Games; Knight driving. - Free Online Library (2024)

Byline: BOB LOW

BATMAN: GOTHAM CITY RACER

PlayStation

THE Caped Crusader has not had a happy time with the gamesindustry. Recent efforts, such as Acclaim's Batman and Robin andeven older ones, such as the GameBoy side-scrollers, gave Batman a hardtime.

The Sega Batman was different, mainly because it introduced theBatmobile and UbiSoft have clearly spotted this now that the Batmanlicence has landed with them

Originally entitled Batman Vehicle Adventure - you know why theychanged it - the main feature of this is piloting the Batvehiclesthrough Gotham's streets.

Oh sure, you can climb into The Riddler's mean green machineand have a go at Catwoman's car, but the art-deco Batmobile andBatcycle are the ones you really, really want.

The game is built around a series of 51 adventure missions as theusual suspects, from The Riddler to The Penguin, escape and terrorise the city.

There is also a Patrol mode, which is lot less structured andpermits the crime-fighting duo to take on anything the mean streets ofGotham have to offer, providing it can be fought with a car, a motorbikeand an arsenal of gadgets and weapons, including smoke, oil and homingdevices.

Two-player pursuit is the one for true Batman fans, though -screaming through the streets chasing your mate as The Joker or ThePenguin is brilliant boy-racer fun.

However, so is racing to the airport to disable a bomb andthere's even a mission where you have to get to the casino, fast,because some criminals have nicked your wallet and are spending yourcredit card.

For those who like George Clooney in rubber, this won't work.For those who like Batman the cartoon, this is great fun.

RATING 8/10

DREAMCATCHER are to turn Robert Louis Stevenson's classichorror novel into an interactive game for later this summer. Jekyll& Hyde is set in a creepy 3D version of Victorian London. In orderto save his kidnapped daughter, the doctor brings back his evilalternate personality. In the game, players will choose when to invokeMr Hyde - and once they switch, they may never be able to turn back.

Leading a Doge's life

MERCHANT PRINCE II

PlayStation 2

IN 1994, QQP released Merchant Prince, an economic strategy gamedeveloped by Holistic Design and set in Renaissance Venice. It failedHolistic's economic strategy and bombed.

A year later, MicroProse picked up the game, got Holistic Design toimprove the graphics, tweak the gameplay and re-released it asMachiavelli The Prince, hoping that would encourage the devious to buyit. Sadly, it didn't.

A full six years on, TalonSoft has decided to re-release theoriginal QQP game and, once again, Holistic Design was called upon toresurrect it.

Unfortunately, the latest incarnation seems simply to be the sameold corner shop in Venice, optimised to run under Windows. Andthat's it. Basically, this is Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? meetsGangster. It is a turn-based strategy game dealing with the developmentof Venice as centre of commerce.

As the head of one of the leading merchant families, you must useyour ships and caravans to establish trade routes with the major citiesof the Old World - ranging from the Mediterranean to the Far East andAfrica - to bring valuable commodities to the markets that demand them.At the same time, you have to be active in Venetian politics as well asthose in the Vatican - becoming the Pope or the Doge of Venice cansignificantly enhance your power and, of course, your wealth.

He who dies with the most toys, wins is the theme of this. Thefirst player to collect a million florins over the course of a variablenumber of turns - up to 200 for long games - takes the prize. Itisn't too hard to imagine this re-issued under another name -Mafioso, perhaps, or Maggie's Britain.

Since there are also scenarios set in the Far East and NorthernEurope, I wouldn't be surprised to see it re-boxed and called MarcoPolo.

What I don't want is a six-year-old game with a flawedinterface, dumb-as-a-stump AI and graphics only one step up fromsomething drawn by a monk on vellum.

More frustrating still is having to fork out the full price for it.

RATING 5/10

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH

PlayStation

FOLLOWING on from the disastrous Tomorrow Never Dies and withRare's sublime GoldenEye on the N64, this latest 007 epic has a lotto prove.

Based on the film, you have to use your wits and shooting skills tobe Bond and beat the bad guys. The game features 11 levels, thedifficulty increasing as the game progresses and forcing you to thinkhard about tactics.

The missions start with a useful briefing from M, followed by atrip to Q. Happily, that's the end of the alphabet soup.

Courier, the first mission, starts off with a simple shootingexercise where you have to kill the enemies, find a briefcase and thenescape.

However, many of your enemies are thick as mince and take severalrounds of ammo to die.

However, this is still leagues ahead of Tomorrow Never Dies

RATING 8/10

STARSHIPS UNLIMITED

PC CD

PROOF that the Net is where gaming belongs, this is an ex-sharewareidea, fleshed out into an entire game without using the budget of asmall African country.

Done by Apezone, it perfectly captures the central attraction ofspace empire games - that a sci-fi game about space ships is morecompelling than a sci-fi game about population growth, unrest levels, ortrade routes.

You will find all the usual suspects here - colonies, mining,diplomacy, research, espionage and so forth - but they're allstreamlined to let you get on with the real business of sending yourships on missions.

The basic gameplay runs in real-time on a vast map without hexes.Best of all, it has an AI which plays like a human opponent.

It has some rough graphics and interface wrinkles, but this isworth checking out at www.apezone.com.

RATING 8/10