Game Reviews

The home version of House Of The Dead 2 is a pixel-perfect console port of Sega's popular arcade gore-fest franchise and as far as light-gun shooters go today, it's as straight forward as it gets. You won't find heated 2-player competition like in Point Blank, no ducking feature like in Time Crisis, or any attribute build-ups like in Elemental Gearbots.

Taking a look at Resident Evil 3, you may not find too many new things that weren't tried in Dino Crisis before it, but everything comes together rather nicely. Most of the annoying things prevalent in the first Resident Evil are long gone and the new additions make me look forward to new versions of the series no matter what system they appear on. I would have to say this is the most complete Resident Evil ever released and a fitting finale to the series.

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is a classic case of too much of the same too soon. When Dino Crisis was released in early September, it had been awhile since I had played a game in the 'Survival-Horror' genre.

The battle system in Grandia is one of the best I've ever seen and this is all the more impressive when one considers that the game's two years old now.

I must admit, early on in the game, I wasn't overly impressed with Grandia. I liked the overall production values with the exception of the terrible voice acting, but I had issues with other elements. I found manually rotating the camera-angles to be an awkward and disorienting experience for a console RPG.

All in all, Winback surprised me, it's faults like the graphics and music (Chi and I agree here) and AI (I think it needs some work) take it down a bit but they certainly don't ruin it. Often, I was able to do things, like a duck and roll for a sweet shot of an unsuspecting guard that looked real and certainly felt rewarding once I did it.

Winback may lack the team strategy elements of Rainbow Six, but what it does have is an innovative control scheme that maximizes the Nintendo 64 controller capabilities and allows for what I consider, for the first-time, the ability to manipulate a videogame character with real-world stealth techniques that are practically accurate.

KK2000 plays like a no-nonsense, yet full-featured interpretation of boxing. If you've ever seen it in the ring, you can probably do it in the game (with the exception of having some idiot parachuting into the ring and, thankfully, the patented Tyson-ear chomp).

I agree with Chi here, in fact there isn't much I can find to disagree with. The legendary boxers are represented here much more faithfully than in the N64 version and the extras on the disc (boxer bios and 'classic fights') are pretty slick and are welcome additions. As Chi mentioned, this version is much more of a simulation and those of you who read my N64 review will know that the lack of this feature was mostly responsible for my low overall rating.

Through wildly imaginative characterizations that has more personality than Don King hyping his latest promotion, Rumble makes it easy to forget all the technology in favor of a vivid boxing microcosm. Rumble is a world that comes complete with heated ring rivalries, larger than life egos, and trash-talking bravado worthy of Mike Tyson after one of his 'patented' first round knockout (remember those?).