Consoles, Games and Emulators.

THQ and Rainbow Studios served up a well received current-gen console game based on the Pixar movie of the same name earlier this year. This original game will pick up after the film’s conclusion and finds poster boy Lightning McQueen returning to Radiator Springs. However, the magic of flashbacks ensures that you’ll be able to relive key moments from the film. We had the chance to try out a playable demo of the upcoming Wii version of the game to see how it is faring on Nintendo’s console.

If you played the current-gen version of Cars, you should be familiar with what to expect from the Wii game. The game will let you roam the town of Radiator Springs and its surrounding areas, engaging in a variety of different race types. You’ll be able to play as Lightning McQueen and unlock several familiar faces from the films, all of which have their own unique handling.

The demo we tried showcased the unique twist Rainbow is putting on the game for the Wii: the control mechanic. The game makes sole use of the Wii remote, requiring you to hold it sideways, with the D pad resting under your left thumb and the numbered buttons under your right thumb. As with Excite Truck, you’ll use the controller to steer your vehicle during the races, while the 2 button will accelerate and the 1 button will boost. Holding left on the D pad will let you powerslide and holding right will let you get your car up on two tires. Quickly moving the controller up and down will let you jump; if you time the move correctly, you’ll be able to catch an impressive amount of air while doing so. Steering didn’t feel quite right, although we expect the issue to be a mix between Rainbow balancing the way the game controls and us getting used to the Wii controller’s handling. The version of the game we played didn’t feature any support for the Wii remote’s built-in speaker.

The visuals in the game don’t differ radically from the current-gen game, although it looks more in line with the Xbox game than the GameCube game, albeit with a touch more aliasing. The environments are drawn from the film locales, and the cars sport a detailed appearance in line with their movie counterparts. The audio will stay true to the standard established in the console game and feature an authentic collection of voices from the film’s cast.

Though there wasn’t a lot to play of the game, the race we did play gave us a good idea of what to expect. The big Wii twist, the game’s control, definitely takes advantage of one aspect of the controller’s functionality. We would have liked to have seen some Wii-exclusive game content beyond the control scheme, but the game is well on its way to incorporating the controller. The version we played was still twitchy, but we’re hoping as development wraps up and things get fine-tuned it will wind up feeling right. Cars is currently slated to ship this fall for the Wii.

SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab is the upcoming game for current-gen consoles and Nintendo’s Wii. The game gained considerable notoriety as one of the first Wii titles to start making appearances prior to this year’s E3. At a recent press event in New York, THQ showed off a considerably more-polished version of the game running on Wii hardware, and we got a feel for what it will be like on the upcoming console.

If you haven’t been following SpongeBob’s latest console adventure, then we’ll bring you up to speed: The game follows the dreams of the lovable sponge and several familiar faces from the series. Each level will take the form of a unique vignette drawn from the dreams of SpongeBob, Patrick, or Plankton. The game appears to be getting a lot of mileage out of the premise and uses it as a springboard for all manner of wackiness. Our previous looks at the game showed off Patrick’s space-shooting fantasy that found you guiding the big oaf on a rail-shooting sequence, as well as SpongeBob’s own flying sequences that found him avoiding a rampaging Plankton who had grown to gargantuan proportions. In addition, we got to check out Plankton’s own level, which finds SpongeBob’s formerly tiny nemesis growing to an enormous size and wreaking havoc.

This time out we got to check out and try new levels that showcased the game’s inventive spirit and winning charm, as well as revisit the ones we’d seen before to see how they’ve shaped up. The new levels we saw included one in which Patrick, in his guise as the heroic Starfishman, is fighting off evil minions in a traditional third-person action style. Another saw us controlling SpongeBob as he lives his dream of finally driving. However, since this is all a dream, the little yellow guy takes it to the extreme and envisions himself as a hot-rodding sponge complete with a zany makeover. Another crazy SpongeBob dream level found us navigating the interior of a large member of the undersea kingdom that had eaten our golden hero. As far as Plankton goes, the poor little guy finds himself being chased by a large and not entirely pleasant crabby patty in a level of manic platforming. This bit of torment likely accounts for his maniacal rampage once he gets some size on him.

The varied levels put the Wii controller through a good workout and have you holding it in a variety of ways both with and without its analog attachment. On flying levels you’ll hold it upright like a flight stick; on the driving level you’ll hold it like a steering wheel; and on the third-person action levels you’ll use the analog attachment and wave the Wii remote around to interact with your surroundings. Of all of THQ’s games, we have to say SpongeBob likely felt the best of the lot. As with the other titles we saw at the event, this game doesn’t offer any functionality with the Wii remote’s built-in speaker.

