the epitome of 32-bit console fight¬ ing games. It’s also famous for tekken Hyper into the history books with some of the dodgiest screen captions ever devised. With the recent release of Virtua Fighter 3tb on the Dreamcast, Tekken’s title is looking a little shaky, but once a Tekken 4 is released hopefully those fears as Ultima in terms of RPG suc¬ cess stories. Proof that RPGs aren’t just for nerds, Final Fantasy VII’s sales shattered all estimates and is still selling strong to this day. GRAH TURISRO PSX (Sony) that comes to SSH 2 CL >• *■ W iLfa a» « * i St* 12 no doubt that it already goes down as one of the classiest PlayStation - and arguably console - games of all time. GAUNTLET series Arcade/N64/Amiga (Atari) "Elf needs food... badly.” Ahhh, it was brilliant. Gauntlet stunned everyone at the its bizarre four- player dungeo oning. It bonded game?! destroyed friendships, but most of all, gave us a uniquely new arcade experience. It may have chomped through our change a tad too quickly, but it was worth it. COnnAHD AND CONQUER series PC/PSX/N64 (Westwood) "I got a present for ya! ’’ Yessiree Bob. Mammoth tanks, com¬ mandos and the ever faithful attack dog are just part of what makes CSC continue to roll on. From its humble beginnings years ago when it was given the dubious nickname of "Warcraft with Guns”, CSC proved it was i just another RTS. TOF1B RAIDER series PC/PSX (Eidos) We’d wager to say, that were it not for the star of this series sporting immovable, rock-hard breasts, Tomb Raider would never have achieved the notoriety that it has. Tomb Raider began a movement (in some young lads’ pants no doubt) that has spawned countless accessories, sequels, clones and... erm... movies now? Long live Lara. *25 LEnniNGS Every platform known to humani¬ ty (Psygnosis) Those little green-haired freaks destroyed my youth! But that’s only because Lemmings is one of the greatest puzzle/strategy games ever devised. Unfortun¬ ately, the series never really went on to improve the game much beyond the original. *26 PACHAN Arcade/Others (Namco) It’s the arcade game which only just recently was "clocked” by a frighteningly good American. The game looks simple, but you really needed to think just one i step ahead of those ghosts tg keep playing for any length of time. Pacman wa very good at gobbling ysfren- ty cent pieces. Sin CITV SERIES PC/Mac/SNES (Maxis) For some it was a hobby, for oth¬ ers it was an obsession. Creating your own little virtual world complete with its own little virtual disas¬ ters and virtu¬ al people was just a little too addictive for our liking. 30 Gamers would shun work and schoofeo they could stay at home an\ watch their world thrive. 1 *28 GHOSTS S GOBLI* de/Others (Capcom) JuAp and shoot, run, jun and\h X CM each of the other characters) which are found hidden in areas on the main map before you decide to enter the actual gameplay-packed levels. Now when it comes down to actually getting to grips with the little blue hedgehog, we’re happy to report that Sonic hasn’t fallen victim to any new gameplay genre or fad. Cameplay is as classic Sonic as you could wish for, with the main emphasis still being on collecting coins at a break¬ neck speed. You’ve never seen a 3D environment looking THIS good fly by THIS fast, and yet the gameplay has that almost old-school 2D Sonic feel about it. It’s basic and yet incredibly good fun. In the NTSC version of Sonic Adventure, the auto¬ matic camera doesn’t cope with the third person 3D terri¬ bly well, but we hear this will be tweaked for the PAL release this month. Camera angle problems are simply a symp¬ correct the angle, you can sometimes get into a bit of strife. Because of the open nature of the environments, it’s not hard to go flying off into the dreaded deadly water tom of a complex 3D environ ment, and it really doesn’t affect your gameplay that badly. At times, the camera will fail to swing around Sonic in the right direction, and unless you’re TOMB RAIDER 5: LARA AFTER THE ACCIDENT^ WHO WAS THAT MASKED BLUE BLOB? a or other obstacles if you’re not in complete control of where Sonic is headed. The camera even sticks sometimes, like it’s hit an invisible wall, which doesn’t help, but overall it’s not a serious issue. You may be frustrated at times, but the good far outweighs the bad. The gameplay is a fine balance of adventuring and frantic action, with lots of bosses, cinematic moments and tricky puzzles paced carefully throughout the adventure. Sonic’s moves are simple enough to get the hang of immediately, and it never gets too complex or tricky to complete all the tasks at hand. Either you’re trying your best to guide Sonic over coins whilst he’s blazing, or it’s a case of carefully negotiating precar¬ ious drops or obstacles, or you’re spinning into a ball and cracking your enemies from above. The gameplay blends nicely into the cutscenes too, so you always feel part of the action. You’ll find that the only problem is accurately getting the hang of getting Sonic to go exactly where you want him to with the kinds of speeds you can achieve. You’ll constantly find yourself being thrown around these huge levels like a little rag-doll, with the controls only just being enough to help guide Sonic to safety in most cases. You can also tackle these levels in a time-attack mode if you truly master the art of super¬ sonic speed. HEY, WHY SO BLUE? Sonic Team have already start¬ ed on another four games for the Dreamcast, but if Sonic Adventure is anything to go by, we’re in for some fantastic Dreamcasting. Sonic Adventure really is a stunning effort, packed to the gills with entertainment. It’s possible that if you never enjoyed the Sonic games in the past, you won’t find much to be over¬ joyed about here either, but everyone should do their best to get a look at this game. The combination of huge, open, almost theme-park style levels with the Sonic style we know and love is a real winner. Add to the equation the power of the Dreamcast, the Visual Memory Unit options and the effort by the Sonic Team to give us as much variety as possible, and you have a no- brainer first Dreamcast game purchase. EUOT FISH AVAILABLE: Now _ CATE60HY: 3D Platformer PLAYEBS: I _ POBIISHER Sega PRICE: $89.95 RATING: 6 _ SUPPORTS: VMU PLUS Mind boggling graphics and entertaining level design. MINUS Not exactly a hardcore challenge. If you get a Dreamcast. get a copy of Sonic Adventure. REVIEWS D hi-AM CAST h- LT. < c < Li- CC c (/! s u III a LAI CL > X «d* Expendable _ After all these years, you would think that getting a straight up shooter right wouldn't be too hard. Rage prove us wrong again. Incoming... A demo that got turned into a very attractive game with 5th rate game- play. It would seem Rage are determined to be known as a company that adheres to their traditions, as Expendable is also a very pretty game, that quite frankly, sucks. Harsh? Not when you consider this... YOU ARE SO PURDY... What are the fundamentals of any shoot ’em up? You move something around, and shoot at enemies with whatever weapons the game offers. Difficulty and tension is added depended on how much danger you are placed in at any given time due to incoming fire. Enemies are made interesting by having variety, and frequent bosses and sub-bosses. It would seem Rage have only paid attention to the first bit, and AVAILABLE: October _ CATEEORY: Shoot 'em up _ PLAYERS 1-2 PUBLISHER: Infogrames PRICE: $89.95 _ RATINE: TBA _ SUPPORTS: VMU. vibration pack PLUS Pretty explosions. MINUS Shonky controls. Horribly confusing. No real atmosphere. YISOALS SOUND GAMEPLAY The Dreamcast has a range of top quality games to choose from... this isn't one of them. ignored everything else... if it’s pretty, it’s okay right? Well it is pretty. Rage cannot be faulted for their abilities as artists. Expendable is chock-a-block full of lovely explo¬ sions, lighting effects and all that sort of guff. The only immediate bone to pick here is that bump map¬ ping has not been supported, yet on the PC it has. The Dreamcast can do this, so why wasn’t it included? The non-technical problem with the visuals is that while pretty in still screen shots, the game is so horribly confusing to look at whilst playing that you’ll scream. All those explosions and lighting effects cause you to lose track of the ene¬ mies, who is firing what, and even where you are. For instance, when playing a two-player game, instead of the view pulling back to take in what both players are doing when they move apart, the game simply picks one player to stay on screen. The other poor player has to make do with a little arrow pointing at them to let them know which direction to run back from! YES, IT'S A DOG TO PLAY... The controls are simple enough. A button to fire, a button to lob grenades when you find them, one to change guns, and a strafe button. This would have been great, but it was ruined by making turning around too smoothly ani¬ mated. While it looks realis¬ tic and all, it simply frus¬ trates the pants off you (I kept mine on, relax) that you can’t aim in the direc¬ tion you want quickly. This forces you to retreat a bit to line up your shot properly. Even the most ancient game of this type like Commando had this right. The few decent gameplay ideas all get ruined by prob¬ lems that seem so easily avoidable. There are a good variety of guns, but there’s no funky powerup system that leaves you with weapons that cause whole continents to shake in fear. Also you lose all your guns at the end of each level... why? I played it alone, then with friends, and then just let friends play on their own... and no one had fun regardless which way it was done. Rage obviously have talents, and they lie in their ability to make something look good. However, their inability to match the visu¬ als with some interesting gameplay will result in all their games being lemons until they rectify this problem. What an aptly named game. DAN TOOSE “THE FIW BIEIHT EAMIPIAY ms All EHRUINID BY PRO BUMS THAT SUM SB [ASHY AVOIDABIT" Monaco GP Racing Simulation 2 The Dreamcast is on the starting grid and it's time to see how it qualifies with an FI racing title... Monaco GP Racing Simulation has popped out a sequel on the Dreamcast and there’s no question that it laps previous versions of the game on the Nintendo and PC. However, has enough really been improved to make Monaco GP 2 the next-generation Formula One we were all hoping for? It seems that there’s still some work to do in the pits... OBSESSED WITH TYRE PRESSURE? Give yourself a few minutes... no maybe make that hours, to cycle through Monaco GP 2’s Simulation Mode car settings and you’ll be feeling suitably daunted. There’s really no doubt that Formula One fans are going to have their hands full with this Dreamcast title. The simulation mode in Monaco GP 2 is one of those seriously techy Formula One experiences, and required long bouts of concentration to get through. You really have to tweak the game with your own settings and preferences to get the most out of your car and be in with a chance to grab that chequered flag. Fans of the sport could not be hap¬ pier with the amount of options here, but casual gamers are probably just going to head straight for the Arcade mode after fiddling about in Simulation mode. Of course, this dispenses with all the realism, and that kind of defeats the purpose of the Formula One experience. Fi cir¬ cuits aren’t the most exciting to race on, so really the thrill comes from getting your car to survive the relentless amount of laps down the same stretch of road, inching closer to your rivals all the while - they’re not really designed for check¬ point racing. That’s why Monaco GP 2’s Simulation mode is where the real depth and enjoyment of this game lies, even if it doesn’t have the most realistic ’feel’. There’s also a Retro mode for those of you who loved Grand Prix Legends on PC, but sadly it looks more like Mario Kart than anything else, though it’s good fun for a twirl. BLENDER CONVENTION The Dreamcast can do far bet¬ ter graphics than this, but Monaco GP still looks pretty good. The car models look great, and the game is fast, but the tracks and environ¬ ments have a tendency to look a little shimmery and flat at times. The sound also seems a little under-developed consid¬ ering what was at the develop¬ ers’ fingertips. The cars sound a little thin, and it’s more like a visit to the dentist or a bunch of lawnmowers racing towards the finish line than anything else. What little commentary there is in the game seemed strangely under-used too, and all up. the aural experience was underwhelming. We were just expecting this to be a slicker package all around consider¬ ing the power of the console. Still, as an Fi simulation, Monaco GP 2 is good stuff. There’s a ghost-car Time Trial, Championships, Grand Prix modes and a custom race setup. The two-player option will have a lot of you at it for hours also, as the splitscreen looks good and functions just as well as the single-player game. Monaco CP 2 should pro¬ vide some serious challenge for those of you who are des¬ perate for some Fi racing on your Dreamcast, although it’s not exactly a prime example of the genre. ELIOT FISH AVAILABLE: Now CATEBOHY: Racing sim PLAYERS: 1-2 PUBLISHER: Ubi Soft PRICE: $89.95 RATING: G SUPPORTS: ????? PLUS More options to fine-tune your car than you can possibly imagine. MGHUS Just lacks a certain pizazz. The thrill of the race isn't quite there. VISUALS SOUND EAMEPLAY 82 73 79 A challenging sim and quite rewarding for FI- obsessed freaks. HYPER» 45 Definition: Wipeout* (see also: Psygnosis; RSI; repetitive beat music). Futuristic anti¬ gravity racing game for the Sony PlayStation console. The game that brought the future funk to PlayStation with a bang back in 1995. The game that revealed a seemingly limitless potential for the next generation. The game that forged a new rac¬ ing landscape. The game that set new stan¬ dards for packaging and design. The game that brought club cul¬ ture to gaming, and gaming culture to club¬ land. The game that redefined cool. "From the Hyper Dictionary of Gaming Terminology, 1999 edi¬ tion. Welcome to the F7200 racing league, the fastest and funkiest yet... We love the Wipeout series - it sits at a very respectable number five in our ’Top Fifty Carnes of All Time’ feature, and for good reason too. Inspired design, funky tunes, technical smarts and unbe¬ lievable gameplay are the hallmarks of the series. It’s been a long and event¬ ful three years since the last Wipeout title, but Wip3out effortlessly picks up where Wipeout 2097 left off, and then some. Wip3out utilises the best elements from both the previous titles, adds some significant gameplay tweaks and boasts fresh new mind- blowing high-resolution graphics. Oh, and did we mention that Wip3out sup¬ ports split-screen two-player racing and the Dual Shock? Huzzah! A MINIMAL GROOVE TO MAKE YOU MOVE... If you’ve visited Psygnosis’ Wip30ut website, you will already have had a taste of the minimalist design approach in Wip30ut. The menu screen is minimal to the point of non-existence. With a greyish background and techy, barely readable fonts, no other game has had an interface this bold. The "less is more” design aesthetic flows throughout all aspects of Wip30ut. In con¬ trast to the bright and even garish colours of 2097, Wip3out utilises a more real¬ istic colour palette with pre¬ dominantly beige and grey. The HUD has also been refined so that it isn’t as obtrusive. Unfortunately, it’s more difficult to see at a glance how much shield energy you have left, and the display showing how many laps you need to do is way too understated. lust as the previous games were excellent technical showcases for the PlayStation, Wip30ut will leave your little grey box smouldering. Wip3out runs in the PlayStation’s highest resolu¬ tion - an amazing feat con¬ sidering the awesome speed. How the technical boffins at Sony managed to increase the speed of the game at this res¬ olution is a mystery... I sus¬ pect black magic and ritual sacrifices personally. As you’d expect, this is the best-looking Wipeout yet. The clarity of the environ¬ ments is stunning, with a real-world solidity and unparalleled viewing dis¬ tance. The blockiness that pervaded previous games is gone, replaced by crisp, detailed environments that convey space and size more accurately. Wip30Ut isn’t per¬ fect though, as there are a few glitches here and there. For instance, occasionally after you've fired off a quake disruptor, a section of track remains raised and you have to break through it. TO QUOTE RIDGE RACER REVOLUTION: "SPARKS ARE FLYING!" There are also some more sub¬ tle graphical additions to enhance the racing experience - each team has a different coloured trail left in its wake, and there are some impressive powerup effects, like the dull red glow of the shield that fires up when the ship’s hit, the cold white gleam of the reflec¬ tor shield, or the neon glow of the ship through some of the darklight tunnels. In addition to the standard third and first person perspectives, Wip3out also has a cockpit view... which is actually a little tacky. You’d think that the pilot would be hooked up to some kind of neural network a la Macross Plus, not sitting in front of a budget control panel. Oh well. Wip3out has play modes in abundance. In addition to the givens like single race, tour¬ nament and time trial against ghost ships, there’s the Challenge mode where you take on 32 challenges spread across four categories, and Eliminator where the aim is to terminate as many opponents as possible. The improved AI adds further to the long-term value of the game. Opponents behave more realistically than before, making you feel part of a pack, all vying for the lead. There are eight new tracks, three new teams, and seven «< -0 m 30 REVIEWS PLAYSTATION Huta P;int: Same as in 2097, but is more disengage friendly: DEFENSIVE C inah: Stealth camoflage for your ship, preventing other craft from targeting you: OFFENSIVE Energy Drain: Lock on to another racer and steal some of his precious energy. The longer you can hold the lock the more energy you’ll get: OFFENSIVE/DEFENSIVE Farce Wail: Fire this ahead to set up a narrow, impenetrable wall. You can glide right through it, but other racers are in for a nasty surprise: OFFENSIVE/DEFENSIVE Erauity Shield: Safeguards your ship against energy loss: DEFENSIVE mines: Same old mines. Lay them straight into a slipstreaming opponent. Can be destroyed with rockets and quake disruptors: OFFENSIVE muit;-m;ss;ies: Mmm... handy. These babies can independently target