FIFA 2001 isn’t flawless, but the game is extremely well rounded and it excels in every category.

Internationally, FIFA 2001 on the PS2 is easily the most anticipated EA Sports title. FIFA 2001 will mark the first time the renowned soccer series has appeared on a next-generation console, and while this year’s effort on the PlayStation was a tired rehash of last year’s brilliant game, the PS2 version of FIFA is an entirely different matter. FIFA 2001 on the PlayStation 2 is nothing short of stunning, and while it may not be as graphically impressive as its PC counterpart, the PS2 version of FIFA 2001 is the best console soccer game available.

FIFA 2001 includes all the standard game modes from the FIFA series. You’ll be able to play a quick and friendly exhibition or take the team of your choice through a complete season. Glory seekers will be able to jump directly to actual tournaments, and you’ll even be able to construct custom tournaments. The game also offers a training mode, as well as complete create-a-player and create-a-team modes. Unfortunately, all of these game modes are buried under a clunky and poorly designed interface that makes it needlessly difficult to access all the game’s options. The game packs plenty of value this time around, with 17 national leagues ranging from soccer powerhouses like the leagues in England and Brazil to lesser leagues like those found in Israel and Norway. The teams of the MLS and 60 international sides complement the international leagues, making for hundreds of playable teams, each with its own stats, strategies, tactics, and accurately modeled players.

The game really struts its stuff on the field. The gameplay in this year’s offering is classic FIFA, and it features plenty of depth and a very intuitive control scheme. The game takes advantage of every button on the PS2’s controller, and the control scheme should appeal to both long-time FIFA veterans and those new to the series. Offense and defense are both controlled through the four primary buttons on the pad, while more advanced maneuvers and in-game strategies can be executed through the shoulder buttons. Using different combinations of these buttons will allow you to execute complex passing routines, difficult goal shots, and flashy maneuvers. Passing in the game is once again performed through the passing indicator icon - a reticle that highlights both the pass target and the estimated reliability of the pass. Icon passing and defending from corner kicks and penalty locations are alive and well in this year’s game, and the penalty kick layouts have been improved. A new feature in this year’s game is a striking-power gauge that appears when you attempt a shot on goal. This gauge is similar to the one found in EA Sports’ NHL series - the gauge quickly fills as you hold down the shoot button, and it will eventually turn red if held long enough. A full bar translates into a quick and powerful shot, but a red bar is a wild and inaccurate shot. This new scheme brings more strategy into shooting, and it gives goaltenders a better chance against solo strikers.

This year’s game boasts the most advanced AI the series has seen. The computer controls the offense and defense of teams in exactly the manner the team’s coach would. Less talented defenses rely on penalties and the offside trap, while powerful offensive lines plan their attacks and deliver the ball to speedy strikers. Defenders will work offenses and disrupt passing lines without overcommitting, while forwards and wings will rush the box and try to retain possession during the attack. The game features three different difficulty levels, and each level raises the ruthlessness of the AI in classic FIFA fashion. The lowest setting is a little too easy for returning FIFA players, but the next two settings are sure to smash the confidence of everyone but the hardened pros. Unfortunately, the AI in FIFA 2001 still suffers from a few glaring flaws. Goaltenders will occasionally defy gravity and physics to make amazing saves, and defenders will sometimes forget to claim a loose ball after a harrowing save. Still, FIFA 2001 easily flaunts the most complete and accurate AI yet.

Q-Ball Billiards Master has some things going for it in the gameplay department, and the graphics are certainly as good as, if not better than, any other console billiards game, even with the jagged edges being as noticeably annoying as they are.

Billiards is one of those genres that never really gets updated. Sure, as time passes and technology improves, the balls get rounder and rounder, and the physics get a little more accurate. But other than including a few more variants and making up new ways to include a trick shot mode, the genre hasn’t really jumped forward since the days of the NES. Of course, neither has the actual sport of billiards, so you can’t exactly fault the genre for for doing a good job duplicating games like 8- and 9-ball for the past decade.