The visuals have been buffed up nicely on the Wii. The game showcased a good amount of technical improvements over the last time we saw it, with better detail, a smoother frame rate, and a generous helping of special effects. Above and beyond the technical stuff though, we have to say we’re especially pleased by the game’s funky art style that heads out into left field with good results. SpongeBob gets an artsy ’60s makeover for his hot-rod level, while Patrick’s Starfishman level finds him in a ’50s comic-inspired world that’s all primary colors and old-school dot coloring.

Based on what we played, Creature from the Krusty Krab is shaping up to be a fun and funny game that works quite nicely on the Wii. The visuals are technically solid and sport an artistic flair that’s still in line with the game’s source material. The use of the Wii controller works pretty well from what we’ve tried. We’re still getting used to using the thing for traditional platforming, but we’re pleased overall. SpongeBob fans should be happy with the game’s zany approach, while anyone looking for a Wii game with plenty of potential to be fun should keep an eye out for this one. We’ll note again that multiplayer would have been nice, but it’s not in the cards for this particular adventure. One nice extra will be a Wii-exclusive component that will offer the game something its current-gen cousins won’t have. SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab is currently slated to ship this fall for current-gen consoles and the Wii.

We check out the Wii version of THQ’s farmyard romp based on the upcoming Nickelodeon CG film.
Barnyard is the recently released current-gen game based on the upcoming Nickelodeon CG flick of the same name. The film and game both revolve around the secret life of barnyard animals that are hardly what they seem when people aren’t looking. The forthcoming Wii version will take the content from the released game and marry it to console’s controller, offering a unique experience. We had the chance to try out a work-in-progress version at THQ’s New York media event to see what happens when Nintendo’s upcoming console meets a pack of brazen farm animals.
Barnyard will feature two distinct types of gameplay, an open-ended third-person action game that will have you exploring the world of the barnyard in the context of the story, and a collection of minigames. The exploration component is a “grand theft cow” expansion on the story that has you going around the farm and the surrounding area while interacting with the colorful cast of characters who’ll send you on various missions. Over the course of that adventure, and in a separate mode in the game, you’ll engage in a host of silly minigames inspired by events in the film. The demo on display showed off several of those minigames, which included playing darts, taunting a milkman, attacking small children with tomatoes (always a plus!), and knocking around a pipe. Each of the games requires you to hold the controller in slightly different ways, much like Nintendo’s own Warioware Smooth Moves.

Barnyard’s use of the controller covers a lot of the same territory we’ve seen before, and it works reasonably well from what we tried. The third-person action bits take some getting used to, as they require the use of the Wii remote and its analog attachment. Given how ingrained third-person adventuring has become on conventional controllers for us, the Wii game’s slightly different approach forced us to do some adjusting. We moved head bovine Otis around with the analog stick and made him jump by flicking the analog peripheral or tapping one of its shoulder buttons. Action was tied to the A button in a variety of ways. Besides the traditional approach of hitting the button when you want to interact with certain items in the world, you could use it in conjunction with waving the wand to break crates, to interact with certain objects, and to select choices when using the pointing feature in certain menus. The B button helped adjust the free camera when needed, and the 1 button let you access Otis’ inventory, which is key to helping your mission-givers with their requests.

The minigames required a slightly simpler use of the controller by sticking to basic actions, though the mailman-taunting required us to multitask while making moves behind an unsuspecting postman. You’ll need to hold the button down to act out the necessary motions for various moves and poses. If you’re about to be discovered, the B button will let you hit the deck on all fours and appear to be a nondescript cow engaged in Zen-like cud chewing. One thing to note about all of the above is that THQ is still trying to refine the control mechanics, so the control scheme in the demo we tried may change before Barnyard ships. What we played felt pretty good overall, although the minigames had a comfier feel than the action bits, which we hope will be smoothed out. The game currently doesn’t offer any functionality to the Wii remote’s built-in speaker. The visuals in the game have been buffed up from the current-gen versions. You’ll see improved detail and fluid performance, but there’s nothing mind-boggling on display, which suits the feel of the game. The audio will also adhere to the same modest tone and will stick close to that of its current-gen predecessors.

