RETURN TO CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Gray Matter Interactive , id Software And Nerve Software

Publisher : Activision And Valve Corporation

Engine : id Tech 3

Genre : Historic First-Person Shooter

Release Date : November 20 , 2001

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 98 / Windows 2000

CPU : AMD Athlon Classic K75 / Intel Pentium II Processor

Memory (RAM) : 128 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 8.1 Compatible Video Card with Memory 16 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 2 MX Series
ATI : Radeon 7500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 800 MB

GAME FEATURES :-

This series of missions shows what B.J. and Agent One did prior to their capture. While fighting Erwin Rommel's forces in North Africa, B.J. suddenly finds himself assigned to a secret mission in the town of Rash El-Hadzid in Egypt. Accompanied by Agent One, he makes his way through the town and infiltrates a secret archaeological dig site where Helga Von Bulow and her SS Paranormal Division are attempting to acquire a pair of ancient magical tablets from a cursed tomb. After fighting his way through both Nazis and Undead, B.J. makes it through the tomb but ultimately fails to capture Helga. He and Agent One pursue her in a stolen Ju-52 transport, only to be shot down near Castle Wolfenstein, where they are captured. Ominous Rumors Mission, While investigating the activities of the SS Paranormal Division in Germany, B.J. Blazkowicz and Agent One are captured by the Nazis. Agent One dies while being interrogated by a Nazi torturer, but B.J. manages to escape Castle Wolfenstein's dungeon. He then finds a way out of the castle, fighting through platoons of guards, and ultimately using a tram car to leave the area and meet up with a member of the German resistance in a nearby village. Dark Secret Mission, The SS Paranormal Division under Oberführer Helga von Bulow has been excavating the catacombs and crypts of an ancient church within the village. Their sloppy precautions have led to the awakening of hordes of undead creatures, including Saxon knights, and the entrance had to be sealed off with many soldiers trapped inside. B.J. descends regardless and fights both Nazis and Undead until he arrives at the ancient "Defiled Church" where Nazi scientist Professor Zemph is conducting an experiment on the corpse of a Dark Knight. Shortly before B.J.'s arrival, Zemph tries to talk Helga von Bulow out of retrieving an ancient dagger, but she shoots him impatiently and proceeds. This awakens a monster which kills her too. Blazkowicz fights the monster and is airlifted out, with Zemph's notes. Weapons of Vengeance Misssion, One of Germany's leading scientific researchers and Head of the SS "Special Projects Division", Wilhelm Strasse , has prepared to launch an attack on London using a V-2 rocket fitted with an experimental germ warhead from his base near Katamarunde in the Baltics. Blazkowicz is parachuted some distance from the missile base and smuggles himself into the base in a supply truck. Inside the base, Blazkowicz destroys the V-2 rocket on its launchpad and fights his way out of the facility towards an airbase filled with experimental jet aircraft. After fighting his way through the airbase, he commandeers a "Kobra" rocket-plane and flies to safety in Malta. Deadly Designs Mission, Eager to know more about Deathshead and his secret projects, the OSA sends Blazkowicz to the bombed city of Kugelstadt, where he is assisted by members of the German resistance in breaking into a ruined factory. There he discovers the blueprints for the Reich's latest weapon, an electrical machine-gun called "Venom Gun". Blazkowicz eventually breaks into Deathshead's underground research complex, the Secret Weapons Facility. There he encounters horrific creatures, malformed and twisted through surgery and mechanical implants. The creatures have just escaped and gone on a rampage. Blazkowicz sees Deathshead escape the SWF by U-Boat, and learns of its destination by interrogating a captured German officer.

Deathshead's Playground Mission, Blazkowicz is parachuted into Norway, close to Deathshead's mysterious "X-Labs". After breaking in, he sees several of the twisted creatures he encountered in Kugelstadt released from their cages and immediately turn on the laboratory's staff. Fighting his way through the facility, Blazkowicz retrieves Deathshead's journal and confronts several prototype Übersoldaten, towering monstrosities coated in armor, powered by hydraulic legs, and carrying powerful fixed weapons. Finally, he confronts and destroys one of Deathshead's ultimate Übersoldaten and kills the researchers who have developed it. Deathshead himself escapes in a rocket-plane and does not appear in the game again. Return Engagement Mission , After studying the documents captured by Blazkowicz, the OSA has become aware of a scheme codenamed "Operation: Resurrection", a plan to resurrect Heinrich I. Despite the skepticism of senior Allied commanders, the OSA parachutes Blazkowicz into the Harz mountains of Germany, close to Castle Wolfenstein itself. He arrives at the village of Paderborn and, after assassinating several senior officers of the SS Paranormal Division including Major Hochstedder, General Von Struasse, Colonel Strache, General Burkhalter and General Haupman, fights his way into Chateau Schufstaffel, where he encounters members of the Elite Guard including the main leader General Von Shurber. Blazkowicz then fights his way through the grounds of the chateau, facing opposition from members of the Elite Guard and two of Deathshead's Übersoldaten. Having destroyed the mechanical soldiers, Blazkowicz enters an excavation site near Castle Wolfenstein. Operation Resurrection Mission, Inside the excavation site, Blazkowicz fights Nazi guards and prototype Übersoldaten, and makes his way to a boarded-up entrance to Castle Wolfenstein's crypts. There, he finds that the ruined part of the castle has become infested by undead creatures, which are attacking the castle's desperate garrison. After fighting his way through the castle, Blazkowicz arrives at the site of a dark ceremony to resurrect Heinrich I. At the ceremony, SS Psychic Marianna Blavatsky conjures up dark spirits, which transform three Übersoldaten into Dark Knights, Heinrich's lieutenants. She ultimately raises Heinrich I, who "thanks" her by turning her into his undead slave. In a climactic battle, Blazkowicz destroys the three Dark Knights and Heinrich I as SS chief Heinrich Himmler watches in horror from afar.

The weapon models, the character models, and the animations are also first-rate. As it did in Kingpin, Gray Matter used a system that permitted it to mix and match pieces of each model, creating a lot of variety among the Nazi soldiers. In what may be a first for the genre, the models actually appear to have lips that operate independently of the teeth behind them. Character movement is especially smooth. Though the conversations between the guards may not be terribly interesting, the guards' idle animations are great. Wolfenstein's sound effects are generally good, from the dull "thock-thock-thock" of bullets striking the wooden table you're hiding behind to the appropriately varied noises made by footsteps on different floor materials. The game's soundtrack is understated but effective. Each time you respawn, you can choose from four different classes. Soldiers can use all the game's weapons. Engineers can both plant and defuse the dynamite needed to destroy goal structures, and they can also repair the mounted guns that appear in various fixed positions throughout the different maps. Medics can drop health packs and revive "dead" teammates, permitting them to instantly respawn where they've fallen. Each medic also provides every team member with 10 extra starting health points. Lieutenants can drop ammo packs, and they are the only class equipped with binoculars. Lieutenants can also call in air and artillery strikes, which cut a wide swath of destruction at their target point. Only eight maps are included in the game, and only seven of them are available in objective mode. This isn't as bad as it sounds, however. The multiplayer game doesn't really become fun until you start to learn both the goals and the layouts of the maps. Wolfenstein is well worth it for the multiplayer game alone, so the fact that you get a solid single-player game in the box can only be considered a bonus.