Q-Ball Billiards Master lets you play 8-ball, straight pool, 9-ball, and rotation against a friend or several different AI opponents. The AI plays differently depending on which opponent you choose. Some opponents play a very streaky game, while others simply dominate the table from beginning to end.

When you’ve got the cue stick in your hand, you’re given all the standard options you’d expect in a pool sim. You can put a little (or a lot of) English on the ball, change the angle of your stick, switch between an overhead and a behind-the-cue-ball view, and, of course, line up and take shots of varying strengths. Lining up shots and adjusting shot strength can be done with the D-pad or the analog pad, and this game is easily the best at showing off the advantages of having an analog D-pad and analog buttons. You can tap the D-pad for slight movements, or you can mash it down for full-speed rotation. For even finer adjustments, the analog stick comes in handy.

The “new” mode added to the game doesn’t try to reinvent the trick shot yet again. Instead, this mode, called frozen game, challenges you to get as close to a ball as possible without pocketing it. In later challenges, you’ll have to pocket one ball before getting close to the frozen ball - all in one shot. It gets sickeningly hard, but it doesn’t start off in a compelling enough way to get you hooked. There is also a lesson mode, where your supervisor introduces lessons. Then, after a screen full of Japanese text, you’re left on a pool table to execute your lesson. There’s also a dictionary of pool terms.

Graphically, Q-Ball Billiards Master is a bit of a mixed bag. While the room, the table, and the balls themselves look pretty good, and the front-end menus and intro movie are imbued with more style than you’d expect from a simple pool game, the game is so dependant on straight lines that the jagged edges that have become a bit of a trademark of the early days of PS2 games stick out more so than in any other PS2 game currently on the market. Also, while the sound effects accurately convey the sounds of a pool game, the music is a bit of an annoyance, featuring a repetitive style of lounge-turned-electronica that simply doesn’t work in the context of a billiards game.

Q-Ball Billiards Master has some things going for it in the gameplay department, and the graphics are certainly as good as, if not better than, any other console billiards game, even with the jagged edges being as noticeably annoying as they are. If you’re a console pool shark, this one is worth picking up, but it doesn’t do anything to distinguish itself from other recent billiards efforts.

Fantavision neither revolutionizes nor damages the genre, it simply comes out somewhere in between.

When attempting to describe Fantavision to someone, one cannot help but make a comparison to the old arcade classic Missile Command. It’s true, Fantavision’s gameplay bears a strong resemblance to that Atari classic, and the gameplay can be similarly mind-bending and, at times, frustrating. But unlike Missile Command, Fantavision is an out and out puzzle game that offers a less aggressive, oddly soothing game experience.

Choosing the road less traveled by puzzle games, Fantavision is based on the relatively unique premise of the detonation of fireworks. As multicolored flares are launched into the air, you use the left analog pad and the X button to capture the flares and the circle button to detonate them. A minimum of three like-colored flares must be captured before they can be detonated, though with the use of bonus flares and multicolored “wild” flares, the number of flares you can capture for one detonation is nearly limitless. The bonus flares range from score multipliers to star bonuses. The star bonuses can be added up to create a “starmine,” which is basically a fast and furious session in the middle of a round that allows you to rack up extra points by capturing and chaining together large quantities of flares. The single-player mode in Fantavision can be a pleasant diversion, though with only eight levels of play, the novelty wears off fairly quickly. The real draw, as far as gameplay is concerned, is the two-player mode. With the field of play split vertically, you can go head-to-head with another player, attempting to detonate a preset number of flares before your opponent. The two-player mode adds in two new power-ups, which, when used properly, can significantly affect the outcome of the game. The move power-up pushes the line splitting the field of play toward your opponent, making your field of play larger and your opponent’s field of play smaller. The reverse power-up flips the fields, giving you access to any flares on your opponent’s field. This can be most useful when an opponent sets off a starmine, as you can then reap the benefits of his or her bonus. The two-player mode not only adds a competitive angle to a game that is otherwise noncompetitive, but it also breathes a good deal of life into a game that would’ve otherwise been worthy of a rental at best.