and hit two separate craft: OFFENSIVE Re-Fiectnr: A shield that surrounds the craft, sending any attacks back to the source: DEFENSIVE Racket: Although rocket jumps still haven’t been implemented, these bad boys fire two rockets at a time and really pack a punch: OFFENSIVE Plasma Bait: Easier to use than in Wipeout 2097, a direct hit with one of these suckers will floor your opponent... permanently: OFFENSIVE Uuahd Disrupter: Faster and less distracting than in Wipeout 2097, the quake disruptor sends a massive ripple hurtling down the track slowing everyone in it’s path: OFFENSIVE new weapons. All four speed classes are back, from the piti¬ ful Vector, through to the brain melting Phantom. If you thought that Wipeout 2097 couldn’t possibly have been any faster, then think again because Wip3out’s top speed eclipses it... heh heh. FUNKING EXCELLENT MUSIC... The music is superb under the direction of DJ Sasha, and comes close to the vibe of the original soundtrack with less big beat and more trancey sounds. The soundtrack is more holistic than previ¬ ous editions as well, with pumping tunes that not only suit the racing style, but each other. It’s also great to have five original tracks (cour¬ tesy of Sasha)rather than an entirely licensed soundtrack. Buy yourself some good quality bin headphones before playing this one! Wip3out sports a few new additions for more immersive gameplay. For starters, there are now two weapon grid colours - pink for offensive weapons and green for defensive weapons. Thus, if you’re way out in the lead you may opt to avoid the attack grids and focus on hit¬ ting the defense grids. Your weapon selection will still be largely random, but this allows more control over how you want to race. Weapons are better bal¬ anced and more practical than previous Wipeouts. The force wall, for instance, is a great addition, adding a more strategic element. The auto pilot has been tweaked, so that it’s less likely to disen¬ gage in an awkward position. The quake disruptor is also much improved. It travels much faster and lower than before, so it doesn’t affect vis¬ ibility to nearly the same extent as in Wipeout 2097. Plus, there’s a cool bass drop sound when you fire a quake disruptor. You’ll find yourself unconsciously timing the quake so that the bass drop fits with the music. The addition of the Hyper¬ thrust button also alters the racing dynamic significantly. Talk about taking a fast game and making it even faster. With a tap on the Ri button, you’ll get a big speed boost... at the expense of some shield energy of course. Not only does this increase your top speed, it also means that you can get back up to speed faster after a collision. Learning to judge when and how often to use the boost really adds another dimension to the gameplay, as it's absolutely necessary to win, but can so easi¬ ly destroy your craft if overused. NO MORE RED BULL ADVERTISING... AND IT'S ABOUT TIME The track design has much in common with the original, so there are more rollercoaster¬ like courses filled with long sweeping banked turns and steep hills, as opposed to the angular, sharp sections in Wipeout 2097. This is a damn good thing, and comes hand in hand with Psygnosis’ determination to make Wip3out the fastest, smoothest ride possible. The focus is very much on raw speed and fluid handling, not on memorising a series of blind ninety-degree turns. Each track in the game is based in the same city com¬ plex, so the design has a more unified feel between tracks than previous editions. That’s not to say that the rac¬ ing gets samey, however. From the industrial technoscapes that have made Wipeout famous to the city “TALK ABOUT TAKING A FAST GAME ANO MAKING IT EVEN FASTEN!” center, through parkland and even a shopping mall, the environments are immersive and techy. A little bit more variety in the trackside scenery would have been nice, but we’re not complaining. We’re always hearing peo¬ ple whinge about living in a PAL territory, and being forced to wait so long for substandard PAL conversions. Well, now's the time to cele¬ brate and thumb your nose at the USA and Japan, because we get Wipeout titles before the rest of the world. Woo hoo! Not only that, but the PAL edition is often the supe¬ rior version, not the other way around. With such amazingly fast, fluid and balanced gameplay, and this kind of technical per¬ formance coming from such old hardware, we can only imagine how good a Wipeout would be on Playstation 2. But until that happens, Wip3out will suck the will to do any¬ thing other than firing up the stereo, sitting back controller in hand, and waiting for the ’’3-2-1-GO!!". The definitive Wipeout game. CAM SHEA\ AVAILABLE: Now dammit! CATEGORY: Aotifrarity _ futuristic raciug PLAYERS: 1-2 PUBLISHER: Sony _ PRICE: $79.95 _ RATIH6: G _ SUPPORTS: Memory card. Dual Shock PLUS Speed, eye candy and cutting-edge sounds all rolled into one. MINUS Some unreadable fonts, and no link-up dual split-screen. Z -< m JO z cn 04 WIPE THEM OUT. ALL OF THEM N 0 11V1 S A V1 d SM3IA3M a LU CL >• z o fcO VISUALS SOUND SAMIPIAY OVERALL Dino Crisis is the next evolution of the survival horror game, and a must for fans of Resident Evil. fJwTwtl PLUS The intense atmosphere and suspense ensures this is a "brown undies only" game. suspense”, for the horror fac¬ tor has been replaced by tense and suspenseful explo¬ ration. The atmosphere is built masterfully through intelligent use of camera positioning, the musical score, the ambient sound effects and frequent surprises of Jurassic proportions. You’ll encounter far fewer dinosaurs than you did zombies and the like in RE, but they have a much greater impact... scar¬ ing you in ways games have never scared you before. CAM SHEA AVAILABLE: Now CATEGOBY: Survival Suspense PLAYERS: 1 PUBLISHER: Capcom PRICE: $89.95 RATINE: M SUPPORTS: Dual Shock LEARN HOW TO MAKE ILLEGAL SUBSTANCES^ MINUS Camera and control problems at times. pick up during the mission. You can also mix chemicals and health packs for different results. Rather than just out- gunning the crea¬ tures, you’ll also need to out-think them. When you’re low on ammo you can use the ventilation shafts to avoid rooms and corridors with lurk¬ ing beasts, or try and trap dinosaurs on the far side of electric barriers. Rather than sur¬ vival horror, per¬ haps Dino Crisis may more accurately be referred to as ’’survival Where Silent Hill was plagued by low resolution, high-fog environments, Dino Crisis shines, with detailed, realistic texture¬ mapping and great real-time lighting. Likewise, all the character models in the game are very nicely rendered, and are animated smoothly. Rather than giving Regina a health bar, you have to gauge her health by the way she moves. If she’s limping and leav¬ ing a trail of blood in her wake then you’d better give her a health pack quickly because otherwise she’ll continue to lose blood and eventually die. FANCY A GAME OF DARTS, ANYONE? Dino Crisis chal¬ lenges the player in a different way to RE. You’ll need to be very conserva¬ tive with your ammo on normal difficulty, and even outrun dinosaurs when possible. Tranquiliser darts are a good addition that will take down a dinosaur for a (very) limited period of time. You can strengthen tran¬ quiliser darts by mixing them with various chemicals you mo crisis MAY Bl MORI ACCOR AlllY RtftRRIO TO AS SURVIVAL SUSP [RSI.” SEXY GIRLS WITH SEXY GUNS _ Quite frankly, with Lara Croft's face (and body) splashed permanently all over the media for the last three years, all the other great women of gaming simply aren’t getting the exposure they deserve. As far as we’re concerned Lara simply can’t compare to the Ridge Racer girl, Ivy from Soul Calibur and now, Regina from Dino Crisis. Sled Storm In the crowded world of PlayStation racers, Sled Storm brings us something new, but is it actually any real fun? Sled Storm puts a throbbing beast between your legs and says - take this baby out for a test ride and rip snow up. It’s a helter-skelter snowmo¬ bile racing game along criss-crossing mountain paths with an emphasis on stunts and exploration. SHRED YOUR HEAD There are two basic styles of track — Open Mountain and Supersnocross. In Open Mountain runs there’s no one path, it’s up to you to find the quickest route. The track is constantly branching and there are shortcuts every¬ where, so chances are, if you want to go there you can. Take a shortcut across the cracked and undulating sur¬ face of a frozen lake, go for that massive jump through to another section of track, or just ram right through an ice wall to reveal a hidden passage. It’s these bonuses that will keep you coming back to race again. Supersnocross, on the other hand, features more conventional human made courses built for tight cor¬ nering and busting huge tricks. The two styles work nicely together and encourage different approaches to racing. There are 14 courses to open up in all, as well as variations on the current courses, like night runs. The biggest incentive to race on Once you’re packing an 8oocc engine, a new frame, better treads, brakes, skis and halogen spotlights, Sled Storm is almost a new racing game. Throughout the game, races are tough as your three opponents race very competitively. They take different routes each “pimps THt BIGOTS! DRAW- CARD FOR sun STORM IS THT FOURPUYfR SUPPORT ” though is to upgrade your sled. Cash for upgrades is earned by winning races and racking up points by doing tricks and running over stuff (like sign posts and native animals, heh). Sled Storm gets very tough, so frequent upgrades are a must... espe¬ cially since nothing less than first place will do. time, experiment with short cuts, but most importantly, fall flat on their faces at reg¬ ular intervals. POWDER YOUR NOSE Graphically, Sled Storm is competent. The courses make good use of gourard shading and accurate tex¬ tures. There really isn’t a huge wow factor, but that’s to be expected in narrow snow-lined ravines. The sen¬ sation of speed isn’t fantas¬ tic either, but there’s still a bit of fanging to be had. Perhaps the biggest draw- card for Sled Storm is the four-player support. V Rally 2 has already shown that the PlayStation can handle four-way split-screen rac¬ ing well, and Sled Storm proves that it was no fluke. As you’d expect, the draw distance is a lot closer, the graphics are less detailed and the slowdown notice¬ able, but this mode is heaps of fun, especially if you’re getting frustrated in the single player mode. All the ingredients are here for a great racing game, but Sled Storm doesn’t pull them together in a particu¬ larly compelling way. The handling is sloppy at best, and doesn’t improve much with extended play, and the stunts are a rela¬ tively meaningless diversion that could have been a lot more exciting. Even so, Sled Storm is certainly worth checking out - especially if you’d dig a soundtrack with tracks by Rob Zombie, Econoline Crush, Uberzone. Dorn and Roland, and E-Z Rollers. CAM SHEA AVAILABLE: November CATEGORY: Snowmobile racer PLAYERS: 1-4 PUBLISHER: EA PRICE: $89.95 RATING: G SUPPORTS: Dual shock PLUS Four-player mode, many alternate routes. MINUS Sloppy controls, dull tricks. VISUALS SOUND GAMEPLAY 86 78 77 Sled Storm is an entertaining (if somewhat average) romp through a snowy wilderness. Z -< m 30 C/1 ^REVIEWS PLAYSTATION ^REVIEWS PI AYS TAT I O M Madden NFL 2000 EA returns to prove once and for all that it has the best NFL game of all... at CL >• Madden NFL is one of the longest running sports series in videogaming histo¬ ry, dating all the way back to 1992 on the Sega Megadrive. Madden NFL 2000 will bring the install¬ ment tally to nine, making it longer lasting than the Police Academy movies and about as hardcore as your average RPC franchise. As a sports game, however, one must begin to wonder: what on earth could Madden 2000 offer that hasn’t already been done? On top of that, it’s being done on a system that everyone wishes would hurry up and die quickly to make way for the new next generation systems. In spite of these considerations, there is still a great deal of value to be found in Madden NFL 2000. AVAILABLE: Now _ CATEGORY Action _ PLAYERS: 1-4 _ PUBLISHER: EA Sports _ PRICE: $89.95 _ RATING B _ SUPPORTS: Dual Shock. Multitap. Memory Card PIUS Incredibly high framerate, loads of in¬ game detail. MINUS Look at the screenshots! It's chunky as hell! VISUALS SOUND GANEPLAY 79 88 89 IWRALl SO CHUNKY YOU COULD CARVE IT The screenshots alone should be indication enough to you readers that Madden NFL 2000 isn’t the prettiest thing to look at. The polygon count is quite low, the textures are atro¬ ciously chunky... in fact, it’s probably the ugliest 3D incarnation of Madden we've ever seen. What the screenshots won’t tell you, however, is that the game runs at the highest framer¬ ate ever seen in a PlayStation gridiron game, pushing an average of 45fps and going as high as 60 on some occasions. The end result is that all of those side-steps, stiff-arms, jukes, and spins that you can perform are brought to life in strikingly realistic fashion, making the action of the previous Madden games look stuttered and retarded by comparison. The animations and improved player depictions also opens up new levels of strategy. How so? Try imag¬ ining a Aoolb lineman rolling sideways over little Emmitt Smith in a tackle. Priceless. The funny part is that every other aspect of Madden 2000 is a gigantic improvement over its previ¬ ous installment. The sounds, the in-game options, the team-specific playbooks, and even little features like how linemen are much fatter than wide receivers, are all glittered with such a fine eye for detail that only a comparison to the Fox tele¬ vision coverage of the sport will do it justice. You’ve got helmets flying off, players tripping over each other, the chaingang waiting on the sidelines, your team mates cheering you on, a lightning storm flashing overhead, and deep thun¬ dering bass effects that bring out every bone¬ crunching collision in the game. You really have to cast aside whatever impres¬ sions you have from the screenshots and play the game for a few minutes before you can appreciate the beauty of its execution. Al Al OH Special attention should also be drawn to Madden 200o’s excellent Al and strategy. For starters, the Al is amaz¬ ingly tough. So tough, in fact, that the offence-happy amongst you might begin to appreciate and enjoy play¬ ing on defense. Every team’s playbook is updated to reflect this year’s standards, such as the 49ers’ lack of a shotgun offence, or the Dolphins’ preference towards a 4WR set. There are only a couple of minor inconsistencies, such as Barry Sanders’ presence in the game even after he’s retired. If it’s dazzle you came for, you’re not going to find it here. The PlayStation is just too out-dated to produce the kind of textures and polygon count that EA Sports wanted. As a sim, however, Madden NFL 2000 simply has no equal. This one’s for the fans. KEVIN CHEUNG ■ ■ ^“DIDN'T SOMEONE REMEMBER TO BRING THE BALL?" 00 10 The best NFL sim ever made, only let down by the system's limitations. 0 TE DRAG Beatmania Beatmania. All about the Beatles and how they were the best... eh?l The best DJ simulation on the market (bar bar). AVAILABLE: Now CATEGORY: DJ Simalation PLAYERS: 1-2 PUBLISHER: 6T Interactive PRICE: TBA RATING: G SUPPORTS: Dual Shock. Scratch Pad PLUS Wooga-wooga-woogal Intense DJ scratchafella action. MINUS Fairly repetitive. If you're not into music then you'll hate it with a passion. JIG G Y Werd up, biatch. If there’s one thing about playing videogames that really annoys me, it’s that there’s no way that I can enjoy myself AND keep my skeelz on the wheelz of steel (aka my turntables) fresh. What’s this? A box with "Beatmania" on it, and a funny looking peripheral that looks like a mini-turntable... funky! This is the shiznit that is going to keep me entertained and at the same time help me perfecting my funkadelic scratch techniques. Or something. In what is quickly becoming one of the most popular gaming genres in recent years, Konami’s Beatmania is the latest "rhythm action” game to hit the market in Australia. After the rapping sim (PaRappa The Rapper), the dancing sim (Bust A Groove), it was a nat¬ ural evolution that Djing would be next. I guess that means the next game will be the graffiti sim, but we’ll have to wait and see. First of all, no one is going to run out and purchase Beatmania on the strength of its graphics. Unlike Bust A Groove, that had awesome motion capturing and smooth, colourful characters shakin’ they booties on screen, or PaRappa, with its cute and distinct 2D-cutout look, Beatmania’s graphics are like clip-art images. The thing is, you should never be looking at the in-game graphics because concentrating on the music is the number one aim of the game. If the graphics were mind-blowing, it’d probably just put you off your game... What makes Beatmania such a great game is the gameplay itself. Basically, what you need to do is hit the right key or scratch the scratch pad when the CPU commands you to do so. It’s very Bust A Groove in this way, only you need to execute each button press exactly on beat, not just in groups of four bars. If you don’t nail it every time, then the song sounds off, but if you can keep in time with the commands, you should be hearing some funky fresh beats pumping out through your speakers. Fans of PaRappa and Bust A Groove need to be lining up to grab a copy of Beatmania. Don’t think it’s a "homie" game either, while the game is based on Djing, there are plenty of different styles of music to choose from (Asian Traditional? That’s a genre?!). And with the Scratch Pad, it’s one of the best party games you could hope to find. TONY MONTANA THE SCRATCH PAD _ If you seriously want to play this game, you’re going to need the official ASCII Beatmania controller. It features five keyboard keys and a pseudo-scratch pad, which makes playing the game a hell of a lot easier than having to use a standard PlayStation controller. The only thing is, the keys make a rather loud "click” every time they’re pressed, so unless you have the music pumping very loudly, be pre¬ pared to hear the annoying sound of pressing the buttons over the sound of the music. & fresh Cfl o n o11vis a vid SMaiivaa < Cl G Police 2: Weapons of Justice Finally, the sequel is hereto the impressive G Police which shook our PlayStations so long ago... (/! 