GAME REVIEW :-

9/10

Return To Castle Wolfenstein Trailer :-

FREEDOM FIGHTERS

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : IO Interactive

Publisher : Electronic Arts

Engine : Modified Glacier Engine

Genre : Modern Tactical Shooter And Third-Person Shooter

Release Date : October 1 , 2003

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 2000 / Windows XP

CPU : AMD Athlon Classic K75 / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 128 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 8.1 Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 3 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 9200 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 650 MB

GAME FEATURES :-

Chris and Troy Stone, plumbers both, travel to meet with their next client- a resistance activist named Isabella Angelina. The Stones appear at her condominium only to find no one home, until Soviet soldiers and General Tatarin raid the condo, seizing Troy. Amidst the invasion, Chris escapes to the streets and into the underground sewers, allied with a man named Mr. Jones and resistance member Phil Bagzton. They plan a rescue for Isabella, who is being held at New York police precinct. Chris single-handedly rescues Isabella and shortly thereafter executes a successful rescue of Troy Stone, who is being held hostage at a mail station. A couple of months after the rescues, Chris becomes known as the Freedom Phantom within the Soviet controlled media, SAFN. Chris, Troy, Phil, and Isabella sabotage key Soviet facilities and reclaim territories within New York City, while building a strong resistance group consisting of New York inhabitants and betrayed Soviet soldiers. Despite fierce resistance from the Soviet occupation, they manage serious headway against the Red Army. During this time, Troy is captured by the Soviet forces and made to reveal the true identity the Freedom Phantom to the media. He is later forced to make a public statement to Chris and the resistance group, reluctantly pleading them to cease their actions - moments later he tells Chris to keep fighting. For his actions, he is executed by General Tatarin on Governor's Island. Mr. Jones reveals the grim news to Chris, suggesting retaliation in the form of the assassination of General Tatarin. Chris succeeds and escapes Governor's Island, only to return to find Isabella missing and the resistance main base controlled by the Soviets. Mr. Jones reveals himself to be Soviet Colonel Bulba, head of the KGB, explaining that this was how he managed to supply the resistance with information. Chris escapes with Phil Bagzton and The Kid to another underground base. SAFN later reports on the death of Tatarin, Colonel Bulba's promotion to General, and subsequent, supposed "destruction" of the resistance in New York- in reality, the resistance has been scattered and taken to hiding. During the winter, Chris, Phil, and The Kid plan more occupational missions on Soviet controlled New York City, ending with a raid on the SAFN Studios. They use the station to send a broadcast encouraging the people of New York and beyond to bring an end to the hostile occupation. Chris, Phil, and The Kid plan a final strategy against the Soviet army- a full siege on Governor's Island consisting of the rest of New York's resistance members. After destroying and taking over multiple areas of the island including Fort Jay and rescuing Isabella, the resistance group celebrate their victory over the Soviets. Chris and Isabella talk about the future of the conflict, and they almost share a kiss, before being interrupted by Phil.

Most of the game's plot is advanced by a series of humorous Soviet-run newscasts, which cover your actions as terrorist activities. Your missions are laid out in the rebel base, and the briefings are great at explaining the strategic significance of, say, reclaiming a high school building for the red, white, and blue. Though the story is told well and works great in the context of the game, it's pretty short on substance. Aside from a foreshadowed plot twist that you can see coming from a mile away, not a whole lot happens in the game. You have an inventory of items and the ability to carry a pistol and one primary weapon, such as a shotgun, an assault rifle, a sniper rifle, a machine gun, a rocket launcher, or a submachine gun. You'll also be able to carry grenades, Molotov cocktails, high explosives, binoculars, and health packs that restore your health when used, though they can also be used to heal wounded civilians or other freedom fighters. By increasing your charisma rating--which goes up as you complete missions and can also be given optional boosts if you rescue prisoners or heal civilians--you can eventually control up to 12 soldiers simultaneously. Running with a crowd definitely makes Freedom Fighters feel like a much larger game, and the late-game firefights that erupt when you have a larger squad are extremely impressive and, more importantly, a lot of fun. Each mission in the game has one main goal, but that goal is usually impossible to attain without performing a collection of secondary tasks. Each mission usually has multiple locations, and you can move freely from one area to another via manholes found throughout the city. Manholes also serve as the game's save system. The game is saved automatically whenever you move from one location to another, and you can also make quick saves there. There are enough save points to keep things fair, but not so many that you can remove the game's challenge by saving every few seconds. It's a good balance. The PC version doesn't have Multiplayer mode, but it isn't strong enough to really be missed. The ability to play the game's outstanding single-player campaign cooperatively, online or off, would have been a much more meaningful multiplayer addition. Weapon fire, lighting, and most other effects look appropriately dramatic. The sound in Freedom Fighters is really terrific. With only a couple of exceptions, the voice work is well done. The Russian soldiers sound appropriately menacing and communicate with each other in their native language. The sounds of combat, especially when you're working with a large squad, are of particular note, as they really make you feel like you're on a battlefield. The game's music, filled with choral vocals reminiscent of the Soviet national anthem, is also a stellar high point, and it adds a perfect level of drama to the proceedings. Anyone looking for thrilling action with refined control and a great premise need look no further than Freedom Fighters.

GAME REVIEW :-

9/10

Freedom Fighters Trailer :-

GALACTIC CIVILIZATIONS

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Stardock

Publisher : Strategy First

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Sci-Fi Turn-Based Strategy

Release Date : March 26 , 2003

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 98 / Windows 2000

CPU : AMD Athlon Classic K75 / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 128 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 8.1 Compatible Video Card with Memory 16 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 3 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 9200 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 600 MB

GAME FEATURES :-

Galactic Civilizations gives a nod to the elegant simplicity of Sid Meier's popular strategy series. But regardless of whether or not you're sci-fi fan, the outer-space setting isn't the real reason you should sit up and take notice. Galactic Civilizations' strong AI, robust diplomacy, and variety of strategic options make it an outstanding turn-based strategy game. The game has a single galactic map that can be customized in terms of size and star density, and all movement and combat occurs on this map. Galactic Civilizations also has a handful of additional interface screens you'll open up to monitor your production, economy, relations with your neighbors, and research, but it won't take long to find your way around in the game. It might seem unrealistic for star systems to be arranged on a single tile grid, but this interface wasn't designed for realism--it was designed for gameplay. You begin with a human planet, a survey ship, and a colony ship. Hyperdrive was recently invented, and now that all the galaxy's species have it, they've all started to compete to become the dominant power in the universe, by conquest or other means. The game has a number of initial customization options for the galaxy and the AI opponents, and although you always play as the humans, you can choose from a number of ability bonuses and adopt a particular political party, all of which actually affect the game later on. Every empire is born from equally humble beginnings, and you even have to spend a dozen turns to research a universal translator before you can talk meaningfully with the races you'll encounter. The first order of the day is to send your survey ship out to scout and collect a variety of randomly placed objects that can grant bonuses. Once you locate a decent planet, you drop a few hundred million people on it to get a colony going. Upon seeing another empire popping out colony ships one after another at the start of the game, or even the more expensive constructors used for starbases, you may begin to wonder if the AI is cheating. But, while the opponents come in varying degrees of intelligence, they don't cheat in any obvious way. That empire is just taking advantage of one of the more unusual elements of the economy: credit. Some corporations are actually willing to finance the operations of governments and produce units and buildings for you on credit. But obviously these companies are in business to make money, because even when you pay quite a sum up front, the monthly payments on a loan can continue for hundreds of turns. That survey ship zipping around the galaxy isn't gathering up goodies without some competition, and while you can set it to survey automatically, you'll want to pay close attention to which empire's colony ships are racing to the same planets as yours. Playing a strategy of cultural assimilation and need ships quick? Buy some from a militarily advanced ally. Surprisingly, it's even a legitimate strategy to research as many improvements as you can from your empire's technology tree and then sell technology to minor races or allies. You can even have them pay you in monthly installments, so you you can receive regular income each turn.