Puzzle games are rarely showcases of graphical prowess, but Fantavision is a pleasant exception. It may not be the most breathtaking of the PlayStation 2 launch titles, but it holds its own nonetheless. The large colorful fireworks displays are a pleasure to look at, and the backgrounds - which range from cityscapes to abstract sections of deep space - look excellent and are teeming with detail. With the PlayStation 2 processing the whole mess, the game never dips below 60 fps, even during the most intense fireworks displays. The soundtrack underscores the game nicely, consisting mostly of inoffensive elevator music. If these kitschy tunes aren’t to your liking, worry not, as they are used primarily as a filler between the excellent pops and bangs of the igniting pyrotechnics.

Fantavision neither revolutionizes nor damages the genre, it simply comes out somewhere in between. The advantage of being the first puzzle title on the PS2, combined with the game’s eye candy and two-player mode, definitely works in the game’s favor. In the end, Fantavision is little more than a pleasantly entertaining puzzle game.

Swing Away Golf is a game whose features and execution could barely be explained by a book, let alone by a review.

“It’s only a golf game. It’s only a golf game.” Keeps chanting that, because prolonged exposure to T&E Soft’s Swing Away Golf will make your friends think you have gone off the deep end. With a development team populated by the same folks who created Hot Shots Golf, the game features more of what golf fans have come to expect: more courses, more clubs, more match types, more upgrades, and more secrets than you can shake a club at.

Seconds after powering up the game, you have access to your choice of seven golfers and a few basic play options: tutorial, one on one stroke play, and tournament play. You can view your trophies, clubs, and prize winnings also, but without earning a few accoutrements, these menu items are better left for future perusal. With the depth of gameplay in Swing Away Golf, sitting through the tutorial is a good idea. You’ll have to master club choice, stance, aiming, putting, pitching, wind resistance, slice, and a litany of other golf nuances. The most important of these facets has to do with the swing meter, a curvy dial of devastation that replaces Hot Shots’ stripe indicator. Links and PGA players will know it well. For power, press the button to increase the meter along the dial and press again to stop on the desired distance level. For accuracy, let the meter fall and press the button when it’s in one of the curve’s three zones. If you’re too early, the shot will land a few yards short. If you’re too late, the shot will overshoot the suggested mark or die mere yards from where you stand. Though the prospect of gaining such knowledge is daunting, the developers of Swing Away Golf have encased the game with plenty of quirky characters and interwoven plot points. It is the unspoken successor to Hot Shots 2 after all, so it has to be somewhat entertaining.

Initially, the difficulty level seems high, but after an hour or so, the learning curve drops greatly - especially due to your ability to power-up your player. A few minor qualms exist with the difficulty of driving the ball, but the importance of this will vary from person to person. Deepening the game’s replay value, success in competition modes can unlock a variety of secrets, such as new clubs, hidden players, more courses, skill points, and extra game modes. Furthermore, since all ten of the game’s characters vary in innate skills and personalities, there’s even an incentive to try out every golfer. Combine this with four-player capability, a random course generator, and comprehensive month-by-month stat tracking, and Swing Away Golf might be the best semi-simulation of golf ever executed. Visually, Swing Away Golf makes ample use of the PS2’s graphical capabilities. Ponds and water hazards undulate and ripple as if the wind were really affecting them. Leaves and trees blow softly, while the flag on the pin sways ever so slightly in the breeze. Though the cut of the grass and location of tree hazards are present on the course map, the game’s sheer graphical crispness makes them visible from the play screen as well. For a closer look, the dual shock analog sticks allow real-time panning and zooming across the course. The game’s visuals even enhance the gameplay, as the putting graph adds a high level of control vs. Hot Shots 2’s lackluster putting experience. Wrapping it up, the super-deformed character models are well drawn and amusingly animated, and they flow as freely as 60 frames per second allows. While no single graphical nuance is strikingly impressive, the game’s overall production values are exceptional.

