PC

According to ESRB, this game contains: Animated Blood & Gore, Animated Violence

Walk by a couple of young kids debating their favorite sci-fi shows and youll likely find yourself dumbfounded. One kid, a zealot Trekker (Star Trek fanatic), will praise how the whole universe created in that series takes on a life of its own. Hell talk about the wondrous technology and great characters, but, much to your amazement, the next kid, a devout Babylon 5 fan (a relatively new franchise that has been consistently stealing Star Treks thunder and fans), will say the same thing about his favorite show. Their loyalty to one show over another can be puzzling to the layman because they sound as if theyre talking about the same show and few of their differing reasons are about anything substantial. Lets be honest, most of this comes down to far more simple rationale that range from personal preference to having found one show first and sticking with it.

Videogames have also been considered another plain old recreational activity, but with the release of the much anticipated online multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS), Quake III: Arena (Q3A), that perception may finally change. The activity of Deathmatching (dueling to the death in cyberspace), which was popularized by FPS games like Q3A, may finally be considered a legitimate sport; digital or otherwise.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Animated Blood & Gore, Animated Violence 

Going multiplayer was part of John Carmacks grand experiment and I commend him for it. Whenever I cruised to some of the Quake specific web sites, there were always loads of new Quake mods available, created specifically for online Deathmatches and CTF games. This was telling proof that gamers were hungry for deathmatch-specific levels and Im really not surprised that a game like this was made for them.

Game Description: This is the highly anticipated next installment in the Quake series of adventure games. Quake 3: Arena continues the action of the earlier two games but adds more intense action, surreal graphics, and a phenomenal multiplayer mode. Three player classes (light, medium, and heavy) with their own strength, speed, and armor levels, together with new characters and weapons (plus old favorites, such as the BFG), make this a thrilling first-person shooter game. The game also features body armor and health kits to help keep you alive. Quake 3 makes for an exhilarating single-player game, but to truly discover what makes this game great, try out the mulitplayer mode for up to 32 players in one-on-one matches or group conquests.

It must not have been sitting well with LucasArts to see a game franchise that was once credited for spawning Lara Croft being thoroughly surpassed by her. I'm sure the developers went to work on Infernal Machine with the goal of unseating Ms. Croft from her throne. Unfortunately, it could also be possible that like every other developer in the world these days, they looked at the success of Tomb Raider and decided if they locked themselves in a room with Tomb Raider I, they could make a clone and watch the money roll in.

When I say that this is a game made to compete with the likes of the Tomb Raider series, I'm not joking. The Infernal Machine is not a bold attempt to redefine the 3rd-person, 3D-exploration genre pioneered by the original Tomb Raider. Instead, it's a massive 17-stage exercise in transplanting the body of Indy into a Tomb Raider-style game complete with all the flaws that have typically plagued the genre.

Game Description: If adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones. The year is 1947. Indy is back (this time in electrifying 3-D!) as a CIA recruit tasked with uncovering why Soviet agents are sniffing around the ruins of the fabled Tower of Babel. So hold onto your fedora and grab your whip in this heart-pounding action quest for the elusive "Infernal Machine."

According to ESRB, this game contains: Animated Blood, Animated Violence