Stick with covering Halo & Co. tidbits, as well as assorted Bungie nuggets (and Phoenix, of course). But also, you could go the way of Subnova — keep tabs on all the new, sprouting, intriguing-looking developers who seem like they might have something up their sleeves (like Island Fo- uh, never mind).

... my two cents...

Max Payne (Xbox)
Scores are 1-10 in increments of a half-point.

Reminds me of:

• Oni - Replace Konoko with a guy, add better levels that are less imaginitive in some areas, yet much more interesting in others. Oh, and you have the Quaker's Unlimited Backpack, to carry your portable armory. =)


• Tomb Raider - Subtract Lara Croft, add more weapons, better graphics and a cheesy mob/gov't/secret society/evil corporate conspiracy storyline.


• The Matrix (movie) - Max Payne derives heavily from "The Matrix". You can feel a definite "Matrix" influence in so many parts that you'll be liable to call it a ripoff, except for the lack of malevolent AIs, designer shades and PVC-clad females. In fact, there are very few females to deal with in the game. I guess you have to pat 3D Realms on the back for attempting to make a game stand on just violence. ;-)

The Story: 6
In a nutshell: You're a police officer, a New York Narcotics cop, and your wife and baby girl are murdered horribly by junkies, hopped up on the new and dangerous street drug, "V". Seeking vengance, you head under cover. Plot twists ensue, but the game doesn't really diverge much from running into a room, gunning down every living person in there (with two or three exceptions) and finding your way into the next room.

The going can get a little monotonous now and then, and "Max Payne" is exceedingly linear, but the designers show some real sparks of genius in parts of the game. The nightmares you experience (and play through) during the course of the story are evocative and frightening in some ways. I found myself cringing at the screaming of your dead baby - this game is definitely NOT for young children - but it can get a little annoying trying to do a tightrope walk in some parts. I found the steel plant to be the best and most challenging part of all, but you won't see that until the final third of the story - your reward for making it through a subway, a sewer, a burning restaurant and other environments. At one point, you use a big device to damage a large door, and then must shoot your way through the door before taking on the well-positioned and well-armed mercs in the room beyond.

Interface: 8
The interface is pretty good and relatively easy to pick up, considering that you're playing a shooter on a console. The game does provide you with aiming assistance at the easier difficulty levels, but this is probably a good thing, considering that you're playing a shooter on a console. ;-) The main complaint I have relates to the difficulty with weapons-switching, but that derives from the console interface itself. If you had a keyboard available, you could probably choose a weapon with the press of a single key.

Graphics: 7
Very pretty gunfights, most often in very shabby environments. Character models are only so-so - think "Thief" or "Tomb Raider". The graphics engine gets the job done, though, and then some. The game has its share of eye candy, and is much better balanced in design than Oni and many other action titles.

Audio: 8.5
Good audio effects. Pretty good music, applied with panache at appropriate times. You should make sure to keep your ears open, because small audible clues like snippets of conversation through doors can alert you to important things to come... or to bad guys preparing to bust in on you.

Gameplay: 6.5
Many would be tempted to call this a "gimmick game". And truthfully, without "bullet-time" and "shootdodging", this game would really not be worth recommending. However, this game can be very fun because of the action sequences that you are able to participate in... and the cinematic views you get of your enemies biting lead before going down.

Some reviewers complain that the game is too short, but I don't know if I really agree with that assessment. More of the same would likely just make the game feel really drawn-out, and discourage you from trying to finish it. I'm not really sure how you could add any more to the story than the authors do, either - they barely stay within the limits of believability once it departs from a simple mob massacre into increasingly darkening conspiracies.

There are four "gameplay modes" (difficulty levels, essentially), but the last two aren't unlocked until you complete the game in one of the first two modes. There really isn't that much replay value in the game, though, unless you get a hankering for more bullet-time action.

I encountered some bugs which locked up my Xbox once or twice, but the problem was easily remedied by restarting the Xbox, and I didn't suffer any major losses thanks to both the automatic saves and the quicksaves I had made during my progress. Supposedly the game adjusts to your playing ability, making the enemies harder or easier according to how well you do. I'm not sure how well I have seen this occur, though. Otherwise, my #1 complaint about gameplay would be that the too-frequent load times tend to hamper your sense of immersion in the story.

Overall: 7
People who enjoyed "Oni" or even "Tomb Raider" should be able to enjoy this. Now that I've made it all the way through - a feat which I didn't accomplish, through disinterest, difficulty or other reasons with many other titles - I can say that "Max Payne" was a fun game. I'll be keeping it around for when I need a bit of pure action, or when I want something interesting to show off my Xbox to a friend or relative. Last night, several of my in-Laws were attracted to the TV room while I showed it off to my Brother-in-Law, and then fighting over who got to try it next. I guess I'll have to let them borrow it or something.

I'd say that this game is a must-rent, at the very least. Anyone who is an action junkie, though, should consider this as a potential purchase. That is, until "New Legends" and "Genma Onimusha" come out and make the decision-making process a bit more difficult. The game is much closer to James Cameron than Shakespeare, but if you can tolerate a relatively thin storyline supporting frequent bouts of heavy action, you'll do fine. If you buy just one action title, "Halo" is a given. If you buy two, then until the aforementioned action titles, and "Wreckless", make their appearance it's a shoe-in. The only other games I would recommend for the Xbox at this point are "Oddworld: Munch's Oddyssee", "Star Wars: Starfighter SE" and possibly "Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding".

According to IMG, Black & White for the Macintosh has gone gold. Those who picked up the early release of the game at Macworld Expo will be able to download a patch which includes the bug fixes in the final gold version. IMG also has a review of the Mac version posted.