3 u s III a ui o o C Police blew everyone away when it was released a while back. The Blade Runner- esque world of Callisto had just been overrun by corpo¬ rate renegades and it was your job to gun them down. You were given the latest in law enforcement armaments to do the job. You were given the Havoc Cunship. The conflict turned into a full-scale corporate war. It tore the colony apart and stretched the resources of Government Police to break¬ ing point. They won that bat¬ tle. lust. But a new enemy, the crime syndicates, has been quitely fortifying itself the whole time. They’ve put together some heavy firepow¬ er during the war and what’s left of the G Police is just too strung out to cope. They need backup, and they need it now. The cavalry they are praying for comes in the shape of a small Marine strikeforce. Three ships in low orbit over Callisto are sending more meat into the grinder, but more importantly, new weaponry. MICROSOFT... ER WE MEAN, NANOSOFT The concept behind all of this has been a noble one. The evil corporation "Nanosoft” just got too rich and powerful for the goverments lik¬ ing. Perhaps life is destined to imitate art? Anyway, the government sent in the G Police. These guys are basically beat cops with para¬ military arma¬ ments. They have the same hard- boiled attitude to beauracracy that all cops seem to acquire, and who can blame them in this bleak world. Callisto is a bustling colony but the rampant crime gives the scene an oppres¬ sive, pessimistic quality. Like Blade Runner, the crowded streets are dwarfed by adver¬ tising and everything is constantly shrouded in a cloying dark¬ ness. The music draws heavily from the same influence but adds some break beats to give it some vitality. You feel obliged to avoid civilian casual¬ ties but pesky terrorists are another matter entirely and it’s up to you to persecute them with maxi¬ GP DATAFILES RjjUur u bpoiice 2 is oeeihiteiy AH IMPROVE- MERE OVER IRE ORIBIHAl” mum prejudice. G Police 2 has added a fleet of new units to control in your struggle. First of all there’s the Venom gun- ship. This updated vertical take-off and landing craft is just as manouverable as the Havoc but much more heavily armoured. Perfect for tailing ground-based convoys and moving between domes at high speed. There’s also an armoured car to control. The thing fish- tales around the streets nice¬ ly and has an automated tur¬ ret for defense against air targets. The additions that the Marine forces offer are even more enticing. There’s a Corsair space fighter and a Raptor mechanised assault vehicle. The Raptor is basi¬ cally a classic mech capable of launching volleys of rock¬ ets from shoulder pods, which comes in a might handy against the bigger ground targets. All of these unit types can be controlled almost exclu¬ sively with the dual ana¬ logue controls. It makes strafing very intuitive and offers a much more immer¬ sive experience. The head- up display on each of the machines will guide you to waypoints and energy sources, which takes most of the agony out of navigation. It also helps you manage your substantial inventory of 25 weapons. ECHIN' PRETTY PICTURES^ :oncept "A. The other function of the head up display is visual navigation. The game engine only renders textures at a certain distance and relys on darkness after that point. This would be incredibly dis¬ orientating at high speeds if it weren’t for the HUD creat¬ ing a wire frame model of upcoming obstacles. This is a functional setup, and obviously a necessary one for the PSX CPU, but it’s annoying to see stars shin¬ ing through this artificial concoction. GEE PUH-LEASE! The key to how C Police 2 plays is in the mission sce¬ narios. They are certainly diverse and actually carry a story quite effectively but I found them a little too instructive. There is very lit¬ tle active exploration. It would have been nice to be given an assigned area to patrol and actually discover gangsters doing gangster type stuff. There are some novel innovations like hav¬ ing your targeting system being hacked and being instructed to take out police vehicles but there are too few occasions for the gamer to use their own initiative. You feel like you’ve been automated. As a reward for performing your duties you get cumula¬ tive access to a database. This has unlockable secret mis¬ sions to perform as well as new music, small animated movies and artwork. The piles of techy hand drawn sketches give you an idea of how much art actually goes into making a game. A lot. G Police 2 is definitely an improvement over the original. The future noir colony will be familiar to lovers of science fiction and the highly manauver- able craft make for frustra¬ tion-free gameplay. In the end, though, it’s too easy. Not because you won’t be murdered repeat¬ edly, but because they’ve over-simplified the linear mission objectives and provided everything on a platter. ADAM ROFF LOOK TOUGH. CORPORAL ^ AVAILABLE: How _ CATEGORY: Shooter _ PLAYERS: 1 PUBLISHER: Psygnosis PRICE: $89.95 RATING: 6+ __ SUPPORTS: Memory Card. Dual Shock PLUS More vehicles, more art. more weapons, more missions, more wingmen, more intrigue. MINUS More of the same. Initiative rarely required on the part of the gamer. VISUALS SOUND GAMEPLAY 80 82 87 BVIRAIL Gives "zero tolerance" a whole new meaning. Too linear, but still a great game. -< THAT CABBIE DIDN'T INDICATE! SHOOT HIM!^ REVIEWS PLAYSTATION o o December 21st 2000 - The United States and Russia are on the verge of confirming an agreement that will ensure peace between the two superpowers. As Murphy’s Law would have it, an alien spacecraft has crashed near New York and rogue member of the alien crew has taken it upon himself to take over the world. His quest for global domination does not involve the giant walking robots and ray guns seen in 70’s movies, but is instead a subtler 'Body Snatchers’ style scheme. The guerilla Cargatuan is replacing the presidential staff, one by one with identical clones, or hybrids, that are loyal to his every command. The eventual goal is to replace the president, and thereby harness the military might of the USA. You play the role of Diaz, one of the head hybrids in the takeover plan, who has mysteri¬ ously suffered amnesia and decided to go against his master’s wishes. You must find out who you are and save the world at the same time - all before Christmas. Piece of cake, really. The graphics aren’t partic¬ ularly startling, and are arguably one of the weaker aspects of the game. The tex¬ tures on the whole aren’t par¬ ticularly detailed, and you get some warping and distor¬ tion as you approach some walls and floors. The game puts dynamic light sourcing to good use, with lava filled rooms bathing you in fiery shades amongst some partic¬ ularly nice shadowing. Explosions are also a high point, as they are used not only when you blow nine colours out of all and sundry but also to emphasise the bone crunching moves you use on your opponents MORE SLOW FOR YOUR DOUGH Once again the expansion pak is used for the novel function of a high resolution mode - and again for slightly crisper graphics you take a big hit in the framerate department. A really crap tradeoff in most gamers minds and rightly so. Most of the game goes on in enclosed spaces, but when the action moves to more roomy situa¬ tions, a notable degree of fog sets in. Hybrid Heaven’s introduc¬ tion features speech, which then vanishes and isn’t heard for the remainder of the game. Shame that - speech is becoming all the more com¬ mon in N64 games, and it would have added a lot to the cutscenes scattered through¬ out the game. Besides the lack of speech, the sound in HH is very well done. There are a great number of tracks that rarely grow repetitive and simmer pure suspense, building the tension and atmosphere. Snapping sinew and cries of agony top off the battle experiences a treat. OTHER FIDDLY BITS The game comprises of three major aspects; manoeuvring through the 3D environment, getting past the security measures in the compound u m imn swm uso maws m 10 DMIOP YOUR OHIRIOURS HCHTIHC STYlt 10 YOUR usir JOE STEPS ON SOME EXPLOSIVE DOG SHIT^ STAMINA ER. ARE YOU JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME 0R...& and fighting with the hybrids that inhabit the underground alien complex. There are some minor control difficul¬ ties when the camera pans as you turn corners, and the camera angles tend to make you use the 'first person’ mode a lot, but this is forgiv¬ able. There is rarely any puz¬ zle aspect beyond finding the keycard for the next locked door involved in getting through the levels - but this is probably for the best. It keeps the boring 'running around' to a minimum, and builds the tension for the next bit of biffo. The security systems in the subterranean complex are a bit of a joke really. Hovering drones and suicidal mouse¬ like robots pose little threat to your progress, but they are there more for annoyance rather than solid resistance. Your best bet to thwart the defences are to either run straight past them or use your (incredibly crap) defuser gun. WHOOSHKA - COP THIS HE SAYS... And finally... going the tonk with the hybrids - this is where the heaven comes in. When you encounter an enemy, the game switches to semi-turn-based combat, much like Parasite Eve. You have to shuffle around your opponent avoiding his attacks whilst you build up your power bar to make attacks, which are then cho¬ sen from a menu. As the game starts, you have a lim¬ ited arsenal of moves, but you can learn more from your opponents, but the only way to learn them is to be on the receiving end. This leads to many strategic decisions - should you dodge, roll with the blow or cheekily attempt a counter? The combat system also allows you to develop your character’s fighting style to your tastes. You can make a boxer, a karate master or a pro wrestler - whatever you pre¬ fer. Characters can also be saved to memory card, and used in a two-player mode. Piledriving Pokemon anyone? While HH does fall a little flat in most areas, the fight¬ ing engine is good enough to be a game on its own. The turn-based/real-time system with heaps of moves and combos to discover is highly compelling. It doesn’t have the polish of Metal Gear Solid, but it isn’t a waste of a hun¬ dred bucks either. It’d be best to rent this first to see if it suits your tastes, but you can’t go far past shattering your opponent with crippling backbreakers. NICK O'SHEA AVAILABLE: Now _ CATEGORY Adventure/RPS PLAYERS: 1-2 PUBLISHER: Konami PRICE: $99.95 _ RATIN6: M __ SUPPORTS: Controller Pak. Rumble Pak. Expansion Pak PLUS Cool fighting engine with ground-shaking wrestling moves. MINUS Rest of the game seems more like padding then anything else. VISIA1S SOUND GAMIPLAY 85 87 86 It's a case of coulda been a contender’, but still warrants a look. Z ££> REVIEWS NINUNDO 6-1 C£ c C 2 LL H 2 (/I 3 III £ III a UJ CL >■ Z 00 o NFL Blitz 2000 It's all about crazy fun. We sent in "the Fridge" to suss out how things are in the year 2000... ■graphically, Hfl BLITZ 2000 IS A SIGNIFICANT IMPBOVFMFNT orn THE ORIGINAL.” I was one of the few who had the misfortune of watching the NFL game at Stadium Australia last month. The thing that struck me most about NFL was its excessive complexity and the absurd amount of rules. NFL games have never gained wide mar¬ ket acceptance over here for the same reasons: people don’t have the time to analyse a 6o-page manual in order to enjoy a gridiron game. Midway’s NFL Blitz tackled this problem: An all- out bone-crunching smash- fest, it avoids realism in favour of speed and over the top gameplay. The tradition continues... IT'S ALL ABOUT BALL HANDLING... With a quick, effective inter¬ face, Blitz 2000 continues in the trend of the original. These are not your flashy and cumbersome EA Sports menus, but quick and sim¬ plistic. There is something to be said for simplic¬ ity and efficien¬ cy, and Midway comes up aces here. Although Midway has placed an emphasis on Arcade action, they certainly haven’t neglected strategy from Blitz 2000. The game- play has terrific depth with over 27 offensive plays and the ability to create custom plays. The play editor is sim¬ ple to use and allows you to make some amazing plays. There are also 18 defensive plays. There are other improvements as well, including much better AI. The original Blitz had rather patchy AI, so we were very relieved that this was fixed up for the sequel. The CPU will make dynamic decisions, altering its plays and deci¬ sions in line with your moves. Another novel feature is the ability to map passes to receivers. Originally, an offensive pass went to the most open receiver. The game also receives a new punting mechanism: punts can be made on the fly, with far greater accuracy. Aside from this, the game is fortunately very similar to the original with only a few minor tweaks. For example, players can now go ’on fire’, in a manner akin to NBA Jam. When you are on fire, your offensive moves pack far more oomph, for some really spectacular plays. Up to four players can battle it out, with two people controlling each team. As far as multiplayer sports games go, Blitz 2000 is unrivalled. The simplicity of the game- play should allow even the most hardened Goldeneye players to give it a punt. NICE LOOKING BALLS Graphically, NFL Blitz 2000 is a significant improvement over the original. Whilst not quite showing off the sys¬ tem’s high-resolution mode as in Quarterback Club, Blitz 2000 features an extremely crisp, colourful and franti¬ cally fast graphics engine that blasts all the others off the Astroturf - and there’s never a drop in the consis¬ tency of animation. In tradi¬ tional Nintendo form, the N64 version of Blitz 2000 is significantly prettier than its dull-looking PlayStation counterpart. Aside from the nightmar¬ ish and oft-repeated com¬ mentary, Blitz 2000 offers some excellent audio. From the pumping intro music to the driving stadium chants during plays, it all works very well. The sound effects also give you a sense of how bad someone gets checked. And if you’ve got a receiver that supports it, the audio is in Dolby Surround. Although NFL Blitz 2000 isn’t a huge step-up from its predecessor, it does refine the package in all areas. In all, it is significantly more difficult and balanced a game than its predecessor. So what’s the verdict? NFL Blitz 2000 isn’t a revolution¬ ary game by any means, but Midway certainly didn’t drop the ball in any depart¬ ments, especially as a multi¬ player game. Unless you are a hardcore statistics fanatic, Blitz 2000 is a 5-star title worthy of anyone’s cash. I wait for the next installment with bated breath and a case of Budweiser. HUGH “FRIDGE" NORTON-SMITH AVAILABLE: October CATEEOBY: Arcade Sports PLAYERS: 1-4 _ PUBLISHER: Midw ay_ PRICE: $99.95 RATING: 6 _ SUPPORTS: Controller Pack. Rumble Pak PLUS Refined gameplay, awesome multiplayer. MINUS Won't appeal to the pig¬ skin fanatics. VISUALS SOUND GAMEPLAY Bone-crushing fun packed onto one smooth grey cart. ^"1 CAN SEE YOUR STRETCH MARKS FROM HERE!" «< O <0 1 9 0 a N 31N 1N sjuiaui cc a 2 LL 3 u lli a ui CL >• The New Tetris Yet another rehash of the classic puzzle game - how does it 'stack up' to the legend? Nearly fifteen years ago a playful Russian mathemati¬ cian conceived a game involving falling groups of four bricks. Not a startlingly complex concept, it only took him only a couple of weeks to write the core code. And so it was, the sensation of Tetris came to be. Alexey Pajitnov became enshrined in gaming history and the world was subjected to the ’must-have- one-more-game' factor unseen in many other titles. A game that transcends barriers of age, gender and language, Tetris is truly a work of art. Developer H20 has grabbed the Tetris franchise in a bid to bring it to 64 bit gaming, with excellent results. BUILT LIKE A BRICK... LAVATORY Although falling bricks can only look so good, this game will have tradesmen wetting their pants. Although the AVAI1ABIE: Now _ CATEGOBY: Puzzle PLAYERS: 1-4 PUBLISHER: Nintendo PRICE: $99.95 RATINB: G _ SUPPORTS: Contreller Pak PIUS Ingenious modification that leaves the addictiveness of the original intact. MINUS You have to get off your arse and walk to the store to buy it. VISUALS SOUND EAMEPLAY IILII ■! If blocks are all 2D, they are lovingly shaded and extremely colourful, so long Tetris sessions won’t have you straining your eyes. A few little nuances are thrown in, like transparency effects and lush back¬ grounds, but you will be focused so intently on the blocks you’ll have no time to appreciate them. The crunch of the dissipa¬ tion of complete lines is backed by some damn funky tunes. The N64, usually infa¬ mous for its poor perfor¬ mance in the aural depart¬ ment goes up another gear to provide you with catchy techno remixes of the Tetris tracks in glorious stereo. It’s damn hard to get the main theme out of your head sometimes, and some people may find this irritating. BIG BLOCKER ROACH The game is pretty much the classic Tetris we all know and love, with a few alterations. Ever been playing Tetris waiting for the long straight block? Well no more, because TNT allows you to keep one block in reserve, so you can hang onto long straighty, that handy t-block or whatever takes your fancy until that strategic moment. You are previewed the next three upcoming bricks, and a ghost block shows where your current block will fall if you drop it as it is aligned. Another new function is the four square block. If you can make a four square block from four sepa¬ rate blocks, they will fuse together and when included in complete lines you rack up big bonuses. While the single player game is captivating enough on its own, the mul¬ tiplayer game is where this game is best. When you com¬ plete multiple lines, you can choose to dump lines on your opponent, and direct to whom they go, making for some awesome competition (and associated trash talk). The main problems with Tetris games in the past has been that developers have tried to change too much of the game’s essence to the point of bastardisation. TNT has realised this, and the new features don’t intrude on the intense playability of the original game, but sim¬ ply add a new facet to it. This is the best puzzle game on the N64 to date. Get out there and buy it. NICK O'SHEA ^00 YOUR BLOCK HI HM farms mi mam on at mriHsi pan- Biiurofai ORIGINAL” Monster Truck Madness 64 Feel like crushing something? Microsoft finally give you a legitimate reason to go nuts. Love World Championship Wrestling but you’re sick of wrestling games? Want to drive around in massive pick-up trucks and crush things? Co berserk with Monster Truck Madness 64. It combines the character of professional wrestling with the racetrack