Based on what we played, Barnyard is looking like a basic Wii conversion that has some bells and whistles centered around the system’s controller. The variety of gameplay works well with the versatile controller. We’d obviously like to have seen some multiplayer action, especially in the various minigames that were included, but we reckon that development constraints didn’t allow that to be. The interactive twist afforded by the Wii controller should add to the game’s appeal with kids. Barnyard is slated to ship this fall for the Wii.

Put up your dukes and get ready for our first look at the next Dragon Ball Z game.

If there’s one thing the Dragon Ball Z universe has no lack of, it’s content. With hundreds of characters streaming forth from the manga, anime, and film DBZ properties, the world contains a wealth of material from which to draw when developing a video game. The first game in the DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi series found a decent balance between interesting gameplay mechanics and the massive Dragon Ball Z roster, and based on our first look at a recent Atari press event, Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2 is upping the ante considerably for the second game in the series.
The first place to start, of course, is the roster of otherworldly fighters that will be featured in the game. Whereas the original Budokai Tenkaichi featured around 50 playable characters, the second game is upping the number to 70. What’s more, characters will each have multiple forms they can transform into–Goku, for example, can switch into two separate forms of his alter-ego Super Sayain. Also, because you will have some ability to customize your characters, the total amount of selectable characters comes out to somewhere in the neighborhood of 120, quite a step up from the last game.

The variety isn’t limited to the characters, either. The fighting environments have been upgraded–they are larger than in the first game, for one, and they feature a number of destructible items such as boulders and buildings, which can be broken apart during combat. One particularly devastating supernova attack can actually destroy the planet you are fighting on, transforming the fighting environment from a lush and green field to a stark and desolate wasteland.

The backgrounds in BT 2 aren’t just bigger and more interactive; they look different, as well. The development team behind the game has done away with the cel-shaded environments from the first game and created more photo-realistic levels this time around. One level we saw, Dying Namek, showed a mountainous, heat-blasted landscape with craggy mountains and blasting volcanoes. It’s certainly a departure from the animation-inspired levels of the last game, but the contrast between the cartoon characters and the more realistic-looking environments makes for a nice switch.

Fighting in Budokai Tenkaichi 2 still plays similarly to last year’s game–you still mix things up between close-quarters strikes and long-distance energy blasts, and the players have the ability to fly all around the environments. The camera angle, much criticized in the previous game, has improved substantially, resulting in a much more flexible camera that rarely seems to get in the way of the action and still lets you see everything you need to see. A number of new moves and combos will also be packed into the game, including a particularly cool teleportation combo that lets you sock your opponent a few times, toss him into the air, then teleport behind him and continue the onslaught. The ability to transform to a new form in the middle of the battle is another cool addition. What you change into will have an effect on how you fight–one character’s transformation into a giant fighting ape, for example, meant that he was slower and less agile than in his original form, but his attacks were much more powerful.
Another important addition to the fighting in BT 2 is the introduction of tag-team mechanics. Whether fighting with two fighters against one opponent or engaging in two-on-two battles, you’ll be able to tag in your partner at any given time to keep dealing the pain to your foe. In addition to tagging in and out, characters can combine their powers into a fusion fighter who is more powerful than either of the original characters.

Budokai Tenkaichi 2 will feature a story mode that is played significantly different from that found in the original game. Instead of a mostly linear progression, BT 2’s story mode–known as dragon adventure mode–plays more like a role-playing game, letting players choose from several missions on a world map to move the story forward. This flexibility lets you choose when you wish to move to the next crucial plot point or simply spend some time leveling the characters in your party by traveling to other points on the map and taking on opponents. In this mode, you’ll be able to engage in minigames, interact with folks found in the many cities, or find customized items that you can buy and sell with money you earn from winning battles. In all, dragon adventure mode will feature approximately 60 hours of gameplay.

Other modes in the game include the obligatory training mode; multiple battle modes, including ultimate battle (which is a ranked battle system that has you climbing a ladder from the bottom to the top by beating foes), tag battle, and dragon battle; the Evolution Z feature, which lets you customize your character; the dragon library, which is an encyclopedia of the DBZ universe; an item shop; and a data-center option. By saving your customized characters in the data center, you receive a password that you can then upload and share with friends so that they can make the exact same customized character, if they wish.