If you’ve stayed away from the Tekken series for a long time, Tekken Tag is a very warm homecoming, delivering the same solid gameplay that Tekken fans crave in large doses.

The Tekken series has always stood as a set of console games that went above and beyond their arcade counterparts. From additional characters to completely new modes, the series has always tried to add something that the arcade games lacked. Tekken Tag Tournament, at first glance, is the most dramatic upgrade over an arcade Tekken game to date. The graphics have been given a huge boost, similar to the upgrade that Namco’s weapon-based fighter, Soul Calibur, received when it hit the Dreamcast last year. Plus, new modes have been added. But does the series capture the same magical feeling that made the previous Tekken games such smash hits? Most definitely.

Tekken Tag Tournament serves as an upgrade to Tekken 3, adding a few new moves along the way. Fighters that had appeared in Tekken 2 but were missing from Tekken 3 have been brought back as well, and most of them have lots of new moves to help balance them with the more powerful Tekken 3 fighters. Finally, the game is now fought in the same tag-team style as Capcom’s versus series of fighters, so you can switch between two different characters at any time. Much like Street Fighter EX3 and Dead or Alive 2, you can have up to four players, with each player controlling a different fighter in the tag battle. However, unlike most other tag-battle fighters, Tekken Tag rounds end after only one of the two fighters have been defeated, rather than letting the battle continue as a one-on-two affair. An option that let you configure this would have been nice. Aside from the standard tag-battle arcade mode, there is also a one-on-one mode, that makes Tekken Tag Tournament more like the previous Tekken games, as well as the standard team battle (though it is now a tag-team battle), time attack, and survival modes. Unlockable modes include a theater mode, where you can watch all of the game’s endings; a gallery mode, which lets you pause the game at any time and snap a screenshot of the action that is saved to your memory card for later viewing; and Tekken bowl mode, a bowling minigame that lets you hit the lanes and toss glimmer globes at Heihachi-headed bowling pins. Each character has a different bowling style that affects speed and control. The character endings, with the exception of the game’s final boss, are rendered using the game engine. This presumably saved time during the game’s development. As a result, they’re short, mostly meaningless, and decidedly less than impressive. By comparison, the prerendered intro and the final boss’ prerendered ending are simply incredible pieces of footage. In Japan, the TV commercial for the game is simply an abridged version of the game’s new intro movie. Very striking stuff.

Graphically, the game has taken a very large leap, and the arcade version of the game looks downright ugly by comparison. The characters are very, very smooth, and the backgrounds are amazing and filled with lots of movement, from helicopters to crowds of spectators. Some stages are well lit, showing off some really excellent lens-flare techniques. There are also some nice little touches, such as grass being crushed down by falling fighters then slowly springing up afterward. However, the game suffers from one particular problem that has in fact been seen throughout the series, but with the power of the PlayStation 2 behind it, you’d expect it to be a thing of the past. The problem is the same one that showed up in Street Fighter EX3. While the backdrops of the fights and the ground on which you fight look great separately, they don’t mesh very well. The result is two different types of scrolling, making it look as if the battle is occurring on a small, circular spinning platform surrounded by a nearly stationary background. It’s easy to miss while you’re actually playing, but it sticks out like a sore thumb on watching the game closely. However, the game has been cleaned up a lot when compared to the Japanese release. The characters are smooth, the backgrounds and floors appear more refective and vibrant, and the game just has a significantly more polished look to it. The game uses much of the same animation and motion-capture data from Tekken 3. Sure, the characters look pretty incredible, but with the identical animation quality, even as good as that animation was, the game looks and feels a little on the stale side. The soundtrack is full of techno and vocoder robot voices that will either endear you to the soundtrack or drive you up the wall.