B&W Mac goes gold:
http://www.insidemacgames.com/news/story.php?ArticleID=4680

B&W Mac review:
http://www.insidemacgames.com/reviews/view.php?ID=220

-RogueImage-

... T & R updates again. Check it out.

okay the reference is ALMOST obscure, but go to www.awlot.com

Find the archived comic of 02.02.2002

The recent article at GameSpot (http://gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/real_time/index.html) regarding real-time strategy titles has some interesting omissions that I just thought I'd correct.

______________________________________________________________________
THE LEGACY OF POWERMONGER

First... Mr. Geryk /does/ at least mention Peter Molyneux's early work, but while he expends a sentence or two upon "Populus", he completely failed to describe the game "Powermonger".

(See here: http://www.theunderdogs.org/game.php?name=Powermonger - this is about the only place to obtain the game, anymore, unless you're lucky enough to find it in a bargain bin.)

This game is critical if you want to talk about the history of real-time strategy. You obtained and managed resources, including food for your troops. You raised troops from among your people, keeping in mind that the more conscripts you took, the fewer would remain to keep your people prosperous. You managed your holdings. You dealt with terrain differences, such as hills and water. Weather and seasons came and went. Most importantly, conquest. All of the critical elements of RTS play, and exceedingly innovative for its day.

Though there were only a few different unit types, they were different enough to be interesting. Individual soldiers might be armed with different weapons, depending upon the resources and artisans available to you. Your subcommanders in the game - acquired by conquering their home territories - even had a certain amount of personality, given that this was a very early '90s game. They could either command armies, or they could be sent on dangerous spy missions to obtain intelligence on the enemy, such as unit placement. You could also construct catapults and cannon with which to help obliterate and subdue your enemies. And when you entered battle, the spirits of the dead would amusingly rise into the sky as angels. A great touch. ;-)

What's more, Powermonger included a rotatable 3D interface long before Myth or other titles did! Molyneux truly revealed himself as a visionary with this title. Consequently, I can't excuse the omission of this game from such a lineup.

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ENTERING THE BATTLEZONE

Since Mr. Geryk chose to add Baldur's Gate, of all things, to his listing, I feel that it would not be amiss for me to suggest Battlezone as a superior alternative.

Battlezone was a hybrid title, combining elements of combat shooters, resource management and real-time tactical and strategic thought. Like Myth, Battlezone was more focused upon the battle side of things. It played as if you really /were/ the commander of a mechanized battle team. However, you still had to find, and guard, adequate geothermal power sources and fields of scrap metal in order to build and augment your forces. Also like Myth, Battlezone gained tremendous critical acclaim but did not sell as many copies as it truly deserved. Its successor, Battlezone II, was a disappointingly limp effort but could not overshadow the gaming experience that BZ1 provided.

(See the GameSpot review here: http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/reviews/0,10867,2538156,00.html)

______________________________________________________________________
GAINING ASCENDANCY

(See here: http://www.theunderdogs.org/game.php?name=Ascendancy)

Another golden oldie, in Ascendancy you constructed your own ships - specifically deciding what equipment you wanted them to have - and built colonies on the worlds you were able to acquire. Ship vs. ship combat. Planet vs. ship combat. You travelled between star systems using "space lanes", and researched new capabilities along the tech-tree. Major advances in technology could be obtained if you happened to colonize a planet which contained alien artifacts. No description I could write would do this game justice... suffice it to say that I and some of my friends still load up this title and play it regularly. If only it had multiplayer, it would still be spanking many of today's titles! ;-)

Still, the single-player game is like digital crack. Especially when you download the free AI patch. Someone should tell the folks at Logic Factory to get off their collective derrier and make a sequel.

Now, just a couple more things before I finish.

______________________________________________________________________
MAKING SACRIFICES

I'm wondering why the games, Homeworld, Ground Control, Sacrifice and Black & White, weren't mentioned. I can perhaps see the omission, since the topic of the article is the "history of real-time strategy games". But I do expect for them to occupy a place in future such history articles. =)

'Nuff said, since most should probably know about these, and this post will already be a bit longer than some of the readers can tolerate. Go find a search engine if you don't know about these.

______________________________________________________________________
DISPELLING THE MYTH

This is a lesser item, but I did feel that it perhaps deserved more attention that Myth predated Starcraft by about a year or more, making the Blizzard game a throwback of sorts, even if its popularity cannot be challenged. But then, how frequently in our society, and even in the computer gaming subculture, does revolutionary, or even evolutionary, thought make a strong enough impression upon the mainstream? It's regrettable, because this is the reason why me-too titles abound and companies like Looking Glass and Bungie either go out of business or sell to larger companies.

Ah well. Gaming will be around for a long time... I just hope that as this industry "matures", its creative spirit will continue to prevail and provide interesting products for we bleeding-edgers.

- Noctavis

There are reports coming in of possible terrorist attempts within the US.

First of all, it has been reported that an "individual of Arab descent" purchased teddy-beard, propane bottles and BBs all at once, at the same store. Either they are disdainful of us and our law enforcement capabilities, or they choose the most retarded individuals to serve in their cells. I s'pose that even if caught, these cells provide a certain amount of terror-value. They are expecting that if anything happens with this particular item, it will happen somewhere in the West... it could be California, or he could be targeting the Salt Lake Olympic games.

Second, the FBI has minutes ago issued an alert that another individual of Arab descent attempted to hijack a fuel tanker on the East coast. If others have succeeded in this, then anything is possible.

That's all for now... check your favorite news site (CNN and Fox are the superior sources) for more information.