and all the spills but, sadly, none of the thrills. The developers went for the all-out Monster Truck feel by using voice samples from Army Armstrong, the voice of Monster Trucks, and by fea¬ turing a number of infa¬ mous vehicles. There’s Hollywood Hogan, Wildfoot, Monster Patrol and my per¬ sonal favourite Boogie Van. Over 20 in all... plenty by any standard. MOTHER TRUCKER Once you’re actually behind the wheel the excitement quickly wears off. These things handle like bricks. I understand that they’re big and unwieldy in real life, but darn it, this is supposed to be a racing game. The entire premise of the game is thwarted if they travel so slowly you want to get out and walk. The physics engine is appalling. It insists on making your truck launch into the air for no apparent reason. Just clip one of your fellow racers and boom you’re in orbit. Violently twisting the analogue stick to regain control has no perceivable effect. You are forced to watch as your truck bounces along aimlessly like a balloon. Theoretically, if the tracks were graphically astounding, racing in slow- mo’ could be entertaining. Well, it just ain’t. The desert levels look so bland you can get genuinely lost and be without a landmark in sight. There are weather effects to spice things up a bit but it only succeeds in making the race more confusing. There’s even a "fog” option. I find it impossible to believe that anyone would voluntarily add MORE fog to this game. It’s already drowned in the stuff. The greener slopes look a little more inviting. However, some objects can be driven through and some that can’t. You’ll drive through an apparition of a tree without any ill effect and then hit a rock and CLUNK. Dead stop. Engines full reverse, back her out slowly, try and find what passes as the track in this neighbourhood and floor it. Damn frustrating. GET TRUCKED In what is almost an admis¬ sion of guilt, the developers have provided players with a whole bunch of diver¬ sions. During the "race” you can pick up a variety of weapons and power-ups that can do some mighty damage to the other mon¬ sters cruising round the track. Even more fun, and basically the only redeem¬ ing facet of the game, are the multiplayer battle modes. There’s ice hocky, soccer and the summit rum¬ ble. Summit rumble is a king of the hill scenario where you get points for holding the high ground. The other players frantically attempt to barge you off and it can be a barrel of laughs. Just don’t try convention¬ al racing with multiple players. It’s blurrier, slower and more confusing than the single-player experience, which hardly seems possi¬ ble. This is a lack-lustre conversion of what was a decent PC title. It isn’t rac¬ ing and it isn’t wrestling and it isn’t fun. ADAM ROFF AVAILABLE: Now CATEGORY: Racing PLAYERS: 14 PUBLISHER: Microsoft PRICE: $99.95 RATING: G __ SUPPORTS: Memory Pak. Rumble Pak PLUS A diverse range of gameplay modes. Plenty of trucks, tracks and smashes. MINUS Unbearably slow. So blurry and foggy it makes you barf. VISIAIS SOUND CAMiPlAT B2 65 70 If you must have a monster truck game - this is it But spare yourself. ^ TRUCK YOU BUDDY! TRUCK OFF! Ir9 0 Cl N -11 N I N SMaiAaa 3 III III System Shock 2 When a game like this comes along, you can forgive yourself for going a month without washing... Isn’t it always the way? Some genius comes up with a phenomenal piece of oper¬ ating software and gives it enough artificial intelligence so that it can hold a decent conversa¬ tion, and, of course, partake in the occasional game of checkers. The git then places a great big shiny ’Infallible’ sticker next to the ’Y2K Compliant’ one on its harmless-look¬ ing mainframe, and ships it off to be put in control of National Security, or some¬ thing equally important. Bad move, buddy! The laws of science (and pseudo sci-fi horror flicks) state that when the above conditions are met, nine times out of ten the AI becomes self-aware and starts running things the way it sees best. Slowly but surely, things start to go horribly wrong and chaos ensues! It’s an oldie, but a goodie. Technophobe or not, as long as computers play a promi¬ nent role in the manage¬ ment of public (and private) infrastructure and society, it doesn’t take much to enter¬ tain the idea of computers around the world becoming absolutely hotting mad. Enter System Shock 2. It takes this premise, lavishes it with an absolutely engag¬ ing storyline and drenches it with near-perfect gameplay. IT'S AN RPG After choosing your charac¬ ter (which is the most impressive character cre¬ ation system thus far in an RPG - no die-rolling or number-crunching spread¬ sheets here!), you begin your adventure aboard the Faster Than Light (FLT) star- ship Von Braun. Waking to find a set of cybernetic neural implants attached to your head, you are alerted via email that something has gone horribly wrong aboard the Von Braun, and it’s got something to do with the malfunctioning AI aboard the ship. Surprise, sur¬ prise, you are one of the few remaining sur¬ vivors left to do anything about it. Although System Shock 2 may feel like a first-person shooter, it’s a Cyberpunk RPG all the way. There are a bunch of core statistics and a handful of derived skills featured, and as you progress through the game, you can increase your proficiency in these skills. On top of this, there are a slew of items and other upgrades to further develop your character. And yet the RPC label doesn’t quite do it justice. In the end, the best way to describe System Shock 2 is (hold your breath) a ’truly immersive Cyberpunk horror 3D adventure game’. Combining the stunning graphics with the engaging storyline and incredible level of interaction, suspen¬ sion of disbelief is assured and you become one with your character aboard the Von Braun. Rather than hooning through to the level exit in the vague expectation of run¬ ning into the game’s final protagonist, System Shock 2 requires a greater use of thought and planning. The underlying philosophy behind the game is realism, and as a result, a strong sense of plausibility perme¬ ates the entire game. You won’t find weapons floating in space here. The Von Braun is a functional starship with bits in all the right places - armouries under lock and key, recreational areas, engi¬ neering bays, research and medical sections. Whatever has taken control of the ship hasn’t taken lightly to your presence. Let any of the many security cameras situated on the ship see you and terrify- “ ALTHOUGH SYSTEM SHOCK 2 MAY FEEL LIKE A FIRST PERSOH SHOOTER, irSA CYSERPONK RPG All THE WAY ” THE DIRTY THREE Depending on the character you chose at the UNN recruitment office at the beginning of the game, the way you play System Shock 2 will vary greatly. Although it is possible (and extremely difficult) to play as a specialised character, SS2 is far more enjoyable when you diversify your skills, and pinch some skills from the other UNN professions. UNN Marine Primary skills: Weapons (Standard, Energy, Heavy and Exotic), Strength. Secondary skills: Repair, Modify, Maintenance, and Endurance. This character is your standard weapons and com¬ bat character, and is the perfect choice for first person shooter fanatics. The dedicated Marine will gain access to powerful weapons, and do well to learn maintenance skills. After all, weapons deteri¬ orate after time. UNN Navy: Primary skills: Hacking, Repair, Research and Cybernetic Affinity. Secondary skills: Modify, Maintenance, and Agility. This 'hacker* is the more subversive character of the three. Using hacking skills, this character can break into locked rooms and sections, disable security systems and even turn turrets against your enemies. OSA Primary skills: Psionics, Psionic disciplines. Secondary skills: None. The OSA character, or PSI-guy, is in classic RPC terms the 'magic user' of System Shock 2. Using a PSI amplifier, and providing you’ve traded your cyber-modules for the right PSI disciplines (spells), you’ve got access to a mass array of useful spells. You can, for example, heal yourself, cast cryo- balls, teleport yourself, even temporarily raise other character skills and statistics. ing humanoids will be sent to hunt you down. Averting this threat while finding a way your way around the ship and ensuring your survival becomes a tricky task indeed. SO MUCH TO SEE AND DO There’s so much to see and do in System Shock, that at first it may seem a tad intim¬ idating. There are items to repair, weapons to maintain, security systems to shut down, for example. After set¬ tling into the adventure however, it becomes abun¬ dantly clear that none of SS2 S gameplay is superflu¬ ous or unnecessary. And thanks to a comprehensive (and oddly enjoyable) tutor¬ ial and intuitive interface, mastery of SS2’s intricacies becomes a piece of cake. One of SS2’s primary strengths is its plot, and Looking Class have revealed themselves to be masters in the art of story telling. Although you don’t actually meet or talk to many living people aboard the Von Braun (the typical RPC method of revealing plot and game quests), LG reveal the story first through the many per¬ sonal logs that you pick up in the game, through a limited communications hack with one of the ship’s personnel, and finally through the occa¬ sional cut scene. Logs are generally found on corpses and through brilliant voice acting unravel piece by piece just what’s been happening on the Von Braun. Even then, when you think you’ve guessed what’s going to hap¬ pen next, or even what the heck is going on, LG throw a spanner in the works and completely knock you for six. System Shock 2 is easily the most engaging gaming experience ever. It will terri¬ fy and captivate you, and you won’t want to stop till the very end. Get out there and get this now! MARCH STEPNIK AVAILABLE: Now _ CATE60BY: First-Person RPG PLAYERS: 1 PUBLISHER: Electronic Arts PRICE: $89.95 _ RATING: MA15* _ REQUI1BED: P200.32MB RAM. 3D card DESIRED: Pill, 128MB RAM. 16MB 3D card SUPPORTS: 3D sound (A3D.EAX) PLUS Golden gameplay that completely hooks you in. MINUS Action gamers might find it slow going at times. VISUALS SOUND GAMEPLAY 90 93 97 System Shock is back and it's better than ever! HYPER» 75 76 »HYPER CJ CL With another name just as confusing as Rainbow Six, we're back in our fatigues again... members (explosives/ assault) may be needed in your team. After you have organised your team, you must select their camouflage, body armour and arma- maents. Your choice of equipment is of paramount importance to the success of your team. For example, a close range assault might require light armour, tear gas and shotguns. Alternatively, an open-air attack might demand thick armour, sniper rifles and frag grenades. The game comes with a much larger arsenal than the origi¬ nal game, so readers of Soldier of Fortune will be in nirvana here. There are over 20 selectable primary weapons, and as many sidearms. For instance, play¬ ers can choose from guns like the Heckler 6 Koch MP5 SMC, the colossal Beretta M95 sniper rifle and the awe¬ some Lee-Enfield L85A1 car¬ bine. In addition to the arse¬ nal of guns, players can choose from a huge variety of ammo. Hollow-point, armour piercing and full metal jacket rounds are available. Meanwhile, shot- The original Rainbow Six smashed onto the PC late last year. A huge success, it com¬ bined strategy with the relentless action of a first person shooter. This year, Red Storm Entertainment, have put the final wraps on Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear, a sequel that is bigger and significantly badder than the original. TOM CLANCY SIMULATOR Like its predecessor, Rogue Spear is an ultra realistic first-person strategy game in which you act as head of an elite anti-terrorism squad. Teamwork, strategy, planning and reflexes are essential for success in Rogue Spear. The game offers three broad modes of play: Campaign, Terrorist Hunt and Lone Wolf. Naturally, there is the oblig¬ atory multiplayer mode. Terrorist Hunt gives you a team of players with the sole goal of hunting down and eliminating all the tangos (terrorist) spread around the map. Lone Wolf is for the Rambo types: You take com¬ mand of a single operative who must take down the Tangoes with the added goal of having to locate the safety goal on the map. The Campaign Mode features 18 new missions in 16 different locations from across the globe. Missions range from recapturing hijacked aircraft, saving hostages at an oil refinery and storming a city museum. All of these missions are cunningly weaved together in typical Tom Clancy style: People will power through the game purely to get to see what develops next. The use of stealth and the knowledge that only one hit will take out your operative, makes for a tension filled and adrenaline-pumping experi¬ ence. For example, the sec¬ ond mission involves the capture of a Japanese tanker that has been taken over by Muslim fanatics. Players must negotiate the claustrophobic stairwells and rooms of the tanker in order to defuse the toxic bomb. The inclusion of hostages into this equation makes accurate shooting and clever judgement necessary for success. In Rogue Spear, you can’t afford to take the ’one man army’ approach. Unless all of your team storms the building simulta¬ neously and make a coordinated attack, hostages will die. For Quakers, that means no BFCs or gung-ho! The game also sup¬ ports hit location: if you shoot some¬ one in the head, they are in trouble. Also, if you hit someone in their breastplate, they are unlikely to go down due to the pro¬ tection. But it doesn’t stop there. If you get hit in the leg, for example, you’ll walk slower and limp. This also holds true if you get shot in the arm: it is rendered use¬ less, forcing you to use your other arm for defence. Before each level, you have to organise a suitable team to carry out the mission. Each assault will have certain requirements, so specialist I KNEW THE RAT PROBLEM UNDER THE HARBOUR BRIOGE WAS BAD. B J T... (J Q_ 3 1U guns can be armed with buckshot, rubber bullets or devastating solid slugs. The first game had a few problems with the AI rou¬ tines. CPU players would often exhibit unrealistic and downright bizarre behav¬ iour. Thankfully, Red Storm has fixed these problems. The 'Tangoes' act intelli¬ gently and at times they exhibit frighteningly con¬ vincing behaviour. They’ll move randomly on different paths, double back, call for reinforcements and duck behind cover amongst other things. The AI of your team¬ mates has also been improved: your partner is no longer a useless ally. The 'friendlies’ also react intelli¬ gently to your presence. For example, if you need cover¬ ing from behind, they will automatically move to your flank and check for enemies. The graphics engine is a dramatically improved version of the original. Environments are much more realistic and inter¬ active. There are a bevy of new animations for all the characters, includ¬ ing 400 new motion captured movements. Now your characters are able to crouch and run at the same time, throw grenades while on the run and look around comers. Naturally sys¬ tem requirements are significantly higher than the original. Rogue Spear is much more than a simple re¬ hash of the original. With so many new features, Rogue Spear is set to be one of the contenders for best action game of 1999- Over and Out. HUGH NORTON SMITH A BI N CREW HAVE ALWAYS BEEN PUSHY AVAILABLE: How _ CATEGORY: FPS/Strategy PLAYERS: H6 _ PUBLISHER: Red Storm PRICE: $89.95 _ RATING: MA15* _ REQUIIRED: P200,3D Card, 32MB RAM DESIRED: P2 300*. 64MB RAM. 16meg 3D Card PLUS Abundance of weaponry. Great graphics, multiplayer support and engrossing gameplay. MINUS Very little. Demanding system requirements. 5 6 THE NEW BEASTIE BOYS VIDEOCLIP CJ Q_ (/) 3 UI III Force 21 3D strategy titles just keep on coming. Here's one with a serious edge... Well, wonderful and groundbreaking are two words I definitely wouldn’t use to describe Force 21. It’s decent enough, but there are some major flaws with this new 3D strategy title which is a real shame since Red Storm made a great game in Rainbow 6. The story follows thusly: In 2015 China and the US remain the two world major superpowers. China, however, is running out of fuel to supply their massive armies. They set their sights on neighboring Kazakhstan, an oil-rich country that due to the fall of Russia has minimal defenses and resistance. So the invasion begins, but not without the ’heroes’ (the yanks) send¬ ing in their resistance to stop the Chinese onslaught. World War III breaks out and the rest, as they say, is history. FEEL THE FORCE To put it bluntly, Force 21 has no major angles over any other game. It has an awkward control interface, less than wonderful unit pathing and movement rou¬ tines, and its graphics engine is fairly dated. F21 uses some nice trees throughout the game scat¬ tered occasionally, but your units are unable to pass through or interact with them at all. As soon as a tank or a jeep passes near them the awkward move¬ ment routine kicks into all its glory. Units spin on the spot uncertainly, trying to find a way to go around the trees in the quickest way possible. Finally they kick into action, losing any sem¬ blance of formation and wobble around the trees. The graphics are generally a little too sparse and simple which may be good for users with a lower speed PC. but the option for users with a powerful PC to at least run in 1024x768 doesn’t exist. Units are fairly detailed which is good, but when on the field they often look more blocky and out of place than anything. Controlling F21 is no day at the beach either. Units are grouped into squadrons. They have the ability to change which squadrons they’re in, but not to create new squadrons. Nor can individual units within a squadron be selected either. This means that scouting using a single unit is next to impossible. Your entire squad of units must travel together to find the enemy as a group. Once they find them, well... let’s just say luck plays a big fac¬ tor in who blows up more than anyone else does. When UP YOUR ARSENAL T-90UK Command Tank - Russian (T-90UK.jpg): The T-90 is a standard, tough as nails tank. It has an advanced ballistics tracking system along with a 12.7 mm AA machine gun and a coaxial 7.62 mm machine gun in addition to the 125 mm main gun. Cheetah Heavy Attack Helicopter — Chinese (Cheetah.jpg): The Cheetah Heavy Attack Helicopter is the PLA’s reverse engineered version of the Hind-F. With its latest engine and avionics upgrades it can reach cruising speeds of over 230 km per hour. It is armed with two 30 mm cannons, a chin mounted 12.7 mm machine gun, rocket pods, hard points for other ordnance, and wire-guided AT missiles. M2A3 Bradley Stinger Fighting Vehicle (BSFV) - US (M2A3.jpg): Sporting a very sexy multi¬ ple missile rack and touting a couple of nasty machine guns, the M2A3 is a powerful little beast of a reconnaissance vehicle. A-10A Thunderbolt II (Warthog)-US (a-10.gif): More of a butterfly than a bee, the Warthog is a much more manoeuvrable plane than most. Able to carry ordinance in excess of sixteen thousand pounds at cruising speeds topping 625 km/h, the Warthog is the scout’s heavy weapon. A mediocre effort from a group who are able to produce greatness. a unit is set to fire at will, they will continue on their current path once they find an enemy, even once they start firing. A tank, for exam¬ ple, is a frontal assault unit. If an enemy gets behind a tank, it’s as good as dead. However F21 doesn’t acknowl¬ edge this simple fact of war¬ fare. When a tank spies an enemy, it will shoot at it, but its current course will not change, nor is there any option for it to change. It will continue to travel wherever it may be going, even if that path takes it right past an enemy to let them shoot the tank in the butt. MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU... NOT So, with two strikes against it already, things aren’t looking great for Force 21. The release of Tiberian Sun doesn’t help its cause either. Yet Force 21 still offers that something spe¬ cial for people who are just entering the world of video games. It’s simple enough for any beginner to take grasp of quickly, but still providing enough options for them to learn further concepts to take into future games. The difficulty in unit control may frustrate though, and the difficulty level in general is quite high, making it for the more determined newbie than anything else. If you’re a diehard wargame fan then take a look at it. If you’re just a casual gamer who thinks that CSC was cool but hasn’t really played anything else, you can probably stand to give it a miss. SINGE GRAHAM 1 M r 1 "ttttiy" iVTly Sr^S I AVAILABLE: Now CATEGORY: Military Strategy PLAYERS: M PUBLISHER: Red Storm PRICE: $89.95 RATING: PG REQUIIRED: P2B0 (With 39 card) - P233 (Without). 