While we only got our hands on the PlayStation 2 version of the game at Atari’s press event, we did see a video of the Nintendo Wii version of the game in action. While the content will be very similar to that found on the PS2, the controls will understandably be considerably different. The nunchaku controller is used to move your character, while the traditional Wii controller is used for attacking and defending. As you might expect, you can use the Wii’s motion-sensing capabilities to great effect in the game. The way you move your hands will determine which special attacks and combo moves your character uses. Using both hands in a striking motion, for example, will let Goku pull off his Kamehameha energy attack. Similarly, if a character is armed with a sword, using slashing motions with the Wii controller will result in slashing attacks onscreen. There’s a bit of a delay between the movement and its execution on the screen, but for the most part, it seems to work pretty well. The developer seems aware of the amount of exertion involved when using the Wii controller for long stretches and was quick to point out that if you get tired blasting foes with energy attacks using the Wii controller, you can always plug in a GameCube controller to your Wii, sit back and relax, and devastate your enemies with just your fingers and thumbs.

In all, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 seems to be a worthy sequel to the original game–one that is bringing more to the series not just in terms of sheer content but also in terms of gameplay. We’ll have more on this game in the future, so stay tuned.

We watched a lengthy stage demonstration of Madden 07 Wii at a recent Electronic Arts press event to see exactly how your wild gyrations will translate into hard hits and big plays on the gridiron.

It’s almost football season in the world of video games. With NCAA Football 07 shipping next week, and the console versions of Madden 07 hitting stores a month later, armchair quarterbacks have plenty to look forward to. But one of the more anticipated football titles won’t hit stores until well after the NFL season is in full swing. Madden 07 for the Nintendo Wii has been the subject of much speculation about how exactly the game of football can be adapted to take advantage of Nintendo’s unique motion-sensitive controller. The veil was officially lifted at E3 earlier this year, so check out our hands-on impressions from that event for details about the basics of the game. Today, at an Electronic Arts press event, we learned a little bit more about the game and got to watch an extensive demo of what EA Canada calls the “free-motion control” scheme.

The demo dropped right into the middle of a game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks. We started off with the basics, and the person playing the demo showed us how to snap the ball and pass to an open receiver. These motions seem quite natural, as the motion for a snap looks like a snap and the motion for a pass looks like a pass. Of course, there are a lot more motions that you can perform in the game. In the next play, we watched as Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger quieted the crowd, which is an action performed by waving the nunchuck and wand above your head before the snap. But these motions aren’t limited to the offense, as we saw when a defender performed the same move in attempt to pump up the crowd.

After that, the center hiked the ball and the Steelers ran a running play to the left, giving us a look at the controls for the running game. The way it was explained to us is that the remote represents your hands or arms, while the nunchuck represents your body. For instance, if you want to throw a stiff arm to the right, you can flick the remote to the right. If you want to juke left, you can flick the nunchuck to the left. If you’re trying to defend against a pass, you can quickly move both the nunchuck and the remote up above your head to make your defender jump up in the air for an interception. If you can’t quite get the pick, you can simply swat at the ball by swatting the air with the remote.

These moves are all useful in a practical sense, but what if you want to put a bit of style into your game? Using the free-motion control system, you can shake the remote to do a high step to finish off a long run into the end zone, which is sure to aggravate your opponents (or make you look like a fool) in multiplayer games.

Although the motions look natural enough and will probably come as second nature to football fans, there’s a helpful in-game tutorial that you can access at any time during the game. For instance, if you don’t quite know the correct motion for kicking a field goal, you can press the B button to bring up an explanation of how to properly kick the ball. If that isn’t enough, you can practice the motion right in the middle of the game, before returning to the play where you left off. It’s a feature that won’t see much use after a game or two of playing, but it should be a helpful tool that players can use to become acclimated to the unconventional controls in the game.

Play-calling has also been simplified through the use of the pointing capabilities of the Nintendo remote. Between plays you’ll see the familiar playbook, with options to choose your formation and play. Doing so is as easy as pointing the remote at the play you want to choose and pressing a button. There’s an onscreen icon to show you exactly where you’re aiming, which seems like it will make choosing plays very easy.

Sometimes, though, you choose the wrong play, or, more accurately, your opponent chooses the right play. If you don’t want to burn a time-out, you can simply call an audible, which again is done with the pointer. You simply point at a player or group of players on the field, which brings up a menu that shows a list of button icons corresponding with the available plays. If you think the offense is going to run left, you can shift your linebackers left by pointing at any one of them and pressing left on the D pad.

Aside from the interesting control scheme, Madden 07 on the Wii looks very much like any of the Madden games on the GameCube. We didn’t see many close-up shots of players, or any replays or special effects in the demo, but the action on the field moved smoothly. The players all move well, and although there’s not tremendous detail in the backgrounds and fields, the focus is on the movement of the players. And by players, we mean the people playing the game.