There are statistics hidden behind everything in Galactic Civilizations, and the diplomatic AI does a pretty intelligent job of adding things up to see if they're in its interest. One of Galactic Civilizations' more unusual factors is its alignment system. Essentially, good-aligned empires are much friendlier toward others aligned in that direction and tend to be more hostile to evil-aligned empires. AI alignments are set at the beginning of the game, but yours starts out as neutral and is determined by your response to random story events. You'll also have to deal with internal conflicts. Once you advance your government to a republic, or one of the later, more democratic forms, other political parties will compete with yours for control of your empire's senate. You don't kicked out of office if your party loses, but you lose the party bonus. You can also research military advances, and some of the most powerful and interesting of these require cross-sector research in multiple areas, such as studying both advanced weapons and biology. Unfortunately, Galactic Civilizations doesn't provide any clear indication of what sort of research you need to perform in each of these sectors to create improvements like advanced organic armor for you ships. These advanced ships are as powerful as they are expensive, and the interesting part of Galactic Civilizations' military engagements isn't the combat, since battles themselves are resolved quickly, but rather the maneuvering of scouts and warships to detect and destroy incoming threats to your planets and starbases. The map also has pockets of resources scattered about that grant empire bonuses if they're claimed by building a starbase, and these can become hot targets when war breaks out. Galactic Civilizations' greatest strength is its simple yet deep gameplay. The 2D visuals are crisp and the cutscenes are well rendered, but the ships don't look like much and don't sound that impressive. The presentation is streamlined, but it can take some clicking around to understand which buttons do what, since the little stylized icons aren't intuitive. If you do decide to play Galactic Civilizations, you'll want to get the patch and the "bonus pack" that were made available on the game's release date, as they add a few more initial galaxy options, a clear percentage score for each victory condition, and the ability to replace the standard sci-fi music with an MP3 playlist.

GAME REVIEW :-

8.5/10

Galactic Civilizations Trailer :-

METAL GEAR SOLID 2: SUBSTANCE

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Konami Computer, Entertainment Japan And Success

Publisher : Konami

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Modern Action Adventure And Stealth

Release Date : March 27 , 2003

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 2000 / Windows XP

CPU : AMD Athlon Classic K75 / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 128 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 8.1 Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 2 MX Series
ATI : Radeon 9200 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 3.8 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Clean out your hard drive and dust off your gamepad for Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, which you could easily tell originated on consoles if you didn't know it already. Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance lets you experience one of the most talked-about video games ever made, since the core of the game is a straight port of the PlayStation 2 release. It assumes you have some experience with the original Metal Gear Solid, though the storyline promises to bewilder you no matter how familiar with the characters and setting you are. Substance also throws in a number of additional features, most notably a series of no fewer than 500 so-called VR training missions that let you explore the nuances of Metal Gear Solid 2's first-person and third-person action without all the cinematic trappings. For a single-player-only game, it packs in a lot of value. The core game consists of two parts, the first being a relatively short sequence in which you play as Solid Snake, and the second being the main portion, in which you play as Raiden. Very story-driven and mostly linear, Metal Gear Solid 2 is by all means a cinematic game, one that you simply sit back and watch almost as often as you actually play. Much of the story unfolds via one-on-one conversations between the game's main characters using a communications device called a codec. Here you just see a green-tinted screen with close-ups of the speaking characters' faces, and you listen to what they have to say. At other times, Metal Gear Solid 2 presents some extremely impressive noninteractive cutscenes using the game's 3D engine, which look like something out of a big-budget action movie, only with video game characters instead of real people. The action appears highly realistic--some surprisingly lifelike enemy behavior, outstanding animation, and lots of little details make Metal Gear Solid 2 one of the closest computer game approximations to superspydom ever. So you'll often sneak up behind guards, switch to first-person view, and then quickly shoot them in the head either with deadly ammo or with tranquilizer darts if you're feeling humane. There are a lot of nuances to the controls, such as how you can dangle from railings or ledges, press your back up against a wall and peak around the corner, and crawl through narrow spaces.

They can strangle unsuspecting victims or use them as human shields, they can hold up their victims by surprising them with a gun to their backs, they can execute hip tosses or punch and kick combos, and they can leap away from their foes. Also, what with the game's great variety of pistols, assault rifles, explosives, and high-tech gadgets such as thermal goggles and a long-range microphone, Metal Gear Solid 2 definitely provides you with a lot of cool stuff to use and a number of cool situations in which to use it. For one thing, the story rewards multiple viewings, since you'll invariably miss some of the rapid-fire details the first time through. Tougher difficulty settings make the artificially intelligent guards much more ruthless and disable your tactical radar display, the absence of which makes playing the game very different and a lot more challenging. You can also fight your way through the game's sequences using a variety of different tactics, uncover numerous amusing secrets, and unlock some hidden extras by sneaking up on and sticking up all the guards you'll encounter, shaking them down for their dog tags and collecting these as you go along. One of the extras in Substance is the addition of five small, new missions called "Snake Tales," each starring Snake and each taking place during the events of Metal Gear Solid 2. These are balanced for experienced players and can be played in any order, but compared with the lavishly produced main game, these new missions seem rather disappointing. Cinematic cutscenes are replaced with pages of onscreen text, and there's no new voice-over, so the additions to the storyline in these new missions seem unnatural and slapped together. As you finish more and more missions, you'll gain access to hidden characters and their own unique sets of VR missions. Generally, some of the best mission types are the "alternative missions" for each character, which are unlocked once you finish with the basic missions and tend to be quite creative and enjoyable. The game's audio is even better, thanks to some very good voice acting and catchy musical score, which was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams. Its interactively changes depending on the situation and will make the game's suspenseful bits all the more so and the game's intense bits all the more so. The rest of the game's audio is also very well done, from all the different-sounding firearms to smaller touches like the sound of seagulls off the coast of the game's main setting of a mysterious deep-sea production plant. The PC version Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance quietly snuck onto shelves earlier this month, and due to its steep requirements and obtuse controls, it threatens to disappear just as quickly. However, it really shouldn't, because there's a great game hidden in MGS2: Substance--one that just isn't comparable to anything else.

GAME REVIEW :-

8/10

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance Trailer :-

INDIANA JONES AND THE EMPEROR'S TOMB

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : The Collective, Inc

Publisher : LucasArts

Engine : Slayer

Genre : Modern Action Adventure

Release Date : March 25 , 2003

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 98 / Windows 2000

CPU : AMD Athlon Classic K75 / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 128 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 8.1 Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 3 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 8500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 1.80 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb begins in the jungles of Ceylon, where Indiana Jones is searching for the idol of Kouru Watu. After retrieving the idol, Indy meets a Nazi named Albrecht Von Beck, who is attacked by a giant alligator, allowing Jones to escape. Back at school, Chinese officials Marshall Kai Ti Chan and his assistant Mei Ying inform Dr. Jones of the Heart of the Dragon, a black pearl buried with the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huangdi. Mei Ying breaks open the Ceylon idol to find the first piece of the "Mirror of Dreams", an artifact that will help navigate through the Emperor's Tomb and reveal the entrance to Huangdi's crypt. Indy flies to a castle in Prague to acquire the second piece of the mirror, only to be captured by Von Beck and his men. Jones wakes up in a cell in Istanbul when Mei Ying appears and frees him. He makes his way to the sunken palace of Belisarius to collect the final piece of the mirror. Mei Ying appears again and tells him that Kai is working with the Nazis to get the Mirror for himself and control the Heart of the Dragon. At the Golden Lotus Opera House in Hong Kong, Mei Ying and Indy wait for Wu Han, a character from Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. When Mei Ying is kidnapped by Kai's men, Indy and Wu Han chase them down to the dock, where they discover that they are heading to Kai's private island. Wu Han and Indy follow them in a junk. Indy makes his way to the peak of Penglai Mountain, the site of the Black Dragon Fortress, where he finds Mei Ying guarded by the Feng twins, Kai's female bodyguards. After killing the twins, he falls down a shaft into the temple of Kong Tien, where he finds a magical Chinese boomerang-like weapon called the Pa Cheng. Indy finds Kai assembling the Mirror of Dreams and sacrificing Mei Ying to the demon, Kong Tien, who possesses Mei Ying. Indy frees her and escapes with the mirror to the Emperor's Tomb. In the temple, Indy escapes from Von Beck, who is pursuing in a tank, and enters a portal to the Netherworld. After crossing a Netherworld Great Wall Of China, he finally finds Huangdi's crypt and the body of Qin Shi Huangdi. When Indy takes the Heart of the Dragon, the emperor awakens, and Kai takes the pearl from Jones. He uses its power to summon a dragon to battle Indy, creating a shield to protect himself. Jones uses the Pa Cheng to penetrate the shield and destroy the Heart of the Dragon, at that moment Kai loses control of the dragon, then spirits of his victims rise and mistake Kai as the first Emperor of China, Indiana Jones and Mei Ying flee, as Kai is eaten by the dragon. Back in Hong Kong, Wu Han reminds Indy that Lao Che has hired them to find the remains of Nurhachi, leading into the opening of Temple of Doom.