32MI Ram DESIRED: P266.3D Card PLUS Good unit variety and detail. Quite challenging. MINUS Bad unit control. Average graphics. VISUALS SOUND GAMEPLAY 65 67 66 OffiRAU (J CL Ja gged Alliance 2 _ The sequel to the incredibly popular Jagged Alliance has just been permanently glued into the Hyper CD tray... Whoa... 6 hours later of JA2, it’s dark out, and I’m still wondering just where all the time went. Ok, so maybe I was half expecting something like this to happen because the original JA was just as amazing for its time, but sequels aren’t generally as good as their predecessors. Someone needs to give SirTech a big pat on the back for making sure that wasn’t true this time. HARD-ARSED The basic princi¬ ple of the game still remains the same. You’re a mercenary contrac¬ tor hired to liberate the tiny nation of Arulco from the clutches of its evil dictator queen. In order to do this though you’re gonna need some guns. BIG guns. LOTS of big guns. Luckily though you have at your disposal a trusty laptop computer through which you can con¬ tact your parent organisa¬ tion, A.l.M. (Association of International Mercenaries), and request some firepower to be sent over to you. Once you’ve organised your team of hard-arsed mercenaries, you then enter a real-time overhead map view of the country. From this screen you co-ordinate the movements of your squadrons of mercenaries to their various destinations around the country. Your meres will soon reach their target destination, and you can then zoom in on the cur¬ rent location and engage the enemy in combat. Combat, however, takes place in a turn based method as opposed to real time. Mercs are given a cer¬ tain amount of time units in which they can perform various actions such as crawling, run¬ ning, climbing, shooting, reloading or acquiring items. Don’t be deceived into thinking this turn-based approach kills the game though. It actu¬ ally intensifies the experience much more by making you think carefully about where your troops are going, rather than having them kick down the door with guns blazing. Now while it’s nothing Earth shattering in the visu¬ als department, it’s defi¬ nitely a few dozen light years ahead of the original. The tactical combat screen is now viewed from an isomet¬ ric, thee-dimensional point of view rather than the top- down, 2D perspective of the original. Also new is the inclu¬ sion of multiple levels per sector! Once you’ve cleared the ground level of enemies, in some sectors you’re able to descend under¬ ground in order to flush the enemies out of their hidey- holes and to create some tunnel warfare. The other great new feature is the size of the map. This time around, the map covers a massive 16x16 squares. Creating a total of 256 unique sectors to explore and con¬ quer. Needless to say this should be enough to keep even the most avid gamer occupied for quite some time. In fact, after 6 hours of playing, I’ve only occupied about 20 of the eas¬ ier sectors. A DEADLY GAME Controlling IA2 may initially seem a little overwhelming. It starts out simple enough, but when first confronted with the map overview screen one tends to be a little out of their league. After about 5 minutes of experimentation and trial and error you’ll feel right at home though. Tactical screen interface is quick and easy. Orders are issued with just a couple of simple clicks, and nothing is too “JABBfD kimmn ElkllY IS A E(M IH OISEUISr at o GO E HYPER GAMES STORAGE COMPLEX CJ CL obscured by other com¬ mands or options. The original Jagged Alliance’s biggest drawback was in the fact that it wasn’t multiplayer. That required the use of an additional expansion pack known as "Deadly Carnes”. You’d think that they’d have got¬ ten the formula right the second time around, but there is STILL no multiplayer feature in JA2. It’s really a tragedy, because had it had the simple option of blowing up your mates it would have gotten the big rubber stamp of approval without a doubt. As it stands though, we’ll probably have to wait until "Jagged Alliance 2.5: Dead(ly) Bank Accounts” before we’ll have that luxury given to us. But, JA2 really is a gem in disguise. The blurb on the box, in addition to the screenshots they have used, allude to a mediocre-look¬ ing game. But don’t judge a computer game by it’s cover - once you get into the meat of the game you’ll be more than pleasantly surprised. SINGE GRAHAM AV/ULABIE: Now _ CATEGOR Y: Strategy PLAYERS: 1 PUBLISHER: SirTech PRICE: $89.95 RATING: M_ REQUIIREP: P133. 32MB RAM DESIRED: P166. 64 MB RAM PLUS Excellent attention to detail and a plethora of mercenaries to choose from. MINUS Not multiplayer! VISDA1S SOUND GAMEPLAY 83 87 88 ;: Excellent. If only we could blow our friends up though! (ft s III 5 6 X < TJ m J) REVIEWS RYTFS17F CM 00 Caesar III MACINTOSH AVAILABLE: NOW CATEGORY: STRATEGY/SIM PLAYERS: 1 PUBLISHER: SIERRA PRICE: $89.95 RATING: G REQUIRED: POWERMAC 6100, OS 7.6, 32MB RAM DESIRED: IMAC OR G3 Woohoo! The constant stream of Macintosh games contin¬ ues! Okay, so it’s more like a faltering trickle, but at least the games are usu¬ ally good ones. Caesar III sees play¬ ers taking manage¬ ment control of a budding Roman city. Like another recent PC-to-Mac conversion, Starcraft, it’s a real time strategy game, only there is less concern with war-waging and more with town planning. Keeping your little Roman citizens happy and productive is the key to success... just don’t expect cries of "Hail, Caesar!" for a little while. MAKE ME A SALAD! Starting your city is quite simple. Build some housing plots and watch the immi¬ grants move in. Provide them with a water supply, emergency services (a cen¬ turion with a bucket of water) and religious shrines and they’ll be happy for a short while. Then comes the task of providing employ¬ ment at the farms and an access to local markets. Pretty soon you’ll be trying to jug¬ gle unemploy¬ ment and popu¬ lation, taxes and trade routes, sew¬ erage and food storage. Then your citizens, the fickle little bas¬ tards, start complaining. "We want health services “IT SOOH BECOMES APPAHAHT THAT CATSAH3IS AH I HER TO IB If mPUHAHO HTTP CAME" and entertainment!" they scream. So you give them some classy Roman baths and an amphitheatre. "We want education and things to buy!” No problem, here’s a school, library and pottery shop. "We want chariot races!” Errm, okay, here’s a hippodrome. "My neigh¬ bourhood isn’t pretty enough!” Will gardens and plazas do? "Not good enough! We’re rioting!” Meanwhile the Cods are get¬ ting angry, your city is about to be invaded and Caesar is reportedly very unhappy with you. Sheesh! It soon becomes apparent Caesar III is an incredibly complex and deep game. A big city requires an enor¬ mous amount of close atten¬ tion and things can get quite overwhelming. It’s a good thing hitting the 'restart level’ button just makes you more determined to build an even better city. MALCOLM CAMPBELL JuI347BC Advisors Shadowgate 64: Trials of the Four Towers NINTENDO 64 AVAILABLE: NOW CATEGORY: 1ST PERSON ADVENTURE PLAYERS: 1 PUBLISHER: KEMCO PRICE: $99.95 RATING: G+ SUPPORTS: MEMORY PAK If you can sit through the excruciatingly slooow intro of Shadowgate 64, you’ll then only get to start play¬ ing the game. That seems unfair because it takes such monumental determination to endure it that there should be some kind of reward. You play as a halfling captured by bandits and imprisoned for no good reason. You’re in the medieval world of Castle Shadowgate and fortunate enough to be the "chosen one”. By collecting and reading from books from the four towers of Shadowgate you’ll learn of wizards and dragons and spells and destiny. Just don’t expect it to be entertaining. LIKE SWIMMING IN SAND Kemko have basically given us an adventure game based on simple puzzle solving, and thrown in a first person engine. The abhorrently linear tasks provided can only be com¬ pleted in a certain order. If you don’t gag on the greasy meat you won’t find the bone to pry open the trap door. If you take a wrong turn you die. Time to start again and watch that freakin’ intro again. The only truly innovative component in the game is that they’ve somehow managed to include load times in a N64 game. There are no battles, few other characters and even fewer redeeming features. The most exciting element is the interior design. Seriously. Even the 1st per¬ son engine is laughable. While you control the cam¬ era it is reasonable, if unnecessarily choppy and blurry, but as soon as the game takes control and sweeps around to show you an object or a window it becomes nauseating. The few action elements are dodgy animations of you operating some switch, poking at something with a stick or sweeping the floor. You never see your own limbs or your reflection and rarely see other characters. The few you do see are apparitions which makes the big, empty world rather lonely. The repetitive sound samples and dodgy music are the highlights. Stick with Zelda folks. ADAM ROFF 32 50 40 > Kevin Cheung REMOTE CONTROL DANDY PLAYSTATION OOKING FOR SOMETHING IDIFFERENT? TRY ONE OF THESE MECHS ON FOR SIZE... There is a Cod. Some of you readers may remember a wish made by this particular reviewer several months ago for a game based on the legendary anime. Giant Robo. That wish would appear to have come true. Remote Control Dandy, a game devel¬ oped by Human Entertainment for the PlayStation, is a game that is filled with clanking skyscraper-sized mechanoids that duke it out with each other. Sure, there aren’t any of the Magnificent Ten or the Kings of Ryo Zan Paku, but this thing’s close enough. “RIMOTT cohtroi DANDY ISA TITU THAT All BAMINB PUBISTS Will flDCK TO ” Go ahead... Mech my day The opening FMV is priceless. You get the basic city layout, crowded and packed with high-rise build¬ ings. As the camera sweeps to ground level, the entire screen begins to vibrate with a dull thud, and soon you realise that the thuds continue with a certain familiar |regularity. As the camera peers ^etween two buildings into the next street, you see a giant metal¬ lic foot rise into the ground. By now, you would have realised it’s a robot. An impossibly large robot, rumbling its way towards an equally massive enemy robot. And with their tremendous clunky armour, these things fight with what else? Their bare hands! Controlling these robots is literally as the title of the game would suggest - it’s like a remote con¬ trolled toy. The left shoulder buttons control whether you move your left foot forwards and backwards, while your right foot is controlled simi¬ larly with the right shoulder but¬ tons. Walking, in that sense,. is achieved by pressing the Li and Ri buttons in steady succession, where keeping one of the buttons pressed for longer will increase the length of each stride you take. The D-Pad allows you to pivot the torso against the waist, and the square and circle buttons control your left and right hands respectively. Just pressing square, for instance, will perform a basic punch with your left hand. Sounds complicated? Well, those are just the basic con¬ trols. With a little combination of the buttons, you can spin around. jump, perform lariats and super punches, shoot machine guns, and best of all. the age-old classic Rocket Punch! Bandy War Holes In single-player mode. Remote Control Dandy is your rather typical Japanese adventure game. As a young boy. your father entrusts you with a giant remote controlled robot that is to be used to fight evil. Most of the time is spent reading through endless spiels of text and spending the odd moment per¬ forming a little trick like picking up a bomb-laden truck and throwing it into the harbour where it will explode harmlessly. The real fun starts when you get to two-player mode, listening to the metal of each robot yawn and grind with each step they take as they beat seven shades of shinola out of each other, and flatten the town in the process. There is no doubting that Remote Control Dandy is a title that all gaming purists will flock to. Every person in the office has had at least one shot at playing the game, if only just to appreciate the origi¬ nality and ingenuity behind it. It’s a pity Australia doesn’t quite have Japan’s popular sub-culture of giant lizards, giant robots and giant insects - otherwise it’s a shoe-in for our market. AMIABLE: Now (Import) CATEGORY: Simulation PLAYERS: 1 PUBLISER: Human Entertainment OVERALL Pays homage to all the great anime robots. Get it if that's what you're into. VISOALS SOUND EAMEPLA RATING: 9 _ SUPPORTS: Dual Shock. Memory Card PLUS Highly original control system, fantastic atmosphere. MINUS An extremely pointless single-player mode. PRICE: 5800 Yen e CL £ & HYPER» 83 u > a h = s z O CO >— - > UJ WAR is hell. Sure, war pushes mankind’s learning curve to hit near vertical when his ass is on the line and he has to create cool stuff like computers and rockets (both WW II inventions) to get himself out of a spot of bother... but otherwise - real war sucks real hard. Fortunately, the war between the World and a robot¬ using rogue Russian Republic is only Atari’s fictitious premise for bring¬ ing a first-rate first-person Quake- style shooter to the arcade. It has been left up to you and up to 3 others to take on the guise of hard-core mercenaries in the hope of infiltrating and destroying the heavily defended Republic machine design factory at Irkusk. Each mercenary has different speed, armour and default weapon (machine gun, grenade-launcher or shotgun) capabilities. These dif¬ ferent capabilities exhort you to use each character differently and makes for an interesting multi¬ player team experience. The eight level mission game Control of your character is via 4 directional buttons, a jump button and a fighter pilot joy¬ stick. It may take a couple of games before the controls become instinctual, though before you know it you’ll be will take you through different combat scenarios and environs ranging from narrow corridors to wide open spaces. A veritable army of soldiers, engineers, robots, tanks and gun emplace¬ ments populate the complex and prove to be very tenacious and are often skillfully hidden. If you find yourself being attacked from behind, it is a good idea change to third perspective view point so as to get a better idea where the enemy is located. Each level has a unique end of stage boss who is often defended by endless waves of soldiers, so make sure you concentrate your fire on the boss. After defeating certain enemies, you can utilise their weapon (flame-thrower, mortar, gattling gun, rocket launcher etc.) to enhance your firepower. Bonus health, vehicles and extra time are also scattered throughout the complex. EKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT using the terrain to your advan¬ tage and dodging incoming fire like you were playing Calaga. Not only is war a great mission adventure, but it also serves as a fine multiplayer death match experience with 14 different are¬ nas to duke it out in. As games of this vein have been exclusive to the home console and PC domain for many years, it is exciting to see that War has suc¬ cessfully made the genre accessi¬ ble (Quake Arcade wasn't import¬ ed to Australia) to the arcade fans. With colourful arcade friendly graphics (Voodoo II), satisfactory enemy ’Af, gibs, characters who gain experience, a head-to-head multiplayer option and over 30 minutes of action in mission mode - War can be hell fun. ■ 9/10 NAMCO second round is over if either of the 2 partners are KO’d. If you make it through to the 8th stage, you get to fight a one round match against a character named "unknown” though I’m yet to see someone defeat her. Tekken fans will love this game though it isn’t twice the fun, but more like one and a half times the fun than the original single char¬ acter game. And as we all know... when it comes to a punch up - 4 fists are better than 2. A new and improved Tekken has just hit the arcades and is attract¬ ing some large crowds. Thirty four characters (14 are hidden) from Tekken 2 and 3 have signed up for a "once in a life time tour¬ nament” where old grudges are discarded for the duration of the competition. After choosing your 2 charac¬ ters, the game plays exactly like Tekken 3 except there is now a fifth button to tag out as well as duel health bars at the top of the screen. Differences