Madden 07 for the Wii looks like it’s shaping up to offer a different, but no less entertaining, game of football. Based on the demo we saw, it looks like the controls are quite versatile and are being put to good use in Madden. It also looks like it will be a fun game to play, especially with two players on the same console flailing about as they scramble to break a tackle or lay out a receiver. And let’s face it, this is the closest most people will ever get to actually playing in the NFL.

LOS ANGELES–Today at the Square Enix press conference, Akitoshi Kawazu, the executive producer for the Crystal Chronicles series of games, announced Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers for the Nintendo Wii.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t any actual gameplay footage on display today, as appeared to be standard for Square Enix’s Wii offerings. Instead, they offered up a minute-long or so CGI trailer of the game, which began with the customary four adventurers riding across a large plain, near the edge of a huge cliff, on top of four of the yellowest chocobos you’re likely to see anytime soon. Soon enough, their speed was matched by a huge shape that started to resolve in the clouds off the side of the cliff. After a moment, it burst out of the cloud bank and was revealed to be an airship of the traditional Final Fantasy mold.

After that little snippet ended, the action resumed as the characters that rode the chocobos were standing atop a cliff, looking across at a stupendously large crystal that was suspended above a large chasm. There appeared to be some kind of city or structure built atop the mountain-size crystal, which the travelers were looking at with smiles on their faces. One of them, a young boy, appeared to initiate a Bahamut summon, and with that, the trailer ended.

Although there wasn’t any gameplay on display, Toshiyiki Itahuna, the director of the game, promises that it will be a “daring fusion of graphics and style that is full of life, while still maintaining basic RPG tradition.” GameSpot will have more details on The Crystal Bearers as they become available, so stay tuned!

Sega’s manic monkey action series is getting revolutionized on the Wii.

With its winning combination of monkeys, bananas, checkerboards, and brutally tense puzzle action, the original Super Monkey Ball proved to be one of the most bizarre and likable games to launch with the Nintendo GameCube. Sega is now poised to bring AiAi and friends to the Nintendo Wii with Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz.

You can expect all-new puzzle levels., which in the past have challenged players to roll a monkey trapped inside a giant hamster-ball from one end of an obstacle course to the other as they raced against the clock, collected bananas, and tried not to fall off the edge. Multiplayer party games such as monkey boxing and monkey soccer have also been a Super Monkey Ball staple, and Banana Blitz will feature a wealth of all-new party games, including a ring toss game and a Whack-a-Mole-style game. Sega also promises that the game will make extensive and varied use of the Wii controller’s unique capabilities. For example, flicking the controller in an upward motion will cause your monkey to jump–a significant new ability for Super Monkey Ball and one that will surely influence the overall puzzle level designs.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz is currently being developed internally at Sega, with the Nintendo Wii being the only confirmed platform at this time.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 isn’t the best sequel ever made, but it’s still a great tactical shooter in its own right.

If the original Rainbow Six Vegas felt like the first night of a trip to Sin City, its recently released sequel feels like the second; a little worn, but still a lot of fun. There’s still a casino’s worth of content and the best gameplay this side of Caesar’s Palace. Plus, the introduction of a sprint button not only increases your speed, but also quickens the pace of the entire game. On the other hand, the cooperative play has been pared down a little and the expanded experience gains are about as glamorous as pillow mints–even if you are grateful for them. A third night of this might be too much to handle, but if you like to place bets with bullets at all, you’ll definitely want to put some money down on Rainbow Six Vegas 2.

Despite the name Tom Clancy in the title, the Rainbow Six games are hardly known for their ace storytelling skills. Having said that, the way the original Vegas ended on such a terrible cliffhanger ending, when all it really had to do was give you a reason to kick some terrorist butt, was especially disappointing. Fortunately, the campaign in Vegas 2 makes no such errors. You no longer play as Logan Keller. Instead, you hunt terror and save hostages as a custom character referred to as Bishop in the campaign. Although the specifics of the overarching story are pretty easy to lose track of, one thing is clear: There are terrorists and you have to get them before they get Vegas. However, there are a couple of great scenes in the campaign. For example, there is one where you’re supposed to meet up with a guy to find chemical weapons, only the terrorists meet up with him first. Because he’s wearing a communication device, you can hear the proceedings as you make your way through the level. First, the terrorist in charge rails angrily, then the guy pleads with him, then the terrorist rails some more, and then the guy starts screaming “NO, NO, not THAT!” Then there are no more words, just animal noises of pain, fear, and more than a little loathing. Other moments don’t seem quite as authentic, especially those that involve civilians. While it’s nice that they’re in the game, you’ll occasionally lose if you fail to prevent the terrorists from executing one of them. That’s just plain silly because it’s unlikely that a group of commandos would leave a bunch of terrorists and weapons behind because Hank the Hostage bit the dust. Also, it’s so easy to die in Vegas 2 that you really don’t need the extra “game over” screens.