The game always lets you know where, exactly, you'll need to do this by showing a whip icon on the screen when you're in position. Similarly, you'll see a knife icon when it's time to hack through thick vines, a switch icon when there's something for you to pull, and an explosion icon when you're near a spot that requires you to plant explosives. When any of these icons are up, an inventory button lets you quickly yank out the necessary item. While this helps make the game a lot easier than it would be without them, at other times the occasionally unclear level design obscures some things that you'd otherwise need to see for yourself in order to proceed. While the combat isn't terribly deep, it can still be incredibly satisfying. Indy's punches, kicks, and grabs are exaggerated like in an action movie, giving you the impression that he's really beating the hell out of his foes. You can also find and use a variety of firearms and makeshift weapons like chairs, and the game even has a grappling system, which lets you get in a few punches or shove people up against walls or over the edges of cliffs, where you'll hear them go screaming down to their doom. You'll still see a few instances where Indy or his foes will clip through walls, but overall, the game runs at a smooth frame rate and looks good and feels like a much more "finished" product than its Xbox counterpart. The animation for the fighting is done nicely and helps make the combat seem convincing. The game's textures are sharp, though they do occasionally become a little repetitive. The game's music does a good job of conveying the Indiana Jones-like feel. The soundalike used for Indiana Jones himself does a convincing enough job of sounding like Harrison Ford's take on the character, but you probably won't ever mistake the stand-in for the real deal. Some of the other voices don't fare so well. Indiana Jones fans will find a lot to like in the Emperor's Tomb. While the game's control issues will take you a good hour or so to get comfortable with, the puzzles and combat come together nicely and make for a pretty good action game. Experienced action players may find the game and its puzzles to be a bit on the easy side, but there's definitely some fun to be had here, and Indiana Jones fans will likely appreciate the way their favorite archeologist is represented in the game.

GAME REVIEW :-

7/10

Indiana Jones And The Emperor's Tomb Trailer :-

RED FACTION II

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Volition

Publisher : THQ

Engine : Geo-Mod Engine

Genre : Sci-Fi First-Person Shooter

Release Date : April 9 , 2003

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 2000 / Windows XP

CPU : AMD Athlon Classic K75 / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 128 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 8.1 Compatible Video Card with Memory 16 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 3 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 8500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 1.1 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Red Faction II is a sequel to 2001's popular PS2 first-person shooter. It's got all the stuff that made the previous game a hit: lots of powerful weapons, lots of enemy fodder, and a number of vehicles you can ride in. Unfortunately, it's not difficult to tell that Red Faction II was originally designed for the relatively less powerful PlayStation 2, as this port seems somewhat watered down, with its fairly plain graphics, small levels, and lack of multiplayer support. The game's single-player campaign is also pretty short, but Red Faction II can still offer some good shooting action for fans of the genre. Red Faction II takes place in the same universe as the first game: the 22nd century, where humankind is ruled by an evil dictatorship, and only the freedom fighters who call themselves the Red Faction are able to stand in its way. Parker, the hero of the first game, is nowhere to be found here, so no previous Red Faction experience is required or even expected. Instead, this sequel introduces a nanotech-enhanced soldier called Alias, whom you'll play as during the course of the single-player campaign. Alias is part of an elite squad developed to suppress insurgents like the Red Faction, but the squad has turned its coats and now seeks to rid the world of Chancellor Sopot, the man at the root of the Commonwealth's strife and poverty. In your mission to assassinate Sopot, and then quell an even greater threat, you'll travel by air, sea, and land while taking on droves of enemies and numerous challenging situations in a diverse and tightly paced series of levels. Most single-player first-person shooters aren't very long, and Red Faction II is no exception. Even though you'll run into several very tough boss battles when playing through the game at the normal difficulty setting, expect to get through the campaign in approximately seven hours. As if to make up for the relatively short length of the campaign, the designers apparently tried to make sure that there's never a dull moment in it. The very first mission has Alias blowing an enemy base to bits using a weapon that fires both rockets and grenades, and things never really let up from there. Much like in the first game, the variety in Red Faction II comes largely from having an occasional in-vehicle sequence to break up all the action on foot. Each of the four vehicles in Red Faction II is remarkably powerful, and they all make for some entertaining shooting sequences. The vehicles aren't simulated with the same level of realism. When you're flying high through the air between skyscrapers in the gunship or crashing through war-torn city streets in the tank, the game effectively becomes a rail shooter--you're just the gunner, and your job is to blow up any enemies that get in your way as Shrike, your squad's vehicles expert, steers you through some seriously hostile territory. But when you're in the submarine or the battle armor, you actually get to navigate as well as shoot. All the vehicle sequences are fun while they last, even though they're relatively easy and simple compared with the standard action.

Explosive or not, just about every weapon of yours has an alternate firing mode or some other special ability. The precision rifle points you to enemies in the vicinity when you're looking through its scope. All this hardware packs a satisfying punch and looks good in action, though the weapon that will likely get the most use is the NICW, an assault rifle with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and a built-in targeting system, evidently modeled after the US military's next-generation objective individual combat weapon. An all-purpose firearm, the NICW can get you through virtually any encounter. You'll appreciate that this and most other weapons in your arsenal are so effective, though you might find it odd that you can carry all the game's weapons simultaneously. Too bad the game doesn't support online play. However, Red Faction II does offer a fully featured botmatch mode, which can be reasonably entertaining for a while. Eight different botmatch game types are available, ranging from standards like deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag to variants like regime, in which one player is the "dictator" and must try to survive as long as possible while all the other players try to bring him or her down. The cutscenes still aren't particularly good looking, though the one played when Alias finally catches up to Sopot is memorable. At least the game loads quickly and runs smoothly. The original game's settings mostly consisted of bland tunnels and sterile laboratories, while the sequel's rundown urban environments and sophisticated military installations tend to be a little more colorful. Enemy characters are brought to life using motion-captured animations, and not only do these animations look good, but you also won't notice much repetition in them as you keep shooting down bad guys. Red Faction II's audio holds up better than the graphics in translation. Though the cries of enemy soldiers repeat a bit too often, and some of their lines are pointlessly profane, the sounds of all your various weapons and explosions are loud, clear, and effective. A high-tempo electronic music score pumps in the background beneath the near-constant roar of your firearms and helps maintain the game's high intensity level. Red Faction II is a pretty good shooter overall, offering up a short but sweet single-player campaign and a decent botmatch mode for a little extra lasting value. The game's not long on looks or replay value, but it's got no shortage of action.