in playing style is that tagging out can be used as a surprise attack i.e. - a quick retreat followed by a quick attack. The tag out can also be used to string together long combo attacks. ^Jut the main reason for tagging out is that while one partner is fighting, the other is regaining health, so you’ll find rounds now lasting almost twice as long. The 60 ■ 9/10 _i 5 >>> Thanks to Galaxy World for their assistance <<< HYPER» 85 86 »HYPER 3 * Gfi h h u 2 x CO ID /s 1 P 3 OUT THRASHER WIPEW.T 3 | MEM. 1 SELECT o c & a 00 Refre** Hem* FeverHe* Malory Seercf a 4 a c& a L*r9*r Smelt** Print Meil Prefer#**** -iHB-gj ^ll**Mom#P*9* ^ Apple Computer Apple S«epert ^Appk* Store ^MSM (Jotf*# for Meeeito* ^ Vttemet Explorer 1 ^- <»<*! CtJ rsizius i > trau r-^? tKiz qzimq -TtfTirtfflil ' Ntscnrsf pit Izbmz • mpiout vn. sxaa «. mu uuc’ Skate and Destroy C & G3 0 O R»fret*i Horn* FiwiIm Hrftory Seercft A 4 <9 $ £3 Lerper Smaller Prrt M»ll Preferences M4rw MS ^l~# Home Pep* Apple Computer *ec* Support ^ Apple Store ^MS* ^OfTie* for M*cnte*n ^ internet Explorer l(5»5 Previe tune into .ttje game * A - ffdl/idU f JH MWffl Have you not seen it? It’s only one of the coolest websites for a game you’ll see all year!! The same techy style has been applied to the site as it is seen in the menu screens for the game. Kind of like an old Atari 2600 game menu, it’s simple and stylish as all getout. Remember to type a 3 instead of an E Thrasher is coming soon to PlayStation to rival Tony Hawk in the hardcore skateboarding stakes. Check out the website for this upcoming game if only because it’s a nice bit of design, http: //www. skateanddestroy. com http://www.wip30ut.com/ 1 ■ ■= mDm TIBERIAN SUN ■ — ■ ■ — ■ ■ — 1 Tiberian Sun - The Brotherhood of N00 C 6 £±) 0 3 Refreen Home Fevorite* Malory Seircfi a 4 a $ a Ltrper Smeller Prrl Me l Pr*f*r*n«** BB □ SIX DEGREES OF STAR WARS Star Wars: Explorer C 4 E) 0 0 Re fr reft Hem* Fever it** Hwtory Seer eh A* 4 a Cfi £J Itr^er Smeller Preit Meil Preference* ®1 ®Lr*e Home P*9* Apple Cowauter Apple Support ^AppkStor* ^MSV ^Office for Mecritach ^ F>t*m#t Explorer I <» C°i *** s»St*r»V»a '•Cut** the She<»M«e« 7 4 _ He*h Fteyei it you do not I eF»e#r he** FUt» wliltl. Ctt Pi* *be««to*a MeW Of Fiterret con# Su Degrees ofSrar Wars is 3 senes of interconnected links mat lead to various entries in me www starwars com databank, while ottenng a dear. visual map of m# relationships that tie mo numerous elements of me Star Wars universe together Starting witn your host RM)2. you are invited to follow your own path through Six Degrees of Star War s by clicking on one of me orbrong discs This wttl bnng a new element to me center of me viewing area allowing you to to select another disc and Veen onino The i.larV Par at it>* inn otih* nrraon fca»n< track of ihg Adore** http // y*rvverhygoOOpm/9on***/ccuriv*r**./t$*rnnsun /HOO/Vj-ii/po»»r / r.u (5Live Home P*9* Apple Computer ^ Apple Support Q Apple Store ^MSN t* m*ewl**h intemel Explorer THE 320THE2H00D OF MOD PEACE THROUGH PO\WER We do not come n Peace We come ahead ot Peace. Peace tavets with stengdt «>t»i «i1*> crvite JVJMl pence Aw »*i«kui! I» «*jM to* L Wh-err Shore re prrer. there e x < "0 m z >■ ELIOT FISH > KEVIN CHEUNG QUEEN EMERALDAS - TAPE 1 SUIKODEN - VOLUME 1 111 s CO CO CATEGORY: SCI-FI, ACTION, DRAMA PRODUCTION COMPANY: MAXAM With 1999 marking the 25th anniversary of Matsumoto Leiji’s classic series. Space Cruiser Yamato, it’s a case of very welcome timing that the Queen Emeraldas OAV should now be available. For those of you who are unaware of Matsumoto’s bril¬ liant work, Emeraldas is but one of many characters within the Captain Harlock universe, within which the Calaxy Express 999 also takes place. All of these characters are linked together by a brilliant techni¬ cian named Tochiro, who is also, as far as the conti¬ nuity goes. Emeraldas’ long lost lover. The Queen Emeraldas is actually the name of Emeraldas* ship, in which she travels a lonely voyage through the stars, fighting for any cause of justice that may cross her path. The ship’s incredibly pow¬ erful technology, thanks to Tochiro. has made her a feared entity in the galaxy. This first tape tells a rel¬ atively simple tale of a young, impetuous lad named Hiroshi Umino (voiced by Megumi Hayashibara), who manages to get kidnapped by an alien race that threatens to take over human civilisation, and how the legendary Emeraldas is drawn out to rescue him. From start to finish, Queen Emeraldas is an utter¬ ly breath-taking experience. It doesn't really mat¬ ter if you haven’t seen Matsumoto’s work before. The grandiose artwork and direction, the classic animation style, and the brilliant CC effects (not to mention the masterful musical score) will leave all true anime fans wanting more. This is a genuinely classy product that nobody should miss. ■ ANIMATION: IO ■ PLOT: 8 ■ JAPAN-NESS: LOW ■ OVERALL: 9 EATMAN - VOLU MES 1&2 CATEGORY: DRAMA PRODUCTION COMPANY: BANDAI VISUAL, BESTACK Bolt Crank eats metal. His favourites are nuts and bolts, but he’ll generally munch on anything he can get his hands on. Through an as yet unexplained special ability, Bolt can convert the metal into any metallic weapon of his desires, which will materi¬ alise in his hands. In a way, that makes him ideal for his profession as a mercenary. Through his eyes, we are told of a desolate future of disparate communities where the technological¬ ly-advanced live side by side with the primitive. Each new or prospective client offers a glimpse into a hopelessly squalid world of politics and despair - where old friends double cross each other, where the products of biogenetic research backfires on their maker and where women who feel compelled to slap a man in the face can expect to receive that slap returned in kind. Ultimately, Eatman stacks up as a future shock. Take heed, however, that Eatman isn’t your average action anime at all. Self-described as a sci-fi neo¬ romantic action series, it would be wise to note that it is 'romantic' in the classical sense. Eatman is an extremely alternative title; and its philosophical undertones become quite overt once you realise it was made by some of the people involved in the Tylor Project. A good change of pace if you’re look¬ ing for one. ■ ANIMATION: IO ■ PLOT: 8 ■ \ i/Mv JAPAN-NESS: LOW ■ OVERALL: 9 CATEGORY: ACTION, DRAMA PRODUCTION COMPANY: KADOKAWA SHOTEN AVAILABLE LOCALLY FROM: MADMAN ENTERTAINMENT No, this is not the legend of the clash between two ancient Japanese powers - this is a modern interpretation of the tale. Taking place in a very post-modern looking Tokyo, the General’s role of Takateru Suga is now played by a talented martial artist who enlists the help of an eclec¬ tic band of warriors in order to rescue his sister from the mob. At this stage in the series, Suikoden has great promise. The animation is prac¬ tically of cinema quality, and is easily the most impressive to look at out of the local releases. All that’s left is to use the 108 characters of the legend to make a great story of it. ■ ANIMATION: 9 ■ PLOT: 7 ■ JAPAN-NESS: LOW ■ OVERALL: 7.5 ELLCIA PART 2: THE GHOST SHIP CATEGORY: ACTION, DRAMA PRODUCTION COMPANY: JVC AVAILABLE LOCALLY FROM: MADMAN ENTERTAINMENT This cult series has finally scored its second instalment. Crystel and Eira’s quest for the Ellcia ship takes them to a remote island where Crystel eventually wrests control of the ship for herself. In spite of the colourful Silent Moebius-esque character designs, one thing must be pointed out: the English voice-acting is simply appalling. As long as you’re willing to put up with it, the story is quite enjoyable. ■ ANIMATION: 7 ■ PLOT: 7 ■ JAPAN-NESS: LOW ■ OVERALL: 7 THE * 8 *feN GALLERY All import videos supplied by The Cartoon Gallery. QVB, Sydney. Their website lists over 2,300 anime items. Phone: (02)9267-3022 http://www.cartoongallery.com.au VlllliVFEFFCTlljE^ 90 »HYPER Croc 2 PlayStation Cheat Mode Hold Li and press Triangle, Left, Left, Right, Square, Up, Up, Left, Circle at the title screen. Then while playing a game, press L2 ♦ R2 to display a cheat menu. Infinite Lives Hold Li and press Circle, Down, Left, Up, Right, Triangle, Down at the title screen. & ULtiMQtE Gafv1es HOt LINE Sega 1902 555 444 Calls charged at a rate of .95c per min. A higher rate applies from public and mobile phones. Sega PC 1900 142 100 Calls charged at a rate of $i.;o per min. A higher rate applies from public and mobile phones. Roadshow Interactive 1902 962 000 Calls charged at a rate of S1.00 per min. A higher rate applies from public and mobile phones. Microprose 1902 262 667 Calls charged at a rate of $1.50 per min. A higher rate applies from public and mobile phones. Sony Power line 1902 262 662 Calls charged at a rate of $1.50 per min. A higher rate applies from public and mobile phones. Electronic Arts 1902 261 600 Calls charged at a rate of .95c per min. A higher rate applies from public and mobile phones. Virgin Interactive 1902 220 058 Calls charged at a rate of. 9 SC per min. A higher rate applies from public and mobile phones. GT Interactive 1900 957 665 Calls charged at a rate of .95c per min. A higher rate applies from public and mobile phones. Sython Filter PlayStation CHEATS All Weapons and Infinite Ammo: Pause the game and highlight the Weapons menu. Press and hold all at the same time Select + Li ♦ L2 ♦ R2 ♦ Square ♦ Circle + X Level Select: Pause the game. Co into Options menu. Highlight the Select Mission option. Press and hold all at the same time Li + L2 + Ri + R2 + Square ♦ Circle + X KKND: Crossfire PlayStation Cheats Menu Unlike NHS hospitals, we supply a varied menu. To activate it, begin a game with your chosen side. When the mission starts, hold Li + Ri + R 2+L2 and press Start. This will bring up the pause menu. Highlight and select the 'Display Password' option. When the password is displayed, tap left, circle, square, right, cross. Return to the pause menu and there should be a new cheats submenu available. Accessing this will give you extra money, invincibility, no shroud, and instant victory. Passwords Evolved The Guns Of Navaho HHQQQ4 The Spiders Lair HUQQQI The Seven Samurai HDQQQS The Rabbit Warren HLQQQZ The Birds IQQQHZ I’ll Be Your Friend IVQQUZ Supply Run IAQQGZ Napalm Sunday IGQHGZ The Wall Of Death ILQHLZ Dam It lanet JUQFLZ Take The Tower IDQ6LZ Aerial Supremacy JCH6LZ Operation Donut JKU6LZ End 2 Robots KVG6LZ End 2 Symmetries K8GLLZ Survivor The Great Escape DTSQSB Hide And SeekDUSQSI Let’s Get Technical DBSQSS Kamikaze Squad DJSQSZ Phoenix River ESSQGZ Impending Annihilation ETSQUZ Charlie Don’t Surf EOSQHZ Convoy ENSQJZ This Ain’t Avalon EJSHJZ Robots Must Die! FGSUIZ Heavy Weapons Operation FISCJZ First To The Middle F3SLJZ Con Air/ Special Delivery FNGLJZ Strike Three GSULJZ Death To The Freaks GiHLJZ Series 9 Driving Miss Daisy L41Q14 Gopher Hunt LI1Q1I Divide And Conquer LQ1Q1Q Checkpoint Charlie LZ1Q1Z Highway To Hell M11Q4Z Bridges Of Mad Son County MBiQIZ Ring A Rosie MPiQQZ Grapes Of Wrath M91QZZ The Glue Lagoon MZiHZZ Mutants Off-Line N41UZZ Walls Of Jerry Co NNiGZZ Islands In The Stream NFiLZZ River Runs Through It N94LZZ Ground To Air OiILZZ Survivors Go Home OJQLZZ PlayStation Extra Health Drinks in the Hospital For three health drinks, search the wrecked Drink-Machine in the first floor of the hospital. Extra Options During game play, hit the select button to bring up the Item screen, then go to Options. Once you’re in, push any shoulder button. If done correctly, it opens a small menu where you can change the colour of the blood, reverse some of the controls, and turn off auto-aim. Finding the Gold Medallion Get to the school, when you get to the room with the Statue of the old man’s hand go into the room to the north and get the chemicals. Go back to the statue and use the chemicals. Sizzle Sizzle! Pick up the Gold Medallion and put it into the Clock Tower. Now go find that Silver Medallion! Zodiac Room Tip In the room with the Zodiac Signs, click the digit according to the amount of limbs in the picture (from left to right; Sagitarrius:6, Taurus:4, Gemini:8). Drakan PC Cheat codes: Within the game press the Talk key (defaults to " ”) and type: Sanctuary = god mode debug off = debug off debug on = debug on smeghead = full health Monster Truck Madness Nintendo 64 All textures are pictures of Jim Type in JMPNG and then all of the textures will be a picture of Jim, one of the programmers of the game. Alpine Challenge Track Successfully complete a circuit under the medium difficulty setting. Aztec Valley Track Successfully complete a circuit under the easy difficulty setting. Beginner Passwords To warp to the level indicated type the following codes in the "codes” screen. (LA = left arrow; RA =right arrow; UA = up arrow; DA =down arrow; * = asterisk) Ruins: GMFKLB04 Junkyard: JM(RA)(LA)7 Heights: M(DA)LQRR Voodoo Island: PQ(RA)T**LTXGR Greenhill Pass: SW0JK9H Wasteland: V(DA)*ZooRZ 3 MNCL(UA )7 Aztec Valley: Y(DA)X 233 # 26 PQF(RA)D* 9 F Death Trap Track Successfully complete a circuit under the hard difficulty setting. Expert Passwords Enter these codes on the CODES screen. * Ruins: GKGH[Up Arrow]G[Star][Left Arrow] * Junk Yard: JGJKLJPfStar] * The Heights: MSMN[Right Arrow ]M7QW * Voodoo Island: PKPQRP[Up Arrow ]T793 * Greenhill Pass: SKST[Star]SDW[Up Arrow]C6iR * Wasteland: VOVWXVCZDF9463R * Aztec Valley: YGY209Yj2G[Left Arrow]C796462 * Alpine Challenge: ioi23iM5JLF[Up Arrow]C979SoD * Death Trap: 404564P8M[Right Arrow][Left Arrow]DFC[Up Arrow]CV32KC Full Time Missies Y[space]WNT[space]lT at the password screen Funny Noises When racing, press any direction on the D-pad and you will hear a horn, a burp, a fart and other funny noises. Hidden Truck Go to the start screen and hit: Down C, Up C,A,Z,R,then B. You wiil hear a horn if you did it right. You will get the Packer Smasher truck. Intermediate Passwords Enter these codes on the CODES screen. * Ruins: GBGJ5MTL * Junk Yard: JNJMQL7S * The Heights: MJMPT[Right Arrow]XRN * Voodoo Island: PJPSWRo[Star]89R * Greenhill Pass: SBSV2[Star]3XBC[Up Arrow]4[Down Arrow] * Wasteland: VBVY2X6o[Down Arrow]FD7B2M * Aztec Valley: YFYi5093H[Left Arrow]G[Up Arrow]]Down Arrow]5675 * Alpine Challenge: iNi483C6KLJDH89lUp Arrow]C4N Lowrider Go to the code menu and enter YRDR. All Monster trucks will have small wheels. Dungeon Keeper 2 Cheat codes: Within the game, press CTRL- ALT-C to enable the cheats, then type: show me the money = up to 100,000 gold feel the power = upgrade all creatures to level 10 now the rain has gone = show map this is my church = get all rooms fit the best = get all rooms 8 traps i believe its magic = get all magic do not fear the reaper = win level Australia’s Largest innate Hotline! * A large range of USA 1 mtic 1 Titles riMMf 848 C a C : Rod Aleri 995 Heart 01 Darkness M4 Nuclear Strike 192 327 Contender 996 Hot Shots Goll 145 0JLT. 339 Ate Combat 2 849 Contra: Legacy el War 997 LS. Soccer Pro 98 146 Oddwertd. Abe s Exodus. 334 Aetna Soccer 2 858 Cool Boarders 2 M7 Oddwertd: Abe s Odd 193 i Aetna Succor 3 BSi Cool Boarders 3 999 Indy 588 148 Due 194 i Adidas Powor Soccer 852 Courier Crisis 189 J McGrath Supor 1 98 149 Pandemonium 1 195 j Advau racing 853 Crash Bandicoot 1 181 Jet Mote 2 150 Pandemonium 2 196 > Allen Trilogy 854 Crash Bandicoot 2 192 Judge Dread 151 Parasite Eve 197 AknJI Tbo Heartless 855 Crash Bandicoot 3 183 K-1 Arena Fighters 152 Psrrsppa The Rapper 196 Alone in the Dark 2 856 Crime Killer 194 Kagero Deception 2 153 Pit Fall 30 199 I Andretl Racing 857 Croc, legend 185 Klona 154 Pocket Fighter 289 I Anamaniacs: Ten Pin 2 858 Crusader: No Remorse 186 Knockout Kings 155 Porsche Challenge 291 Apocalypse 859 Cybersled 187 Krazy Ivan 156 Poy Poy 282 Armoured Coro BIB Dark Forces 198 Kula World 157 Psybadeck 293 Armoured Coro 2 332 Dead Is The Water 340 LEGEND 326 Rampage 2. Universal 204 l Army Men 30 861 Dead or Alive 189 Llbero Grande 158 R-Type Della 285 Aryioa Senna Kart DueM62 Death Trap Dungeon 118 M.K.4 159 R-Types 296 Assnult Rigs 863 Decent 111 M.K. Mytbolegys 190 Rally Cross 207 Assault: Retribution 964 Deleon 5 112 M.K. Trilogy 161 Rally Cross 2 288 Asteroids 341 Dostroga 113 Madden NFL 99 162 Rally de Africa 299 Auto Dostrsct 865 Destruction derby 2 114 Madden NFL 98 163 Rapid Racer 219 Azure Dreams 666 Diablo 115 Mass Destruction 164 Raymaa 211 B Mavle 867 Dio Hard Trilogy IK Max Force 165 Rebel Assault 2 212 i Battle Arena Tosh 3 868 Bragon Seeds 329 Max Power Racing 244 Red Asphalt 213 Battle Arena Tesh 2 969 Duke Nukem: Time to Kill 117 MDK 166 Reloaded 214 Beast Wars: TranslermBte Duke Nukem: Meltdown 118 Medlevil 167 Resident Evil 2 215 Bio Freaks 871 Dynamite Boxing llfi Megaman legends 160 Resident Evil. D.C. 219 Blast Chamber 872 Elemental Gearbolt 120 Mervel S Hero s V s St. Hght 169 Ridge Racer Rev. 217 Blast Radius 338 Eliminator 121 Metal Gear Solid 170 Rival Schools 216 Blasto 973 ESPN Extreme Games 122 Metal Slug 171 Riven: Sequel to Myst 219 Blood Omen 974 Everybedys Goll 123 Micro Machines V3 172 Read Rash 30 229 Bloody Roar 675 FIFA 98 343 Military Madness 325 Rellcage 221 Bloody Roar 2 876 FIFA 99 124 Monster Trucks 173 Rouge Trip. 2812 222 Bomberman world 977 Fighting Force 125 Mote Racer 3)5 Rugrats. Search Reptar 223 i Brain Dead 13 878 Fighting Illusion. 11-Rev 126 Moto Racer 2 174 Running wild 224 Brigadlae 679 Final Doom 127 Motorhead 175 SCARS 225 Bubsy 3D 980 Rnal Fantasy 7 128 MT1 Dirt Cross 176 Shadow Master 229 Bushido Blade 2 333 Fishermans Bait. A Bass 129 N20 - Nitrous oxide 177 Shane Warne 99 227 Bust-a-Groove 981 Formula 1 97 130 Nascar 98 178 Side Pocket 3 228 Bust-a-Move 4 882 Formula 1 98 13i Nascar 99 337 Silent Hill 229 ; C: Contra Adventure 963 Formula Karts 132 NBA UVO 98 179 Sim City 2000 239 Capcom Gen. 1 884 Forsaken 1)3 NBA Uve 99 180 Skull Monkeys 231 Capcom Gen. 2 885 Frenzy 134 N8A SbOOt Out 98 181 Small Soldiers 2)2 i Cardinal Sin 886 Future Cog L.A.P.0. 135 Need for Speed 2 18? Smash Court 2 233 Cart World Series 887 6 Darius 136 Need for Speed 3 1B3 Soul Blade 234 Chocobo Racing BB8 8 Police 324 Need For Speed. High Stakes 184 Soviet Strike 235 Circuit Breakers 889 Bex. Enter the Gecko 137 NFL Blitz 185 Spice World 236 Code Name: Tonka 328 Box 3. Deep Cover Gecko 138 NR Gameday 99 186 Spyro the Dragon 237 Colin McRae rally 890 Ghost in the Shell 139 NHL 98 187 Star Wars Masters 01 Ter. 239 Colonisation 991 Bran Tnrlsmo 148 NHL 99 168 Steel Ram 239 Colony Wars 892 Grand Theft Auto 141 NHL FSCO 011 98 189 Street Fighter Alpha 3 249 Colony Wars: Vang. 993 Grand Tour Racing 98 M2 NHL Pewerplay 98 190 Street Fighter Coll 2 241 Command a Conquer 894 Bullty Gear 143 Ninia . Shadows 191 Street Fighter X+Alpha 242 HI 21) NHL 99 291 NHL Breakaway 98 245 Aero Gauge 292 NHL Breakaway 99 246 BllStar BaseBall 99 294 Nightmare Creatures 247 Areo Fighter Assail 295 Otfraed Challenge 241 Automtblli Laniborguinf 96 Quake 64 249 Baujo Kazoo! 