Just like in the previous game, you play through each stage with your two not-so-trusty sidekicks. They’re like roulette wheels in the way they oscillate between deadly efficacy and utter helplessness, though the odds are actually stacked in favor of them doing the right thing. Their normally smart, super-effective behavior actually makes it even more striking when they get stuck behind the occasional box. The campaign isn’t very long, but it has its share of awesome firefights and is a good way to warm up for the online play.

Although many of the locales aren’t the first ones that would come to mind if someone asked you to imagine a shootout in Vegas, they are inventive, nonetheless. There are a few nondescript warehouses, generic loading docks, and lame industrial areas that could just as easily be in Rainbow Six Fresno. But, then, there’s also the theater level. This is a full-on replica of a decadent theater complete with stage, backstage, seats, and a balcony. The tricky thing about it is that one team has easy access to the balconies, while the other is pinned by the somewhat open stage. If a player from the latter group can make it across and exit stage left, hopefully with a close-range weapon like a shotgun, he can get all No Country for Old Men on the snipers watching the action below. How quickly the hunters become the hunted.

The best way to cross any open space in Vegas 2 is to sprint, and that can now be accomplished with the push of a button, which is similar to what you’ve done in nearly every shooter that’s come out since Gears of War. But unlike the reckless and half-blind dash in that game, Vegas 2’s version is easier to control. It’s also more versatile because you can sprint sideways, as well as forward. However, when you see a grenade rattle on the ground in front of you, you’ll wish you could also sprint backward (you can’t); realism be damned. Sprinting is a small, minor addition to a great big game like this, but it has a major impact on Vegas 2’s pace and gameplay. It’s obviously a good thing to be able to run a little faster when you’re trying to close in on a flash-blind enemy, and it goes with the shotgun like peanut butter goes with jelly. Sprinting around a corner while pulling the trigger on a shotgun blast before the gun is even half on the screen and catching your enemy with a mouthful of buckshot is one of the sweetest kills the series has seen. Less obvious and less gory is the overall effect on the pace of the play. Sprinting provides a welcome shot of adrenaline, especially online.

Speaking of the Internet, online play used to be the only place you could go to level up your soldier and unlock new gear, but that is no longer the case. You can now gain experience points, ranks, and equipment by playing through the offline content. And, it’s all universal. If you become a sergeant by playing the heck out of terrorist hunt campaign, you’ll still be a sergeant when you log onto your system’s network. The main perk here is that by playing through the single-player campaign first, you’ll enter online play with a few weapons and clothing-customization options already unlocked. This really doesn’t add anything to the game as much as it fixes a minor flaw with the original–you should have been able to gain experience points offline all along, although it didn’t matter to most players because the online content is such a huge part of the game. This meager expansion of the experience model is also noteworthy considering Call of Duty 4’s recent strides in the developmental department. When it comes to creating your character as you play, Vegas 2 has pretty meager cards.

Despite this, the options for online players have actually slimmed down a little when you compare the original with the sequel. Previously, four players used to be able to tackle the campaign cooperatively, but now, that number has been reduced to two. That may sound crazy and retroactive, but four players can still tackle terrorist hunt. And to the game’s credit, it’s easy to drop in or drop out of the two-player campaign. There is one co-op issue, though, that makes no sense: the fact that your two computer controlled companions are both controlled entirely by only one player. The other player feels like an awkward stepparent: You know you have good advice, but the kids just won’t listen to you. It’s clear that giving each player one minion would have wreaked havoc on the stacking and breaching system, but there are ways around this issue. If it were easy to transfer control of one or both minions between the two players, the tactical options would have been even broader, and both players would feel like they got to play with the nifty order giving.

The other new additions are multiplayer modes: team leader, total conquest, and demolition. Team leader is the most creative because it blends a VIP-style match with elimination play. As long as your VIP is alive, your guys can respawn at will. But once he drops, every death is final. Coming back after your leader has been assassinated is possible, but not probable. Total conquest isn’t a complete departure from the conquest mode featured in the original Vegas; now, you must hold three transmitters for 30 seconds. This is a fun, frantic mode because your objective is constantly changing between assault and defense. You always know where to go, and you usually have a good idea of where to find the enemy. Finally, demolition is a classic bombing mission where one side tries to blow up a target while the other tries to defend it.