GAME REVIEW :-

7/10

Red Faction II Trailer :-

COLIN MCRAE RALLY 2004

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Codemasters

Publisher : Codemasters

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Rally / Offroad Racing

Release Date : April 2 , 2004

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 2000 / Windows XP

CPU : AMD Athlon Thunderbird B-Models / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 256 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0 Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 4 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon X300 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 3 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Colin McRae Rally 04 is the fourth incarnation of the series. The game features four different car types, including four-wheel drive, two-wheel drive, Group B, and a bonus category. You will feel a pretty significant difference between the cars you play from different categories. There are a little more than 20 cars in the game, and each and every one feels different and varied enough to make it enjoyable to drive time and time again. Adding to the realism of Colin McRae 04's driving mechanics are the game's array of tracks and the subsequent variations of terrain. Colin McRae 04 features races spread throughout eight different countries, ranging from the gravelly, dust-laden tracks of Australia, to the soppy, mud-bogged tracks of the UK, to the snow-covered tracks of Sweden. As such, it's up to you before each race to determine the setup for your car so that you can best acclimate yourself to the terrain in front of you. Terrain types on a track are displayed before a race by percentages, and you can alter details like your car's tire type, ride height, spring stiffness, and brake adjustment. Each of these details is quite important to how your car performs on a given track. Gravelly tracks require specific types of tires to prevent you from sliding all over the road, and likewise, setting your springs to a softer setting will also help your traction. You actually feel a legitimate difference between how your car handles on, say, light pea gravel versus heavy pea gravel, so it's not as though these settings are merely an arbitrary option. Although in several of the game's modes, you do have the option to simply race so that you don't have to worry about any of this. The game's championship mode requires you to learn the ropes of car setups, though, so you're better off learning how to properly configure your car. The damage modeling can be adjusted between two settings, and with it set to high, the damage really takes its toll. Bumpers, doors, and hoods shear off; windows shatter; tires explode; and rolling your car...well, let's just say it looks appropriately unpleasant. Now, of course, all of this damage will have an adverse effect on your ability to drive properly. In fact, most of the game's damage isn't even immediately visible but definitely takes a notable toll on your car. For instance, destroying your engine's cooling system results in terrible engine performance and even causes it to periodically shut off midway through a race.

Speaking of the championship mode , Its Like most everything else in Colin McRae 04, Depending on which car you choose, you'll become a part of that car manufacturer's racing team, so you'll attempt to earn points for both yourself and your team as you blaze through a series of six-race, two-day rally events. As you play, you'll also take part in special one-on-one competitions against an opponent in an arena-like race, and you'll have the opportunity to earn new parts for your car by testing them yourself. Parts-testing takes place between countries, and you can earn items like upgraded brakes, snow and gravel tires, and gear boxes. Each test is like a minigame of sorts, where, for instance, when testing new brakes, you must speed through a course and stop within a specifically marked area of a track. In terms of remaining gameplay modes, the rest of Colin McRae 04 is made up of standard quick race, single course, and single rally modes. The quick race is just a random car and track that's selected for you, which gets you into a competition as expediently as possible. Single course lets you run a time trial through any of the game's available courses. As for single rally, any of the championship mode rallies are available in a single sitting here, in addition to a few customized rallies and a couple of slots for you to create your own customized rallies. Colin McRae 04 also sounds really great. Colin McRae's longtime navigator, Derek Ringer, once again makes an appearance in this year's title, and his dialogue is pretty much what you would expect. The game also features navigator dialogue in multiple other languages as well. There's very little soundtrack to speak of in Colin McRae 04, save for in the game's various menu screens, but what's there serves as decent background fodder. When in the standard camera view, everything sounds really good. Every car's engine sounds different, slide-outs and crashes are just what they should be, and the sounds of the car simply bouncing around and skidding around corners are excellent. To top it all off, when you switch to the "in the cockpit" camera view, you get a whole new take on the game's sound presentation. Everything feels much more immersive, and all the effects definitely give you much more of a feeling that you're really inside the car. Occasionally, we did note a few slightly off-sounding engine noises, as well as a few lacking background sound effects in certain spots. However, to balance out these slight issues, the game features support for Creative's EAX 4.0 advanced HD surround sound. There aren't any PC rally racing games that are better than Colin McRae Rally 04--and there aren't many better driving games of any type, for that matter.

GAME REVIEW :-

8.5/10

Colin McRae Rally 2004 Trailer :-

SYBERIA II

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : MC2-Microids

Publisher : XS Games, LLC

Engine : Virtools Engine 3.0

Genre : Adventure

Release Date : March 30 , 2004

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 2000 / Windows XP

CPU : AMD Athlon Classic K75 / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 128 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 8.1 Compatible Video Card with Memory 16 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 3 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 8500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 400 MB

GAME FEATURES :-

Syberia II continues the adventures of American lawyer Kate Walker from the first game as she abandons her increasingly stressful life in New York in order to accompany an eccentric inventor to a remote land in Russia known as Syberia where surviving remnants of prehistoric mammoths still live. Romansburg- Kate begins at a small frontier town called Romansburg. With helpful instructions from Hans' automaton train engineer Oscar, Kate is able to wind and load the train with coal. However, Hans falls ill and must be treated before they continue. From a little girl named Malka, Kate learns that the monks at the monastery on top of the nearby cliff can heal Hans. However, the old patriarch and his strict adherence to his personal rules forces Kate to jump through hoop after hoop just to get him to look at Hans. Worse still, the patriarch deems him a lost cause and figures that skipping straight to spiritual salvation is the best course of action. Kate learns from Hans about a friend of his at the monastery that knows Youkol medicine. Things go from bad to worse when Kate is asked to fix some mechanical automaton horses on Hans' behalf. Two thieves, Ivan and Igor, hijack the train while she works, intending to reach Syberia and make a profit from the mammoth ivory. Kate is able to follow them using a gangcar powered by a friendly animal called a youki, a cross between a seal and a bear. Wilderness- Kate finally catches up with the train, but it collapses a bridge when it grinds to a halt, stranding Kate on the wrong side. Followed by the youki, which Kate names Youki, Kate works her way across a river, manages to avoid being eaten by a bear, and is reunited with her old friend Boris, whose flying wing crashes nearby. Kate manages to make it to the train, but Ivan and Igor have given up on operating it and have left on a snowmobile with Hans as their prisoner. Kate and Oscar are forced to unhinge the passenger car to pursue the kidnappers. By the time they catch up, Ivan is off collecting ivory and the simple-minded Igor is having second-thoughts about the plan, as he is easily intimidated by the noise being made from wind blowing through a nearby statue. Kate stops the noise and convinces Igor to abandon Ivan. Kate confronts Ivan at a large mammoth statue surround by ivory. Ivan holds her at bay until she manages to convince Oscar to offer some assistance to create a momentary diversion. However, it doesn't completely succeed and Ivan is just about to do Kate in when the ice on which they are standing cracks, dropping Kate into darkness.

Youkol Village- Kate awakes in the icy, underground village of the Youkol people. Hans is there, too, but he is on his deathbed. After convincing the Youkol people to help her drag the train inside, Kate makes her way to the shaman's hut. With the help of the shaman, Kate decides to reach Hans in his dreams and convince him to live. She convinces Hans, who alternates between his child self and his present self, not to give up. In response, he asks her to help Oscar "open up his heart." He disappears, and Kate touches an object on the table which ends the dream. When Kate delivers the cryptic message to Oscar, the automaton engineer knows what he must do: he will give his "life" for his creator, unlocking his hollow body to form a primitive exo-skeleton/life-support system for Hans. The key to the train and its final task are entrusted to Kate. There are no more tracks to drive on, but a frozen ship that will take them the rest of the way. Once Kate figures out how to get the train to thaw it, Kate, Hans, and Youki board the boat and set sail for the island of Syberia. Ice Floe- The journey is delayed by Ivan, who has stowed away on the boat. He attempts to leave Kate on an ice flow, but his inability to operate the vessel allows Kate to sneak back on board and raise the sails, simultaneously getting the boat moving and stranding Ivan on the ice flow. He unwisely decides to make one last show of defiance by tossing a penguin egg: the penguins do not take kindly to their nests being disturbed and peck him to death. Syberia- The ship reaches Syberia at last, but their journey is not quite over yet. The mammoths must be summoned for Hans to ride. Guided by an ancient medallion and some crude drawings on the ship, Kate manages to work out how to activate the Youkol horns and play the mammoth-riding tune. The mammoths are summoned and Hans goes to meet them. Still domesticated after all this time, they gladly let him up on their backs. The game ends with Hans riding one of the mammoths off into the distance, leaving Kate to wave tearfully, knowing she helped Hans fulfill his dream.

