Game Reviews

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

I can't disagree with any parts of Chi's review. As arcade boxing games go, I really thought only Nintendo could effectively create unique and oddball boxers in a great playing boxing game, but in this case, Midway has done a superb job in matching Nintendo's best efforts.

Knockout Kings 2000 lacked damn near every-thing I saw in those legendary fights with the exception of the fighters themselves. The feel of vicious punches was missing, the characters moved too slowly, and none of the fighters distinguished themselves. Whatever was in the game to add realism was negated by the over-the-top arcade elements. The only true representative from the boxing world was Mills Lane (how sad is that?).

From the early goings, KK2000 has a lot working against it. Primitive looking models, mediocre motion capture, and poor collision detection all seemed to spell doom for KK2000.

Before Carmageddon, Postal, or Kingpin shocked and mortified parents and congressman alike, a small title entitled Grand Theft Auto was released upon an unsuspecting public. Right off the bat, it doesn't take a genius to tell what the game is about; you play as bad guys who stole cars to do bad things with them. It quickly won the hearts of more than a few gamers, who reveled in this opportunity to be a common street thug out to do no good. This is not surprising, however, because to most, though they won't openly admit it, it was a dream come true.

I never cared for the original premise of car-jacking and thuggery for the sake of being able to do so, but in the sequel, the idea of operating in a consequential world with gangland loyalties was intriguing to me. Too bad the whole notion goes totally wasted on a game with so many defects that I barely know where to start.

As soon as I started up, I was greeted by all the awe and great feelings I had when I first picked the game up. I remembered every bit of hype that preceded its release and the amount of praise MGS received when its release finally came. VR Missions comes with 300 missions for me to complete and offers a few bonuses, which I'll get into later. All of the missions are fun and some are indeed very clever.

Holy Crap! It's amazing what passes for a game these days! Transplant the body of Snake into a puzzle game like Boxxle or Chip's Challenge and you might get some idea of what it is like to play VR Missions.

Almost from the beginning, people who saw the character designs were scratching their heads. Jet Force Gemini was supposed to be a juxtaposition of cute mascot-like characters and violent, gory action, but it never worked out. Even after they were redone to be more mainstream, they still looked unnatural and downright creepy. I was grateful that I spent most of the game looking at their backs but when it came to Vela (in her too-short skirt), I couldn't shake this uneasy feeling I had while playing as her.

Yet the thing that singly bugged me the most was the graphics or, rather, the overall art direction that Rare took. Yes, like Dale mentioned, the graphics are technically amazing and push the N64 to likes of which the system has never seen. But stylistically, the game is a mess.