Though that last mode is old school, the graphics are anything but. Though there are occasional instances of texture blurring and fill-in during frantic online play, there will also be times when you’ll get blasted by an unseen enemy because you were too busy admiring the walls. And what walls there are in the game. From the gritty, sweaty walls of Kill House to the deep red and dimly lit papering in the theater, Vegas 2’s walls are unmatched, except perhaps by BioShock’s. The characters look good too, especially when you’re shooting them. Blood spurts from bullet wounds, splattering nearby walls as the gun noises pound and the controller rumbles with approval. Well, the Xbox 360 one does, but more on that later. The music and sound effects are also excellent. The audio queues are as clear as they are life-saving, and the music is rousing. The track in theater is especially epic and unusually operatic for a military shooter.

Though there are differences between the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of Rainbow Six Vegas 2 that make the 360 version slimly preferable, both unequivocally capture the same excellent experience. The lack of rumble in the PS3 controller is still a drag. Also, it takes a little longer to find a good PS3 online game for three reasons: fewer people are playing, you can only see a match’s latency once you’ve joined, and you will randomly be unable to connect to certain servers. But the graphics are comparable and the gameplay is identical, so overall, the PS3 version is easy to recommend.

And that makes it better than most games because Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is the best tactical shooter on the market. It doesn’t gamble as much as it should and, instead, seems to take cover behind the formidable foundation established in the first game. But to its credit, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 does make one big gameplay tweak and provides another highly playable single-player campaign. It also provides a decent suite of cooperative options and more excellent online multiplayer. Though its experience system is now clearly behind the one found in Call of Duty 4, no game has a better control scheme or more satisfying tactical play. This ace belongs in every shooter’s hand.

It’s tough to create an exciting simulation of the decathlon.

It’s tough to create an exciting simulation of the decathlon, for one simple reason: As grueling a test as the decathlon is in real life, it doesn’t give a gamer very much to do in front of her monitor. Once you’ve mastered the techniques for running, jumping, and throwing - which usually involve little more than pounding two buttons in smooth rhythm and then hitting an action button to jump or throw - there’s just not much else to do.

Of course, the real challenge of the decathlon is achieving that perfect balance of speed, strength, and stamina through various types of training. A decathlon simulation without a training feature that actually affects those physical attributes forces you to simply do your best with whatever qualities you’ve been handed by the program, robbing the sim of any depth or true challenge.

And that brings us to the main problem with 3DO Games: Decathlon. It’s bad enough that a given athlete’s attributes can’t be altered through training, but to make matters worse there’s also a little case of misleading advertising. On the back of the box, a caption for one of the screen shots proclaims, “The Training Mode improves your athlete’s strength, speed, and stamina.” But turn to page 23 of the manual and you read that “training will not impact your athlete’s strength, stamina, or speed.” If you don’t think the athlete you’re using has enough stamina, for instance, your only recourse is to “roll the dice” and get an entirely new set of unchangeable attributes. All the Training Mode does is let you practice the mechanics of each event.

That’s not the only misleading aspect of 3DO Games: Decathlon. The box copy says that “Real-time texture mapped 3-D stadium and field graphics are portrayed in picture-perfect TV sports style,” implying you get announcers and commentators. But Decathlon is about as far removed from a television broadcast as it gets. The only sound you hear during an event is a wash of white noise; after each athlete’s turn in an individual event (not races), you hear what sounds like the development team shouting after a successful debugging session.

The same two crowd noises - one for a successful attempt, another for a fault or extremely poor showing - are used for every athlete, and all the athletes can manage is the occasional “unnh” as they lunge for the finish line. After hearing what’s been achieved with play-by-play commentary and crowd noises in sports sims like NHL 97, FIFA Soccer 97, and Full Court Press, the lack of any commentary and the lameness of the sound effects in 3DO Games: Decathlon are even more glaring.

Real decathlons take place over two days, but you won’t have that luxury in 3DO Games: Decathlon - there’s no option to save a decathlon or track meet in progress. Though you can change viewing perspectives for the athletes you control, that same basic feature doesn’t apply when watching computer-controlled athletes perform. And for what it’s worth, there’s a question of realism: When I played (and won the gold medal) on the “Stud” difficulty setting, I set a new point record for the decathlon, nearly 2,000 points higher than the real-life world record held by Dan O’Brien. But I wasn’t the only one who surpassed O’Brien: Three computer-controlled players also broke his record in the same decathlon.