352 BatileTanx 250 Bio Freaks 251 Body Harvest 252 Dembermaa 64 253 Bombermaa Hero 254 Buck BuniBle 255 Bust-a-move 2 351 Castlevaule 256 Chamellon Twist 257 Chopper Attack 256 Clay Flgbetr 63 1/3 259 Cruzzln USA 260 Dark Bin 261 Dlddy long racing 212 Dees 84 263 Duke Nukem 264 Extreme G 265 Extrene 6 2 i 266 F - Zero X 267 FI Pole Possitloe 289 FI World Grand Prtx 269 FIFA 9B 270 Fighters Destructien iay 98 347 llever lay 99 213 Golden Eye I Metal 2 274 Hexeu I Metal 3 275 LS. Soccer 64 271 ISS Pro 98 277 Iggi's Reckin' Ball !0 8 282 M.K. 4 cing 283 M.K. Mythology's erboat Racin 284 M.K. Trilogy 231 War Games: Deleon 1 278 Madden 64 ft 2 279 Madden 99 ■mer 280 Mario Kart 64s Itro 345 Mario Party WO Thunder 281 Mission Inmposlble s Tie Worldg 295 Multi Racing Champ 297 Quest 64 296 Ranpage World Tour 344 Ranpage l Universal Toar 299 Rohotron X 350 Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA 390 S C A R S 381 San Fran Rush 392 Snowboard Kids 3B3 SouthPark 304 Space Station: Sllcon Valley 385 Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 396 Star wars: Shadows 307 Super Mario 64 398 Tetrispbere 399 Top Gear Overdrive 310 Top Gear Rally 311 Turok 312 Turok 2 349 Twlstod Edge Snowboarding 346 Vigilanto 8 313 WarGods 314 Wane Gretskl 30 98 315 WCW / NW0 Revenge 317 World Cup 98 316 Wipeout 64 318 WWF warzoue ■reanCast 354 Aero Dancing 387 Air Force Delta (••■) 353 A-llte 355 Blue Stinger 388 Buggy Heat (ami 356 Daytona USA 2 357 Evolution 358 8ot Bass 319 Godzilla Generation 359 House ol the Oead 2 390 King 01 Fighters Orean Match 99 390 Marvel Vs. Capcom 320 Pen Pen TrHcelon 389 Soul Calibur <■■•> 365 Super Speed Racing 323 Virtaa Fighter 3TB PlayStation NEW!!! 381 MLB 2000 300 NR Itrene 2 307 Asterlx 300 Bugs Bunny: lesi la Tine 300 Trtppie Play 2000 307 DRIVER 300 WWF Attitude 300 Bust-A-Groove 2 378 Ace Conbat 2: Electrospbere 371 Big Air 300 CROC 2 301 Blood Lines 382 Snow Racer 98 383 Sports Car 6T 301 V'RAllY 2 300 Warzone 2100 NINTENDO 64 NEW!!! 301 In-Fisherman Bass Hoator 64 302 All-Star Baseball 99 303 Mario Goll 304 Monster Truck Madness 64 372 Beetle Adventure Racing 373 Fighting Free 64 374 WWF Attitude 378 Super Snash Brothers 370 World Driver Chanpionship 377 STAUfARS: Episode i-Racer 378 Qua 370 SUN 286 Nagano Win Olympics 302 Powor Stone 2B7 Hascar 99 348 NBA Live '99 288 NBA HAngtime 289 NBA In the Zone 290 NFL QBack Club 99 363 Puye Puye 4 361 Psychic Force 2012 321 7TH Cross 364 Sega Rally 2 322 Sonic Adventure DREAMCAST NOW AVAILABLE! All you have 10 do Is call and give the number corresponding to the game 1902 211 448 * 1.95 Per Min. Higher rate iron Mobile or Public Phones 92 »HYPER Braveheart PC Breach the Walls To instantly breach all walls, press DELETE while playing in 3D mode, then type "bastille day". Enable All Cheats To enable all cheats, press the [Delete] key in 3D mode. Then type: "SESQUIPIDILIAN”. Enhanced AI For a smarter opponent, press the [Delete] key in 3D mode. Then type: "SESQUIPIDILIAN". Instant Retreat To instantly retreat all troops, press DELETE while playing in 3D mode, then type "bucks fizz”. Kill All Enemies To kill all of your enemies, press the [Delete] key in 3D mode. Then type: "BANNOCKBURN”. Kill Your Own People To kill your own people, press the [Delete] key in 3D mode. Then type: "THE FIVE HUNDRED". No Blood To disable blood and gore, press DELETE while playing in 3D mode, then type "haemorrhage”. No Camera Man To kill the camera man (and presumably lock the viewpoint), press DELETE while playing in 3D mode, then type "killcam”. Set Buildings on Fire To set all buildings ablaze, press the [Delete] key in 3D mode. Then type: "DRESDEN”. Tougher Troops Press DELETE while playing in 3D mode, then type "steve reeves”. Ape Escape PlayStation Hidden Mini-Game Boxers You can get extra boxers on the Specter Boxing minigame by defeating them on Championship mode, although you’ll have to run through it multiple times to get ALL of them. Peak-Point Matrix To get to the secret board in Ape Escape, you must beat Specter at the Level Monkey Madness (the carnival), wait to the ending finishes (including the credits), and then when the game gives you the option, go back to the Time Station and save your game. Then, go to all the levels, and finish catching the Monkeys you missed. When you catch every Monkey, the Peak-Point Matrox will open up, where you will get to fight Specter for the last time, and finally catch him. Then, you’ll see the true ending. Save A Life When you fall off a cliff, press START and choose EXIT. Then you will go to the time station with the same amount of lives before you fell of the cliff. Street Fighter Alpha 3 PlayStation Alternate Balrog Beat World Tour mode without unlocking Evil Ryu or Guile. Then at the character selection screen in any mode, highlight Balrog, hold L2 and press any button. Alternate Introduction Sequence Accumulate forty-eight hours of game play on the timer in the options menu. Then, instead of showing the arcade characters, the opening sequence will show all the new characters (including Guile and Evil Ryu). Alternatively, unlock all character endings including the bonus characters. Bonus Modes Beat Dramatic Battle mode with Ryu/Ken and Juni/Jill to unlock two bonus modes. Classical Mode Accumulate three hours of game play on the timer in the options menu. Then at the character selection screen, highlight a character and press Select to play the classic version of their character. Dramatic and Final Battle Modes Beat Arcade mode on any difficulty level. Fight Shin Akuma in Final Battle Mode Select Final Battle mode. Then, select a character and hold Li ♦ L2 before the versus screen appears. Maji (LO) Mode Accumulate five hours of game play on the timer in the options menu. Alternatively, beat arcade mode on difficulty level 7. Saikyo (low guard meter) Mode Accumulate four hours of game play on the timer in the options menu. Note: Saikyo Karin does not have the ability to do a 99% throw. Alternatively, beat arcade mode on difficulty level 7. Sled Storm PlayStation Race as Jackal or Sergei: Play as Sergei Enter the options screen, select the load/save option, and display the password screen. Then, enter Square, Li, Square, L2, Triangle, R2, Circle as a password. Play as Jackal Enter the options screen, select the load/save option, and display the password screen. Then, enter L2, L2, Circle, R2, Square, Ri, Li, Triangle as a password. Get Crazy with the Storm!: Enter the options screen, select the load/save option, and display the password screen. Then, enter Circle, Triangle, Square, R2, R2, Li, X, Triangle as a password to unlock the Storm Sled in single race mode. NFL Game Day 2000 PlayStation Harder hits, Super Speed, and more: Cheat Codes Enter the options screen and choose the "Easter Eggs” selection. Then, enter one of the following codes to activate the corresponding cheat function: Result Code Receivers catch better GLOVES Super speed bursts JUICE Super stiff arm PISTON Longer and higher punts HANGTIME Longer field goals STEEL LEG Harder tackles BIG HITS Players do not fatigue STAMINA All players have equal abilities EVEN TEAMS No penalties for home team HOME COOKING Running back is juiced DAVIS Cycle through cheerleaders after game SLIDE SHOW Hidden difficulty level GD CHALLENGE Very slow CPU players SLOW CPU Large players GOLIATH Tall and thin players PENCILS Tiny players FLEA CIRCUS Bass Hunter 04 Nintendo 64 Catch Al Lindner Enter "FISHMAN” as a code at the cheat codes screen under options. Then instead of catching a regular fish, you will see a head with sunglasses, a hat and fins. Unknown Enter "SILLYSOUND” as a code at the cheat codes screen under options. Mdtitcan300sf Rogue Squadron HOMM III Virtua Fighter 3 Pokemon WALKTHROUGHS TIPS CHEATS HINTS NEXT ISSUE.. BREAK OUT THE MOISTU RISER, NOSE-CLIPPERS AND HAIR GEL - NEXT ISSUE HYPER IS GETTING A MAKEOVER. WE’LL BE SLAPPING SLICES OF CUCUMBER ON THE REVIEWS, RUBBING IN SOME OATMEAL TO THE PREVIEWS, MASSAGING THE NEWS AND SQUEEZING LEMON JUICE ON ALL THE REGULAR SECTIONS. MMM... SOUNDS GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT AND IT WILL BE! HYPER IS GOING TO BE TASTIER THAN EVER. WE’LL ALSO BE A STEP CLOSER TO CHRISTMAS, WHICH MEANS BIG HOLIDAY GAMING! NOW BACK TO WIPEOUT 3 ... h 3 HYPER LETTERS 78 Renwick St. Redfern, NSW 2016 Fax: (02) 9281 6188 E-mail: freakscene@next.com.au DREAMCAST VS PSX2? Dear Hyper, I went to a local store today and asked about the Dreamcast (comparing it to the PSX 2). He said that the Dreamcast was so much quicker than todays PCs (I already knew that) but he also said that your statement that it was a 700 mHz chip was all hype. In fact, he said that most of the specs of the new machine was just crap and "unknown false advertising”. I have always wanted a Dreamcast. The only reason I went back to Sony from Nintendo was for Final Fantasy (I went from PSX to N64 back to PSX)! Anyway, I am now considering buying both machines because I can’t wait until 2001 for the PSX2 £ the fact that the DC is so cheap. Can you please tell me all the known specs about both systems in a sort of comparative chart type thing? Also is it hard to get a job at say a game mag like yours as a graphic designer or do you get a lot of applicants in that area? Thankyou, JAKE"SNAKEOB" NORTHEY, NSW Hey snakecb, This is really silly. The guy in the store didn't knew what he was on about. Firstly, we have never said the Dreamcast had a 700 Mhz chip, that's rubbish. The Dreamcast only has a 200Mhz CPU. but that’s not what matters — it’s the powerful PcwerVR2 graphics chips which allow the machine to throw around 3D graphics better than current PCs. The specs aren’t crap — the machine has been out in Japan for a whole year! It isn’t hard to take a lock inside and see what’s in the thing — sc if he thinks it’s all 'unknown false advertising’ then he’s on something. Frankly, the guy sounds completely clueless. Even PlayStation 2 will only be 30cMhz. The specs are ’official’ from Sony, but we re yet to see if the machine can really be made like they say it will be. We don’t have time to do a chart, and it would just start another console war. Both consoles are going to be powerful gaming machines, so it’s down to which games you want to play. Don’t forget Nintendo’s next console either... that locks like a blinder. As for getting a job here, surely you saw our ad last issue? UPGRADE WOES To the Hyper Crew, Sweet mag guys. At our school, it is almost a religious symbol to those of us who are lucky enough to be gamers. Anyway as a fine a mag as it is, it is not the reason I wrote in. ;] The unfortunate reason I thought I would write in is actually the price of gaming. Up until this point my trusty PC has been my source of gaming enjoyment. But as the next wave of games comes through, it is getting harder and harder to find quality games (especially FPS) that I can run on my system. What kind of system you ask? Well actually a lowly P150 with 32 megs of ram. I know, I know 1 hear you say, you need to get a new computer or upgrade, but as much as I would like to do this I can’t. I just don’t have the money to buy a new computer, and my parents won’t have a piece of it saying ’’When we bought it, it was the best around you don’t need a new one.” So now while I will still be regularly fragging away at some fat-arse on my local servers at Quake i and 2 ,1 will not be a regular on any Quake 3 server. At least not on my PC. Which brings me to my point (collective sigh of relief) if PC developers don’t realise that if they don’t at least in some form cater for the lower end user like myself, they will lose a large pocket of gamers to the more affordable consoles. So 1 made my point, and hopefully some Marketing director out there reads this and re-releases Quake 3 the cut version for lesser computers, and maybe my parents will ’’come around and see the light that is this advancing piece of technology we call the PC”. Well we live in hope anyway. Better finish up, my pen is runnin’ out of ink (hehe), keep fraggin’ arse Hyper. :) MASTER LU P.S. Do you know whether I will be able to use the Dreamcast keyboard and mouse to play Quake 3? And also will Quake 3 support funky names like Quake 1 did? Master Lu. We sympathise with your plight, dude. Games are always going to be made tier the higher-end systems. because that’s where the pretty graphics are and they can basically do a lot more with the gameplay as well. Developers do their best to give lower-end users enough options to lower graphics settings and stuff like that, but it’s a tact ot life that PC gaming requires upgrades every couple ct years it you want to keep playing the latest greatest titles. That’s possibly a reason why a lot ct people will turn to these new suspiciously PC-like consoles which are surfacing on the gaming horizon. It’ll be an interesting war. although we tend to think PCs will stay one step ahead in some way. The Dreamcast should have a very tasty selection of big PC titles though, and with internet access, there’s no doubt that some people will buy a Dreamcast rather than upgrade their PC. P.S. The last we heard. Quake 3 Arena was still not ioo% guaranteed for the DC. It remains to be seen whether you will be able to use the DC mouse and keyboard for the FPS games — we bloody well hope they’re not stupid enough to leave this option cut. Without a doubt you will be able to do crazy name¬ editing in Quake 3 on PC. but probably not on DC other than the standard re¬ naming. CONSOLE WAR CONTINUES To Hyper, Damn I hate all those people who say PlayStation is shit compared to Nintendo 64 or vice versa. Man, there’s this guy at my school and he keeps giving my other friends crap that he has a PlayStation and there are all shit games on it. So I keep saying that both consoles are good, but he wouldn’t listen, so I said, ’’well Gran Turismo is the best racing game on a console” and he reckons that it’s shitter than some other racing game on N64. What should I say to him, to make him shut the hell up about PlayStation? Hey, I like N64 too but I just hate people who are against PlayStation or vice-versa. I think your mag is the best all-round console mag. I’m not sucking up, the reason is that you don’t give shit to other consoles like my friend and other mags. Hey, I thought Narayan Pattison of N64 Gamer is a Nintendo guy, how come 1 saw his review of Powerstone in issue #71? I got nothing against him playing a Dreamcast, but if he could play a Dreamcast and not give crap about it then why can’t he not give crap to PlayStation? Does Narayan work for Hyper? I wanna kick his ass in Goldeneye!! REMEMBER ALL CAMERS OUT THERE, no matter what console it is, it’s the games that count!!! Thanks for your time Hyper!!! GAME$T@, QLD Hey Game$Td>, I don’t think you’ll be able to shut your friend up. everyone wants to have an opinion on which console is best, and people enjoy arguing for arguments sake. I think it’s pretty funny that he bags cut PlayStation and yet he has one. They’re all good for different reasons, they all have good games and they all have crap games, it’s as simple as that. Narayan. for instance, thought Powerstone was great — it just happened to be on Dreamcast. Don’t take N64 Gamer too seriously when they bag other consoles, those guys just like having a good laugh. As for Goldeneye, Narayan cheats anyway. ;) PERVERTING THE MINDS OF OUR YOUTH Dear Hyper, On A Current Affair (Tuesday, August 24), another sensationalist report was aired claiming that videogame violence has damaging affects on children, and hence makes them in some way more inclined to being ’violent’. Much like a similar 60 Minutes report screened earlier in the year, it was astonishingly one-sided considering these so called journalists are supposed to be objective. What evidence did they show? Ten year-olds playing Alpha Street Fighter (as they called it), Point Blank, Zelda 64 and Duke Nukem: Time To Kill. The latter was rated Mis* if I recall correctly, so it seems ACA are condoning a disregard for the OFLC’s ratings system. But Point Blank and Zelda? Name one instance of violence against real fairies and I’ll personally find my way to Japan and fix Mr Miyamoto’s little red wagon. As has been frequently put forward by objective people, action in games provides tension by threatening the player with either death to him or herself (their character, technophobes), death to innocents, or something very nasty to everyone else. This threat puts the player on edge, it's supposed to. But saying games induce violent behaviour and then showing ten year-olds partaking in a bout of back-yard wrestling after a session of Duke Nukem is no different to our parents playing Cowboys and Indians after seeing a John Wayne movie as children. Are journalists so biased that they don’t care that there is no evidence either way that violent media produces violent people, or are they merely afraid that video games are the new mass market medium that will soon eclipse not only movies, but books, television and art for mainstream penetration? Then again, and most likely, maybe they just have their heads where the sun don’t shine. Sincerely, PATRICK RAMSDALE P.S. The changes to the mag are great. Keep it up. Patrick, Didn’t you hear? Nintendo are bringing cut Super Mike Munro 64, where you get to jump on people’s heads until they no longer have an objective opinion. POP GOES THE PIPPEN Hello to all the people at Hyper, Your mag is great blah blah blah yakkity smackitty. There is something that is very worrying about todays gaming market and I’m not quite sure what it is. I am saying this because recently BATTLEZONE 2 - YOU'D BETTER BELIEVE IT BABY! REVIEW NEXT ISSUE IF THEY GET IT DONE'. HYPER» 95 96 »HYPER : h H : I was looking through an old computer magazine when I noticed an article about the APPLE PIPPEN. I was curious about what it was and to my amazement it was a gaming machine developed by Apple. I thought to myself, 'could this be the break Apple are looking for?’, but I realised then that I had never seen or heard anything about this mysterious console. Was this console released at all or just not in Australia? Or was this another console that has disappeared without a trace like the 32X, Mega CD, and the Jaguar? Why do these consoles fail but others (PlayStation, N64, MegaDrive, SNES) become so popular they become part of our culture? BLAIR MACPHAIL Blair, The Apple Pippin lasted about as Ions os Luigi in the sack. I guess it was a combination of poor hardware and weird development kits which didn't enthuse any of the game programmers. Those multimedia consoles which promise to do other stuff than just play games have never worked (lock at the 3DO), sc the Pippin is just another casuality in the vicious console market. DREAM A LITTLE DREAMCAST Dear Hyper, Great mag and stuff. Despite my friends’ opinions, I am getting a Dreamcast. Why did I write to you? Because I am really ticked off at my friends’ belief that Dreamcast will flop just because it’s Sega. I know, I have my doubts about the DC, but I’m getting one for the great games like Powerstone and Sega Rally 2. For some reason my friends don’t understand that. They say 'go play Tekken Tag Tournament and Gran Turismo 2 on the PSX when they come out’. Although these are great games, there shouldn’t be a reason why I should play PSX games just because Sony are dominating the market. Anyway, some questions: 1. Wouldn’t it be cool if you included the option of paying extra to receive your Poster and/or Playguide issues on the subscription page? 2. Also, is there going to be an official Dreamcast magazine or a Next Publishing DC Mag? Thanks for your time. SHUZ. P.S. Corporate slaves, WAKE UP! Shuz, Just because Sega have made quite a tew mistakes in the past, doesn’t mean they 're not determined to make the Dreamcast a huge success. It’s a good machine, sc let’s hope it goes the distance. It has the potential to last a long time. Invite your friends around to see your DC games, and they may change their mind on the machine. 