How much you enjoy the game will directly relate to one factor: If you played so much Tekken 2 and 3 that you couldn’t possibly play another match, Tekken Tag doesn’t offer enough new features to draw you back in. But if you’ve stayed away from the Tekken series for a long time, Tekken Tag is a very warm homecoming, delivering the same solid gameplay that Tekken fans crave in large doses. Still, you won’t be able to stop yourself from wondering what Namco could have done with the game if it had been designed on the PS2 (or comparable arcade hardware) from the start. Guess we’ll all have to wait for Tekken 4 to find that out.

Avid fans of King’s Field and Shadow Tower will likely love Eternal Ring, but others may want to try the game out first.

Eternal Ring marks From Software’s first attempt at the first-person action-RPG genre for the PlayStation 2. Like From’s other titles, it’s being published in the US by Agetec. The game’s opening sequence begins with the main character - an adventurer named Cain Morgan - walking through a palace surrounded by water. He notices a glowing object on one of the pedestals and picks up a ring. A dragon immediately swoops down out of the sky, preparing to attack. Cain raises his arms high above his head to ward it off, and the ring blasts the dragon with tremendous force, destroying it utterly. Yes, you’re going to want to get more of these rings.

The game itself begins with a narration introducing the character Cain and a background story using a series of pictures that are drawn in a style reminiscent of medieval art. After the narration, you see Cain on a sailboat heading toward an island. Cain and the boatman begin a brief conversation, which you expect to be voiced-over since the narration featured voice, but unfortunately they aren’t. Instead you just see characters opening their mouths and moving their lips as the dialogue text scrolls on the bottom of the screen. Despite some lackluster sound effects and the absence of voice-overs, the game’s soundtrack does manage to set the appropriate mood and atmosphere for the game.

Eternal Ring runs at a faster frame rate than From Software’s previous first-person RPGs (King’s Field, King’s Field II, and Shadow Tower), which clocked in at 15 to 20 frames per second. In the beginning, your movement is relatively slow, but once you obtain a special object from the first boss, you’re able to move faster, and the rate becomes satisfactory.

The graphics in Eternal Ring are a leap from its PlayStation predecessors, but there is still room for improvement. Considering that some of the most recent PS titles (such as Vagrant Story) have been visual marvels, one can’t help noticing that the graphics on this PS2 game could’ve been better. For instance, the faces on many of the characters are very plain. On the other hand, the environments, though not incredibly populated, are really well done. The waterfall inside the caverns and the transitions from daytime to sunset to nightfall really are very impressive looking. The biggest mistake in the game’s graphics is the collision detection. When enemies throw projectiles like a stone or even magic spells, your instinct is to hide behind a wall or an object to avoid getting hit. Unfortunately, these projectiles or magic spells go through walls, so you still get hit by them. If you have played From Software’s previous first-person RPGs, you’ll have an idea as to how Eternal Ring plays - for the most part. The game uses a first-person perspective, and you, as Cain, use a variety of weapons and magic spells to defeat your foes, though more of the latter than the former since the only weapons in this game are swords and you will not come across a whole lot of them. Instead, the game focuses more on the usage of magical spells. While you had a gauge for both weapons and magic spells in King’s Field, only magic spells are available in Eternal Ring. The gauge indicates the charge time to cast spells. Magic spells can be obtained by equipping up to ten rings. More than 120 different kinds of spells can be created by producing different combinations of the rings’ elemental jewels. Other rings may not provide you with magic spells but instead may enhance your abilities, such as increasing your stats. There are countless combinations for creating rings that have magic spells, and you could spend endless hours trying to complete the entire set. In that sense, there is potential for replay value. The Dual Shock 2 controller features analog buttons, including the D-pad. The default setting in the game has the analog buttons turned off, and the sensitivity is on five (on a scale of one to ten). It’s really quite necessary to have the analog button turned on and the sensitivity at one. This makes movements much smoother and faster during gameplay, and you don’t have to press the buttons as hard as you do in the default setting. Tapping the attack button during a fight supposedly induces lesser damage compared with pressing the attack button, but the difference was hardly noticeable.