3DO Games: Decathlon has support for up to eight players over a local area network, but whether you’re competing against your friends or computer-controlled opponents, the action remains the same: finger-wearying button tapping. That might have been good enough back when 8-bit Nintendos ruled the market, but it just doesn’t cut it on the PC.

Archimedean Dynasty gives computer gaming a good name even when you don’t know what the hell is going on.

Archimedean Dynasty is the kind of game that automatically makes you long for the extended weekend, the random holiday, the traffic-paralyzing blizzard, the three-day flu, or perhaps the odd death in the family - anything to justify staying away from school, work, or other responsibilities long enough for a serious immersion into an onscreen world.

Set in an ugly, nasty, dystopian future, Archimedean Dynasty can be seen as the aftermath of a high-speed collision between Waterworld and SeaQuest, with a dash of the optimistic cheer found in Blade Runner: The Big One has come and gone, and the endless exchanges of nukes have taken their toll, melting a third of the icecaps and flooding horrifying portions of terra firma, just in time for the nuclear winter to set in and render it all uninhabitable. Those determined to survive have fled beneath, to the cold, dark oceans. No ray of light can penetrate the stratospheric debris of the Last War, and even if it could, it wouldn’t penetrate the “Biogenic” - the 40-meter-thick layer of dead organic crud (!) sealing the oceans in their eternal night. Welcome to Aqua, the only world left on earth, and have a nice freakin’ day.

Part adventure game, part combat sim, and all ugly, Archimedean Dynasty gives computer gaming a good name even when you don’t know what the hell is going on. You take the role of a tough undersea mercenary, recently rescued from a botched escort job during which your charge was hijacked. Lucky to come out of the debacle with your butt intact, you turn up desperate for work at one of the many undersea cities which form the world known as Aqua. Your name precedes you, sort of, but you don’t have a ship anymore, and have to start at the bottom - literally - taking garbage/salvage duty or any other crap job that will let you accumulate enough money to buy a serious combat sub and get back into the hired gun business.

The game sports a vast world in which the player’s immediate goals are not always clear. With each person you talk to - via a simple select-an-answer interface - there comes a careful choice of how you present yourself. Be a big enough ass and you may alienate the wrong people…but be a little too nice, a little too soft, and your “sea cred” may plummet. Eventually, you will be able to work yourself up to a respectable combat craft.

Point-of-view combat and undersea action are the other half of Archimedean Dynasty, and they constitute the links between the undersea cities and installations you will encounter; while the “cityside” adventure-style dealings (with over 100 characters) is where you do all your talkin’, the real-time navigation/combat is where you do your walkin’. In other words, knowing that you need to get to City X to talk to Contact Y about Benefit Z is one thing, but actually getting there alive is another. The various types of craft you may eventually pilot can employ some 30 different types of customizable weapons (torpedoes, turrets, bombs, etc.), and if the pirates, governments, and competing mercenaries don’t mess up your plans, the considerations of currents, radioactive areas, and sonic countermeasures (the properties of “noise” that draw torpedoes to targets) just might. Long stretches of serene, unoccupied ocean will suddenly give way to pockets of warcraft lurking in the depths. The combat scheme fully illustrates the way many have summed up, in many different words, the essence of oceanic and/or space combat: “Six months of boredom followed by 60 seconds of stark, screaming terror.”

In all honesty, the mind-boggling array of tactical options and general open-endedness of the game’s objectives will be very confusing to some players - not to mention the fact that the people who were responsible for outlining the player’s objectives should be lined up against a wall and cream-pied - but it’s this very open-endedness which makes Archimedean Dynasty so absorbing. From the opening movie, you’ll know that this game is deadly serious, a sort of undersea film noir with a cyberpunk edge, and despite the respectable manuals (on weapon types, Aqua history, and combat tactics), it’s tempting to believe that if you’re not sure what’s going on, it’s your own fault. (Note to Blue Byte: An interactive primer for undersea navigation and combat basics would have been nice, guys.) If you’re a Serious, Frowning Gamer who delights in conquering challenges just to prove you can, coming across Archimedean Dynasty will be like finding a fat unclaimed wallet in the street. On the other hand, if your idea of a challenge encompasses Street Fighter in any form whatsoever, stay the hell away from Archimedean Dynasty; you’ll only hurt yourself.