Syberia II is about more than its story: You'll solve plenty of puzzles during your adventures. Like in the original Syberia, they usually tie in to the gameworld well, without the sort of arbitrariness that mars lesser adventures. Overall, they're fairly easy--just challenging enough to be interesting and offer a little sense of accomplishment. They run the gamut from a prosaic bit of salmon fishing to finally letting you operate the wondrous train that's played so big a role in the games. While most of the puzzles should seem pretty easy to adventure game veterans, there are a few harder ones this time around, too. Some are hard in the welcome way of really forcing you to think. Some are hard, though, because they force you to engage in too much monotonous trial and error, random button pushing, or traipsing back and forth. Some puzzles are hard simply because it's easy to overlook certain small items that blend too readily into the backgrounds. The in-game graphics boast equally meticulous and imaginative details, interesting camera angles, and dramatic lighting. It's enjoyable to simply let the eye dwell on the plush, old-world luxury of the train interior or the massive Youkol machinery built of mammoth bone, petrified wood, and leather. You'll also see more background animations this time around, whether people going about their business, birds flitting past, or snow sliding off a roof. The audio suffers from its problems, too, mainly with the voice-overs. Most of the main characters are voiced well enough to make them seem plausible and likeable, if a bit wooden at times. Fans of the first game will likely be happy to hear familiar actors reprising their roles. Some voice-overs just don't cut it, though. The isolated, mysterious Youkols seem to speak a language of just four or five native words mixed with giggles and, quite improbably, broken English and no consistent accent. Worse still is the villain Ivan, with his British accent and hokey "diabolical villain's laugh" that sounds badly forced. Syberia II is filled with attractive, memorable touches like that. At the same time, it's a bit of a letdown compared to the superlative first game: The story is solid but not as engaging, some puzzles could have used reworking, the locales suffer from a certain monotony or even blandness at times, and the game as a whole feels a bit shorter, too. While Syberia II only sometimes captures the elusive magic of the original game, it's still one of the finer adventure games to come out in the last couple of years.

GAME REVIEW :-

7.5/10

Syberia II Trailer :-

SACRED

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Ascaron

Publisher : Encore, Koch Media And Red Ant Enterprises

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Action Role-Playing

Release Date : March 25 , 2004

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 2000 / Windows XP

CPU : AMD Athlon Thunderbird B-Models / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 256 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 8.1 Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 4 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 8500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 2 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Sacred is a great-looking, generally solid action role-playing game that provides a few interesting gameplay innovations. It features an open-ended gaming world to explore, decent cooperative and competitive multiplayer options, and a good mix of goal-oriented questing and fast-paced battles. The monsters are all classic fantasy stereotypes, such as undead, dragons, and ogres; you can use the Alt key to highlight and quickly locate the seemingly endless bounties of loot they hoard. There's a huge variety of magical items, including sets of related items to collect, upgradable socketed items, and class-specific artifacts. You'll maintain a chest "stash" in towns, where you can store some of your accumulated swag, and you can hook up with companions who will provide some temporary assistance, though you don't directly control them. You can replay the storyline at progressively difficult skill levels. Those features make Sacred sound very similar to Diablo II, and in many ways it is, but Sacred also has its share of innovations. The auto-mapping function nicely complements the open-ended gaming world design by granting you a thorough overview of the areas you've explored. Sacred's interface includes convenient features, such as a circle around your character that graphically reveals current hit points, so you don't have to take your eyes off the action to steal glances at readouts further from the action. You can buy a horse to speed travel and garner an additional defensive bonus in combat, but it's difficult to effectively engage opponents from horseback, and characters lose access to several of their best character skills when riding. A couple of the character types are particularly novel, but there is a considerable overlap of special attack skills among characters. Characters have basic attributes, skills, and special attacks/spells.

Skills are passive traits that grant characters additional proficiency in certain actions such as horse riding. The skills are universally available to all characters. Improving special attacks will make them more powerful, but the improvements are largely statistical rather than visceral, and you won't be able to use upgraded abilities as frequently unless you also allocate points to related skills. Special attacks and spells aren't organized in skill trees with prerequisites, and you are never prevented from increasing those abilities, but that flexibility tends to just make characters less distinctive and ironically makes the game less replayable. There are no fewer than five different, unstackable potion types, but the more original potions tend to annoyingly clutter up your character's inventory more than they enhance gameplay. Gameplay is never as addictive or rewarding as it should be, since combat is the game's primary focus and it frequently becomes more of a tedious chore than a thrilling, fast-paced experience. Sacred has a comprehensive suite of multiplayer options, including an Internet-hosting service similar to Blizzard's Battle.net. You can team up with up to three other players to fight the game's main campaign, or you can fight in up to 16-player hack-and-slash duels. Sacred has a few minor bugs, such as broken subquests and placeholder dialogue text, but bugs tend to pop up more frequently in multiplayer games. Sacred is a welcome addition to the genre that distinguishes itself by incorporating a few novel gameplay tweaks. However, the game's success is ultimately limited by an unrewarding character development system and by combat that is too frequently tedious rather than engaging.

GAME REVIEW :-

7.5/10

Sacred Trailer :-

BATTLEFIELD VIETNAM

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Digital Illusions

Publisher : Electronic Arts

Engine : Redfractor 2

Genre : Historic First-Person Shooter

Release Date : March 16 , 2004

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 98 / Windows XP

CPU : AMD Athlon Thunderbird B-Models / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 256 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0b Compatible Video Card with Memory 64 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 4 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 9500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 2 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Battlefield Vietnam is one of the most anticipated games of the year. Battlefield Vietnam is a multiplayer-focused shooter that allows you to fight the battles of the Vietnam War against computer-controlled bots or up to 63 other players. In the conquest mode, which is the primary mode of play here just as in Battlefield 1942, players divide up into two teams, one for the US and its Vietnamese allies and the other for the North Vietnamese and its Vietcong allies. You're then dropped into a gigantic map and must battle for strategic control points. In addition to running around on foot with a variety of weapons, you can jump into an assortment of vehicles, including jeeps, tanks, helicopters, jets, and more. Often, multiple players can jump into the same vehicle; for example, one player can pilot the helicopter while two players handle the side-mounted machine guns and two others sit back and shoot out the side with their own weapons. It can make for a wildly exciting experience as the two teams slug it out in a tug-of-war struggle, and a team's fortunes can change in a heartbeat depending on the skill and coordination level between players. The first thing that strikes you about Battlefield Vietnam isn't the graphics; it's the music. From the opening movie to the loading screens, you're immediately exposed to a soundtrack that's packed with the classic Vietnam War protest songs, including Edwin Starr's "War," Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son," The Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird," and others. The 14 different scenarios in Battlefield Vietnam are inspired by some of the most famous battles of the war, including the Ia Drang Valley, Hue during the Tet Offensive, and the Siege of Khe Sanh. There are also lesser-known battles, such as Operation Hastings and Operation Flaming Dart. The game itself comes with about 12 different maps, because two urban maps--Hue and Quang Tri--are used twice. There are some variations in the recycled versions of those two maps, but it's disappointing whenever developers reuse levels in the same game.

The multiplayer server browser derives directly from Battlefield 1942, which is a good thing. It's extremely easy to use, so finding and jumping into a game online requires just a few mouse clicks. There are a number of different game types in Battlefield Vietnam, including evolution and capture the flag.The vehicles in Battlefield Vietnam transform the game. The American jeep is back, but this time the passengers can shoot from the shotgun position for drive-by shootings, and the jeep has a powerful missile launcher for a third passenger. The tanks are bigger and more powerful. There are a few notable additions, including the Vespa scooter, which can zip around the urban levels, and the BTR-60, an armored personnel carrier in which the passengers can look and shoot out of the sides. The US also gets a couple of patrol boats for river operations, and a number of vehicles are also amphibious, which allows them to negotiate water obstacles. Helicopters combine rapid transport capabilities with a mobile weapons platform capable of devastating air support. Unlike planes, helicopters can loiter close to the ground and hover in place to provide fire support. A couple of Hueys can deliver a squad of infantry deep behind enemy lines to secure control points. The downside to helicopters is that they are extremely tricky to operate, and it takes considerable practice before you can fly one without crashing. And while they're rugged against infantry weapons, helicopters are extremely vulnerable to antiaircraft cannons and missiles, not to mention enemy helicopters and fighters, so they're not unstoppable. The jet engine has also had a huge effect on the aircraft in Battlefield Vietnam. The US has the F-4 Phantom and the A-7 Corsair, both of which are capable of devastating ground attacks. The Phantom, in particular, has the dreaded napalm bomb that can carpet a wide area. The assault rifles and machine guns of the Vietnam era have increased the lethality of infantry considerably in this game relative to its predecessor. The M60, in particular, is almost an overpowering weapon, capable of churning out high rates of fire with a large belt of ammunition and laying down fire over long ranges. The North Vietnamese have a number of cool weapons as well. In addition to Kalashnikov assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, they get the SA-7 antiaircraft missile (useful for shooting down American helicopters and jets), as well as caltrops (small, spiked antipersonnel devices that you scatter on the ground as an obstacle).