1. We'll submit that idea during the next power lunch. 2. Now that would be telling! METAL GEAR CHEUNG To HYPER, Congratulations on the magazine which I hope continues to lead a long and prosperous life. First I would like to say I think people who pirate games rank somewhere between dogshit and the flies that infest it and if I ever come across one I’m going to... (Sorry Ezekiel, we couldn’t quite print this next bit - Ed) I also wrote to ask you a few questions which sometimes haunt my dreams. 1. Whatever happened to Kevin Cheung? 2. Will there be another Metal Gear game? 3. Why hasn't anyone considered making the beauty and perfection of Metal Gear Solid into a full- length movie (and if they did who do you think would play Solid Snake)? P.S. I’m eagerly awaiting the release of PSX2 and hope it’s a damn good one. Yours faithfully, EZEKIEL Dear Zzekiel, 1. I think it goes back to his childhood. 2. you can bet your booties. 3. I’m sure they have considered it. All sorts of games are becoming movies. It’s scary. A good Solid Snake? Bah! How about who’s playing Lara?! BIG HEAVY FINES Dear Hyper, I’ve spent quite a bit of money on games and it really annoys me when my friends download the same games I pay for. I’m thinking of doing the same thing myself, as this will solve my cash flow problem, though I am unsure what the fines are if you get caught pirating games. Also, don’t you think $500 for the Dreamcast is a bit expensive? Yours sincerely, TADPOLE P.S. When is the next Big Heavy Stuff album coming out? Hi Tadpole, Fines aren’t the only thing you'd be facing. Pirating is not cool, and it could send you to gaol. A bit of advice from us, would be to not even think about it. As for the Dreamcast, yeah we think that’s a bit too expensive, but it should drop in price a little down the track. P.S. you knew that would get me to print your letter, didn’t you. New single cut this month called Devil’s Tongue. BUGGED Dear Hyper, I have thought up an issue that has never been brought to anyone’s attention. As the new age of consoles approach us with internet capabilities, do you think it’s possible that some wise guy that hates consoles and is a PC snob could create a virus that can damage the hardware of the Dreamcast? Such viruses could wear out the CD-Rom or cause static shock in the DC’s main board, just like the CMOS virus for computers. We could even have the hacker having a bit of fun in Sega’s Dreamcast-only multiplayer area and stuff everything up! Though I doubt this will happen, it is possible for some freak to do so. Smile God loves you! ROBERT, SA P.S. Out of curiosity, do you use iMacs to do the publishing and the art for the mag? Hi Robert, Well that’s an interesting thought. Thankfully, I don’t think consoles are susceptible to viruses — yet. you usually have to execute a program which contains a virus to unleash it, sc it seems pretty unlikely. P.S. We use iMacs for editorial, G3S for design and PCs for screen-capturing. SPORT GAMES SUCK To everyone at Hyper, I have a question for you. WHAT IS THE POINT OF SPORTS GAMES? I mean, isn’t the point of sport to get you out and about instead of sitting in front of a screen mashing buttons all day? Please don’t reply to this by saying: "These kinds of games are popular”. Because the only people who play them are either: A) Fat slobs who do nothing but sit in front of a computer screen all day; B) Complete losers who are afraid to go and actually play the game outside for fear of being bashed; or C) people who start off loving the sport, go crazy over it and buy every possible accessory available including the game of their favourite sport and end up like A. the fat slobs. Anyway the graphics are usually pretty poor and so is the gameplay. I would rate them about the same as you rate Deer Hunting games. Oh by the way your magazine is pretty cool keep up the good work! Bye, ANDREW FAHEY Via email Hi Andrew, Ahem. These kinds of games are popular. Ahhh... DOH. Okay, well, gaming is an escape from reality right? Well, how realistic is it that you’re going to play for the New ycrk Knicks, score touchdowns for some American NFL team or hit a hole in one at a Grand Masters? Not bloody likely. The games are there to make cur pathetic little lives a bit more bearable. STAPLES SUCK TOO To the Hyper Crew, I have a subscription to your mag and generally enjoy it, BUT (there’s always a but) I have a few gripes. 1) Why do you always give away the VERY BEST prizes to the subscribers?! I realise that you need to attract new subscribers, but I think that those of us who already subscribe are somewhat forgotten in this area. You could either...A) Equal the value of the non¬ subscription prizes to those of subscription prizes, or; B) Place a tick-box on the subscription form saying something like "I already subscribe, BUT I WANT THAT PRIZE CODAMMIT!” I realise that you would have to check whether all the people who enter the comp are actually subscribers, but I think more people would subscribe anyway because they would have more chances to enter the really cool competitions. 2) STAPLES!!! Most of your issues are bound using staples, and since I have around 40 HYPERS in my room in around 4 stacks, the ones at the bottom of the piles get all torn and creased because the covers slip around all over the place. Could you please please please bind all of your mags like you did your 5th Birthday issue? This doesn’t happen with my PCPowerPlays, they’re always neat (and no, I AM NOT ANALLY RETENTIVE). And before you tell me it’s so you can put posters in the middle, can’t you just glue them in like other magazines do? Thats all I got. GROUCHY (Nickname, not a state of mind) Hey Grouchy, the best prizes are only entered to new subscribers and re-subscribers, we can f t otter them to everyone who reads the mas. because then there would be less incentive tor people to subscribe as they would be up asainst more people. This way, those c t you who set a subscription are rewarded with a hi$h- chance comp ct winnins somethins awesome. Staples rock! Okay, that's not true. We have some chanses planned ter Hyper next issue, sc maybe we can invent some new technclcsy to replace the ancient art ct staplins . May the slue sods be with us. IN FACT. I SUCK! Dear Hyperites, Why don’t you do more playguides for games that have come out. I’m pretty crap at most of the stuff I buy. and I really need you guys to help me!! For instance, in Syphon Filter I am stuck really bad. PAULIE, OLD Hi there Paulie, Sorry to hear you suck as badly as you do at sames. That's really sad. Maybe it you practice with your joystick you'll set better. Usually each month. we tisure cut it there's room tor a playsuide dependins upon which sames are Scins to make it on time tor review. Would you rather we reviewed less sumes and did a playsuide each issue? I’m not sure it many people would be happy with that. It you need help, you can buy cur Hint, Cheat and Playsuide masazine which comes cut every now and then. Check your local newsasent, and in the meantime we'll try to brins you some more playsuides... Until next issue! WHY YOU LITTLE Dear Hyper, Why are you guys such a bunch of freaks? THE GAMER FORMERLY KNOWN AS, VIA EMAIL Dear The Gamer Formerly Known As have a tree steerins wheel. Gamester PSX Dual Force Wheel Don t forget to include your contact details ON your letter You’ve won a Gamester Steenng Wheel! For Ray Station. iiLfcwoe til WARNING: Modifications can deteriorate the performance of your system and damage your laser or main board when improperly installed using cheaper quality components readily available on the market - Blade uses the highest quality components which are professionally installed by experienced technicians. PLAYSTATION™ CONVERSIONS • Playstation™ / videogame System Conversions to play ‘All’ Countries Games • Fully Modified Games Consoles Available! • 3 Years Warranty On Conversions! • Why ‘chip’ your PSX - NEW “Action Replay” allows you to play all countries games without the need of internal modchips which void your warranty. Also expands your standard memory card save capacity by (x 5 ). Latest Bios and Comms Link card also available. A • Figurines ^ 1 Action Figures 1 Magazines • Video Game Figurines 1 Toys • Keyrings • Collectables • T-Shirts • Wall Scrolls NTSC Conversions • Adaptors Replacement Parts PSX Mod Chips Cables • Convertors Accessories PSX-VCD Adaptor - play VCD movies on Playstation C.O.D. ORDERS WELCOME AUSTRALIA WIDE 461 Logan Road Stones Corner (Corner of Cornwall Street) “Sony” & “Playstation" are registered trademarks of Sony Corporation (SCE) - Mod chips are not a Sony product. Opening any product voids the manufacturers warranty. Blade Electronics is not a Sony Dealer. Blade Electronics does not condone the unauthorised copying or reproduction of video games software. Blade Electronics does not deal with any unauthorised NTSC or Pal games. £ Ij 1 I Ij-f ujj Advertising in is free for private advertisers, and make sure you include your phone number (inc. area code). Send them to: HYPERMART, 78 Renwick St, Redfern, NSW 2016 FOR SALE: Nintendo 64, 10 games including Goldeneye, Rogue Squadron, Episode 1 Racer, 4mb Expansion Pak, lumper Pak, 4 official controllers, Rumble Pak, Memory Pak, RF S AV cables all boxed with instructions. Total cost $1280. Sell for $750, no separate sales. E- mail me: maccai 5a)hotbot. com Sega Mega Drive II, in excellent condition, never had any problems. It comes with two controllers, one having a six button pad and a slow motion switch. All this plus eleven games for $140. Call (07) 3374 3552. PC Games: Need For Speed 3 -$35, Sim City 200 Special Edition - $25, Abe’s Oddysee (platinum pc) - $20. Also: Sega Mega Drive 1 with eight games for $50. Call Adam on (03) 9743 4646. Melton area. Nintendo 64 console, 2 N64 controllers with WCW/NOW Revenge, all in excellent condition for $220. Call Damir Zornic on (03) 9310 1777 after school hours. Limited edition real arcade light gun. Compatible with Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Hardly used, in excellent condition, comes with pedal and kicks back when shot. Worth $120, sell for $90 ono. If interested, call (03) 9723 5142 after 3.30pm and ask for Kennan. Mooroolbark Vic. Original see through Game Boy with Nuby game light ($50) and 4 games - Game Boy Gallery - $10, Fortress of Fear - $20, Wario Land - $20 and Super Mario Land - $20. $80 the lot. All games and Game Boy have cases. Contact Brady on (02) 6622 5428. Lismore Area. Nintendo 64 - Brand new condition with box and manual, 1 controller in excellent condition plus Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Banjo Kazooie all for $210 .1 also have some of the latest (98/99) PC games; Johnny Herberts Grand Prix 98 - $30, Redguard (action/adventure) - $35, Ring (adventure) 6 CD’s - $ 35 , Journey Man Project 2 and 3. 3 CD’s - $20, 4 CD’s - $30 and Riven the sequel to Myst 5 CD’s - $35. All are in brand new condition with box and manual. If interested, phone Nelson on (02) 9744 5092. Sony PlayStation, arcade stick, dual shock, 2 controllers, memory card, action replay cartridge (comes with cable, PC card and software to make cheats), X-Plorer cartridge (comes with cable and software to make cheats). Sega Saturn, 4 games. Note: To make cheats, you need a PC (486 or above). Sydney, Phone 9622 3533. PC Games - Thief: The Dark Project - $50, Sports Car GT - $30, Moto Racer 2 - $25, Theme Hospital - $20, Moto Racer 1 - $20, Warhammer: Dark Omen - $20, Sim City 2000 SpecEd - $20, Dungeon Keeper - $15, Pod - $15, Savage Warriors - $5. Open to offers, Melbourne area only. Phone Michael on (03) 9853 8413. N64 Games for sale: Zelda: The Ocarina of time - $55 (willing to sell with limited edition key ring - $65), Wave Race 64 - $35. Everything boxed with instructions, in brand new condition. Call Paul on (02) 4396 6476. Central Coast Only. Sony PlayStation (PAL 8 NTSC), with 25 games, 2 memory cards, 2 controllers, a light gun, V3 racing wheel and RF Unit. Also 10 free demo cd’s. In perfect condition for $650 ono, call Sebastian on (02) 9908 3502 after 4pm. For Sale/Swap: Metal Gear Solid, Cyberia, Fade to Black, Reloaded. Phone (07) 5429 5629 (Aboolture, Bribie Island area). NTSC Sega Satum, 2 control pads, step down converter, 4mb ram cartridge and 8 games including, King of Fighters ’97, Fighters Megamix, X- Men vs Street Fighter, Street Fighter Zero 2, Virtua Fighter 2, Dark Stalkers, Dragon Ball 2, The Convenii, over $800 new. Sell for $225, perfect condition, boxes. Call Shane on (07) 3341 3460, or during the day contact Marion on (07) 3209 3609. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. In just-opened condition. Would like to sell/swap. Please ring Peter (02) 9858 5427 after hours. Eastwood, NSW. Sony PlayStation with 8 games including Driver, Duke Nukem: Time to Kill, NFS High Stake and Time Crisis with G con 45, 1 controller and 2 memory cards. (Also, 4 demo discs with bag and magazines with cheats) - $400 ono. Call Damian (08) 240 0583. Adelaide residents only please. SWAPS: PlayStation Games. I have Croc, Asteroids, Toca Racing, Grand Theft Auto, Dest. Derby 2 and assorted demo disks, NFS Highstakes, Toca 2 and Resident Evil 2 or any other good offers. All in perfect condition. Phone Steven on (07) 3350 6352 any time. Brisbane area only.Will swap Command and Conquer for anything remotely strategic. Phone (07) 54851895- WANTED: Saturn Games: Magical Knight Rayearth (US), Super Adventure Rockman, Vandal Hearts, Real Sound and many more. Will buy, trade etc. Large range of games to choose from. Phone Robert on (03) 5152 4543 or e-mail: ramcarta>hotmail.com. PC Peripherals, Joystick, Steering Wheel or Game Pad. Call Michael on (03) 9853 8413. Melbourne. Anime/Manga videos. Good condition. Nothing specific as long as they are in English. Prices negotiable. E-mail eniks hotmail.com or phone(03) 5450 3480 and ask for Jason. Sega Satum Games and 3D controller pad: Fighters Megamix, Last Bronx, Manx TT Superbikes, Mr. Bones, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Sonic 3D Blast and Streetfighter Alpha 2. Must be boxed with manual and in good condition. Contact Carlo on (07) 3899 9857. I am desperately seeking Zelda, Super Metroid, Yoshi’s Island, all for the SNES. Games must have boxes and instructions that are in very good condition. Prefer to pick up from the Sydney to Newcastle area. Will pay top dollar for these games. Call Rod after 6pm on (02) 4392 8498. PENPALS: Hi, I am a mature female in my 4o’s who is a fanatic on RPG games and some adventure and platform. I own a PSX, N64 and a Gameboy. Games I have are FFVII, Zelda 64, Mario 64, Pilot Wings 64, Excalibur, Banjo and Kazooie, Suikoden, TRi, 2 and 3. I am interested in corresponding with a man of mature age, 40 - 50 years, who is heavily into video games, very passive nature and who maybe seeking a friendship. Looks not important, but you should be taller than 5ft 7 (my height). Any hair colour okay, except for totally grey. No coarse language please. Write to F.S. PO Box 665 Engadine NSW 2233. Hi, My name is Reece. I’m looking for a M/F pen pal aged 15-18. I’m 17 years old, into Korn, Limp Bizkit, Deftones etc. I own an N64 with 6 games. I’m also a milkman. So anyone looking for a penpal, write to me - all letters get a reply. 183 Gympie Road Tin Can Bay 4580. Hi, I’m an 11 year old boy, I’m into N64, PlayStation and computer games. My favourite games are South Park and Goldeneye. Write to Red, 86 Dunham Street Rye 3941. Attention girls aged 12-15. My name is Gavin. I am a 15 year old male who likes South Park, PlayStation, Rugby League and music. If you like the same or not, write to 3 Cook Cres. Mt. Isa QLD 4825. 14 yr old male. Own PC and PlayStation. Like grunge, heavy/rock music, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Pantera etc. Also like honor films, and playing guitar. Looking for pref. Female 14* pen pal with similar interests. (Reply to all letters). Write to Chris, 8 Mountain View Way Lisborne VIC 3437. Anime Lovers! My name is Lucy and I am 16 .1 am looking for a M/F pen pal aged 15-17, who likes Resi Evil 2, Tomb Raider 1, 2 8 3, FFVII, Metal Gear, or any anime. I love to draw and listen to music. So if you do any of these, drop me a line at PO Box 598 Charter Towers QLD 4820. Check out tne behind the gu®? iTQNV HAWK I°at E boabd.m«3 l Giant storage i »ouieui and guide. Welcome to » of Jurassic PlayStation’s _ft- ioCt I \ ^ \ jfl _ r / B r / 1 1 / B If \ The No.1 Steering Wheel for Playstation - Peter Brock, Racing Legend For Playstation, NOW AVAILABLE AT LEADING RETAIL OUTLETS Distributed by • Home Entertainment Suppliers Pty Ltd. - 126 Bonds Road, Punchbowl NSW 2196. Phone: (02) 9533 3055 Fax: (02) 9533 3277 ^DUAL FORCE * Dual shock compatible vibration • 3 modes: analog racing, digital and dual analog % 8 digital action buttons • Racing foot pedals