Little things like weapon animations are done particularly well; the parts on your rifle will actually jiggle as you run around.The sound effects are extremely well done. The background noises almost lull you, what with birds chirping in the air and other such ambient noises. Then the sound of gunfire erupts around you, and you can hear bullets whizzing by the tall blades of grass. Bullets literally sound like they're zinging by your head. Weapon sounds are modeled accurately and have their distinctive sounds, from the short bark of the M16 to the crack of the sniper rifle. There's even radio chatter when you strap into a helicopter or fighter, and a number of vehicles have speakers that can boom out music from the soundtrack. All this graphical detail in the terrain, weapons, vehicles, and soldiers comes at a price, though. Battlefield Vietnam will tax the most powerful systems, particularly in terms of memory. Load times are excruciatingly long, especially if you raise the graphical detail to maximum. To illustrate, the game plays one of the tracks from the soundtrack as you load, and you can usually get two-thirds of the way through the song by the time the level finishes loading. Battlefield Vietnam packs more dramatic moments in its gameplay than most any multiplayer-focused action game in the past few years. Strictly compared against its 2-year-old predecessor, it's a better-designed game, featuring better technology--as you'd probably expect. And it's a better executed game; Battlefield Vietnam doesn't ship with any of the game-breaking bugs and flaws. Make no mistake, though: Battlefield Vietnam is a great, undeniably fun game.

GAME REVIEW :-

8.5/10

Battlefield Vietnam Trailer :-

SILENT HILL 3

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Konami And Team Silent

Publisher : Konami

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Horror Action Adventure

Release Date : December 2 , 2003

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 2000 / Windows XP

CPU : AMD Athlon Thunderbird C-Models / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 256 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 8.1 Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 3 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 8500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 5 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

After playing through a brief dream sequence at a Silent Hill amusement park, the player is introduced to the game's protagonist, Heather, at a "Happy Burger" restaurant in a shopping mall. Before she can leave she is confronted by a private investigator named Douglas Cartland who tells her he has information about her past. Heather evades him, escaping through a window in a ladies' restroom, but upon reentering the mall she discovers it mostly abandoned except for bizarre monsters. In the empty mall, she meets a priestess of Silent Hill's resident cult who identifies herself as Claudia, who speaks cryptically about Heather. Heather suddenly collapses in severe pain, but having recovered when Claudia leaves, uses an elevator, and finds herself in the Otherworld version of the mall – a hellish place, similar to the original mall, but dark, decaying, and full of monsters. She returns to the normal world after a boss fight with a giant worm creature, finding Douglas again and extracting from him a confession that he had been hired by Claudia to find her. Heather leaves to take the subway home, finding more empty places, monsters, and taking another involuntary trip to the Otherworld in an office building on her convoluted walk back home. In the Otherworld office building, she encounters a man named Vincent, who apparently has some affiliation with Claudia despite his dismissals of her and leaves him after getting no answers on what is happening. After finally arriving home Heather discovers her father has been killed by a monster under Claudia's orders, explaining her motives as revenge, and to "fill [Heather's] heart with hatred", after further cryptic messages as to Heather's role in the proceedings, she leaves her to fight the monster, telling her that she will be waiting for her in Silent Hill. Heather subsequently resolves to go to Silent Hill, intent on killing Claudia, and accepts Douglas's offer to drive her there. On the journey there, Douglas explains that Vincent left him a message, telling them to look for a man named Leonard Wolf whilst Heather reads a memo left by her father before his death, which briefly recounts the events of Silent Hill and reveals that she is the baby girl that was left to Harry Mason- her adoptive father – at the conclusion of the first game, after he destroyed the god birthed by Alessa Gillespie. Claudia seeks Heather to birth the cult's god, since Heather – the girl given to Harry, now grown up – is in fact a reincarnation of Alessa. Upon arriving in Silent Hill, which is once more abandoned and shrouded in fog, Heather checks Brookhaven Hospital for Leonard Wolf. Shortly after entering the hospital, she discovers a ringing telephone in an abandoned room and answers it. Leonard is the caller, and mistaking Heather for Claudia, speaks angrily against Claudia’s beliefs. Heather protests the misunderstanding forcefully, and Leonard reveals he is Claudia's father after becoming convinced she is telling the truth.

Heather becomes uncomfortable and mentions that Claudia murdered her father. Leonard notices the hatred in her voice and decides they are mutual allies. He disapproves of Claudia's actions to rebirth the god, like Heather, and initially agrees to help her, offering the use of an artifact later identified as the "Seal of Metatron". When the two meet, however, Leonard, who takes the form of a monster, tries to kill Heather after discovering she is not a cult member. Heather subsequently defeats him. Heather collapses in pain under the pressure of holding the god inside her, the anger and hatred she holds towards Claudia only intensifying it, and begins to turn blood-red all over. The player, as Heather, must then use the pendant item Harry left Heather, which contains a sample of aglaophotis, the chemical synthesized by Michael Kaufmann in the first Silent Hill for the purpose of killing the god; Heather swallows the sample and proceeds to vomit out the fetal god. Horrified, Claudia pushes Heather before she can stomp on the "god," picks it up, and swallows the god's fetus, and dies in the process of birthing it herself; Heather then fights and defeats the god, which is only partly-formed owing to its premature birth. Three endings appear in the game. The Normal ending, which is the only ending available on the first play-through of the game, sees Heather and Douglas survive and Heather ostensibly returning to a normal life. The Possessed ending, appearing after a scored game with more than 4,000 points obtained, shows that Douglas has been murdered, apparently by Heather, now under the influence of the still-living god. Finally, the Revenge ending, accessible by certain game requirements, sees the return of the "UFO" endings of the previous games, where Heather complains to her seemingly alien father, Harry, who promptly flies a group of spaceships to Silent Hill, blowing it up. Really, atmosphere is what Silent Hill 3 is all about--not story or logic. Heather seems to be an average girl, yet she amazingly doesn't seem particularly frightened when she spots all sorts of gibbering, shambling, blood-soaked creatures who are feasting on corpses--or trying to feast on her. During the slow, tension-building stretches between battles and expository cutscenes, you'll solve a handful of puzzles, mostly about how to unlock doors. Silent Hill 3 offers something lots of PC adventure games could learn from: At the beginning of the game, you choose the difficulty of the puzzles. The game even offers hints on the easiest puzzle difficulty setting. The game overuses a lot of visual motifs, but the graphics are still wonderful and reflect a masterful use of light and shadow, in addition to some stomach-turning, hair-raising visual effects that will make you do a double take. Meticulously detailed textures and a special visual filter tend to give everything a grainy, brittle, antique look. The creatures are well crafted, too. There are hellish dogs with their faces riven in two, walking tumors, giant alien mannequins, undead nurses, and more. Silent Hill 3's awkward story suffers from some serious pacing problems, as all the interesting stuff is saved for near the end. The combat and puzzles could have been better, too. The game doesn't even have that many true scares in it, but if you want to lose yourself in a really disturbing world that really digs under your skin, Silent Hill 3 is hard to beat.

GAME REVIEW :-

7.5/10

Silent Hill 3 Trailer :-

TRACKMANIA

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Nadeo

Publisher : Digital Jesters, Enlight, Steam And Focus

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Racing

Release Date : July 8 , 2004

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 98 / Windows 2000

CPU : Intel Pentium III Processor / AMD Athlon Thunderbird B-Models

Memory (RAM) : 128 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0 Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 4 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon X300 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 510 MB

GAME FEATURES :-

TrackMania's earnest simplicity and pure addictiveness shine through over its few rough spots, providing a wholly enjoyable game with plenty of lasting value and charm. TrackMania puts an end to this prolonged drought. The game has been out in Europe for a while now, and since its European release, it has drawn quite a following overseas. In TrackMania, simplicity is the theme of the day. TrackMania has only two primary single-player modes. Race mode is a progression through the game's three unique race worlds--a picturesque countryside, a barren desert, and a frigid, snowcapped landscape, respectively--trying to beat each specific racetrack provided in a certain amount of time. The other mode, puzzle mode, is a bit more unique. In each level, you are provided a start point, an end point, and a specific number of customizable road pieces. Whether they are ramps, standard roads, or other types of set pieces, you have to use them to build a path from point A to point B. Once that's done, you race your created path and try to beat the allotted timetable. While race mode is pretty straightforward--and, admittedly, isn't all that interesting--puzzle mode is quite a cool feature. Even though not all the puzzles are terribly hard, there are enough brain teasers here to keep you entertained for quite a while. Of course, the real purpose of this mode is to earn credits that you can use in the game's track editor--which is, of course, the reason to own this game. TrackMania's track editor is rife with options. Once you've picked from one of the three race worlds, you can create almost limitless possibilities for tracks. Want a 360-degree loop to go into a jump over a rock wall onto a high-up road that takes you into a tunnel that leads to one of several different paths. The interface is rather austere in design, simply giving you point-and-click access to each type of piece, as well as the ability to rotate pieces, move the camera to a different angle, and so on and so forth. All told, the track editor is pretty much worth the price of admission by itself, though it isn't the only thing the game has going for it.

TrackMania's other big draw is its multiplayer component. On a LAN or over the Internet, you can participate in multiplayer races for up to 10 players. There are three distinct multiplayer modes in the game, including round, team, and time attack. While each mode has differing rules and designs, they all still focus around the basic concept of completing a course in the fastest amount of time. You can race on premade tracks or race using your own tracks. The online performance in the game is quite solid, though lag is readily apparent on some of the servers we found ourselves on, leading to a lot of cars jumping and teleporting all over the track. The game's driving mechanics heavily lean toward the realm of arcade-style driving. This is in no way a bad thing, but the way in which the cars handle can be more frustrating than enjoyable at times. Essentially, you have one type of car for each race world--though there are a multitude of skins available for each car type. The countryside level, for instance, features more rally-inspired cars, whereas the desert level features more muscle-bound hot rods. The car models are simplistic and small, and the track designs and set pieces are similarly minimal, using fairly basic textures and not pushing much in the way of polygons. However, this isn't really so much a knock against the game's graphics, as it is just a simple fact. TrackMania is completely worth it if you have any interest in PC driving games or ever liked miniature cars as a kid. Sure, the driving mechanics aren't perfect, and it isn't much to look at, but on the whole, this is a great game with plenty of depth and lasting appeal. And with Nadeo already having released an additional program that lets you import custom online avatars and custom car skins into the game, it seems as though TrackMania could potentially find itself with a solid fan community and plenty of downloadable goodies in the future.

GAME REVIEW :-

8/10

TrackMania Trailer :-

HITMAN: CONTRACTS

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : IO Interactive

Publisher : Eidos Interactive

Engine : Glacier

Genre : Modern Third-Person Shooter And Stealth

Release Date : April 20 , 2004

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 2000 / Windows XP

CPU : AMD Athlon Thunderbird C-Models / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 256 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 8.1 Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 4 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 8500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 2 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

The game begins with a cutscene showing a wounded Agent 47 wandering through a dark hotel corridor and arriving at his room. Upon entering, he collapses and begins to have flashbacks regarding previous assassinations he committed, beginning with the aftermath of killing Dr. Ort-Meyer at the end of the original game. The missions are primarily focused on replays of previous missions in the original game, except played in reverse. The graphics, maps and artificial intelligence have been improved and modified, not to mention the presence of rain or snow in every level and peculiar, unnatural events occurring in some levels. In the game, 47 visits several locations, including Romania, Kamchatka, United Kingdom, Rotterdam, Hong Kong And finally Paris. While 47 suffers, a doctor sent by the Agency arrives unexpectedly and treats 47, then flees when he discovers GIGN officers surrounding the hotel. At the end of the game, 47 regains consciousness in the hotel room with an expired mission briefing. It is revealed that 47 was hired to kill a US ambassador, Richard Delahunt, and a famous tenor at an opera house in Paris but was also tasked to kill their mutual friend, Inspector Albert Fournier who has sent a team of police to capture 47 after discovering his hideout. 47 discovers the situation he is in and moves on to kill the inspector and escape the area. He then makes his way to the airport, where he boards a plane and escapes the country. His contact, Diana, reaches him on the plane and suggests that his target may have been tipped off. Hitman's creator is called Dr. Orthomeyer and not Ort-Meyer in this game. Most of Contracts takes place as a series of flashbacks. It's not terribly clear at first, but you soon gather that the assassin known only as 47 has sustained a grievous injury on one of his assignments and now lies at death's door. The new missions are certainly diverse and are quite interesting, offering ample opportunity--in the classic tradition of the Hitman series--for you to craftily make your way to your target to take him out, undetected, via some elaborate scheme (which typically involves the use of lots of disguises taken from killed or unconscious characters, as well as the use of poisons or poison substitutes). There are later missions, such as one in which 47 must eliminate two brothers who are up to no good at an international gathering in a posh hotel, and another one in which he must disrupt a Russian arms deal that is going down aboard a ship. Depending on which of the three difficulty modes you select when you begin play, and depending on whether or not you try to take a stealthy approach, you can either breeze through the linear series of missions in less than 10 hours, or you can possibly spend twice as much time doing so.

There are some nice, scripted setups for you to take advantage of, such as when characters nonchalantly walk over to the restroom so that you can strangle them, hide their bodies, and take their clothes for a disguise. But the whole disguise thing still seems rather silly, even though it's one of the main gameplay elements in the Hitman series. The tall and broad-shouldered 47 can wear most anyone's clothes as though they were tailored for him, and the way his previous outfit magically appears in a neatly folded pile may be a hard pill to swallow for those unfamiliar with the Hitman series. The behavior of most characters just isn't very convincing. Hitman: Contracts provides you with a very helpful tactical map, which you can access at the touch of a button at any time, though the action doesn't pause when you're on the map screen. Apart from the map, though, the game doesn't give you very good feedback about what's going on in your environment. You're supposedly trying to remain hidden and quiet as you sneak around, but there are no real indications of whether or not you're in a character's line of sight or within his or her earshot. There's an onscreen threat indicator, which turns red and starts fluctuating if you've raised suspicion, but it isn't terribly useful except to warn you that you're standing too close to somebody. Besides that, Hitman: Contracts still frequently displays messages to you as though you're omniscient. Suddenly, you're informed that a dead guard's body has been discovered or that guards are now looking for a suspicious man dressed as a chef, and other things of this nature. Many of the environments and ambient lighting effects are believable and great-looking, though the environments aren't very interactive. There are a few new effects, such as how gouts of blood spray into the air sometimes when bullets strike their victims. Also, when 47 runs out of health, the entire game temporarily goes into slow motion, while the color fades from the screen as he makes his last stand. The music here is electronic, rife with synthesized bass and heavy percussion. The rest of the audio is good, and the multilingual voice acting, as mentioned, is a nice touch. Hitman: Contracts delivers some time-tested and sometimes highly entertaining stealth action, which any fan of the genre might as well check out.

GAME REVIEW :-

7.5/10

Hitman: Contracts Trailer :-