The gameplay has not changed much since the creation of King’s Field, and if you are an expert at the game, then the usual routine of strafing around enemies in a circle and slashing enemies as you approach them still works in Eternal Ring. If you have experience with previous From Software titles, you will probably finish the game in ten to 15 hours. As you may expect from this genre developed by From Software, there is a good story integrated into the game, but somehow your character, Cain, lacks personality and the ability to interact with the rest of the characters in the game. For instance, in one case Cain watches a man getting killed by a monster and doesn’t react in any way.

Eternal Ring is definitely a leap from its previous title Shadow Tower and is promising what King’s Field IV may offer in the future, but it’s certainly not the type of game that pleases every player. Avid fans of King’s Field and Shadow Tower will likely love Eternal Ring, but others may want to try the game out first.

Japanese history buffs will definitely love this game, and even novice players will appreciate the game, with its stunning visuals and sounds.

Koei’s PlayStation 2 strategy title Kessen, published by EA here in the US, was one of the better Japanese launch titles. While there are definitely a few better games out here in the US, Kessen still stands up as a good-looking, interesting strategy-simulation game. Koei is well known for its console and PC strategy-simulation games, like those in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series, but the average player tends to shy away from them due to their complexity. Kessen happens to be somewhat of an exception.

Kessen, roughly translated as “Decisive Battle,” is a strategy-simulation game based on the samurai era in Japan. Although some of the elaborate costumes are fictional, the plot and setting for the most part are true to the history books. You initially take the role of Ieyasu Tokugawa, leading your troops to battle against Mitsunari Ishida (whom you can play as once you finish the game). Watching a brief summary of the first battle at the start of the game is like watching a documentary. The narration and presentation are superb and very television-like in style. A real-time cutscene then shows Ieyasu and his generals discussing battle strategy.

The game progresses in real time as you control a group of armed troops led by a general and face a similar group. Your general’s decisions are AI based, and while the game is in progress a tutorial can be displayed to help explain the game system. In the later half of the battle, you take control of your troops and make your own decisions. It is easier to pick up the control at that point since the enemy forces have thinned out enough for you to finish the job.

When you’re engaged in battle, the triangle button lets you switch from the field map to the battle view. First it shows an overview of the battlefield, with all the troops shown from far away. You can use the D-pad to move the cursor to particular areas of the battlefield and then hit the triangle button to zoom in on the area to show the troops battling against each other in real time. You can also switch to different areas by using the L1 and R1 shoulder buttons. Aside from the normal attack, you can execute special battle tactics, which range from making your cavalry charge, to shooting cannons, to even performing a dance to taunt enemy troops. There are also occasions when the generals of each cavalry will duke it out one-on-one, or a general will run across the battlefield swinging his ax-spear, hacking dozens of enemies. Although giving commands on the field map can be quite boring, it pays off when you can see the battles up close. Koei has definitely made use of the hardware capabilities of the PlayStation 2 here - you will see hundreds of troops on one battlefield, and you can view them up close in real time.

There are not enough voice-overs during gameplay, but the cutscenes have much more speech, which balances the game out. The English voice work is quite good, and definitely fits in with the rest of the game’s audio. The soundtrack is so amazing - even if you weren’t watching the game, the music alone could bring the epic battles to mind. The sound effects are also realistic, but unfortunately the graphics don’t always match the high marks achieved by the sound. Seeing hundreds of soldiers in one battlefield is indeed an accomplishment and a good use of the PS2 hardware, but there are some details that can’t be ignored. There is no blood in the game at all. Sometimes, the cutscenes really have very good animation, but not seeing blood when one soldier slashes another is pretty unrealistic. After playing the first few missions, you might even find the battle animation to be a little redundant. It may be captivating the first few times, but you’ll probably get to a point where you’ll want to skip the animations. Although the gameplay may become redundant, there are different scenarios, depending on your loss or victory during a battle - which also means straying from the history-based storyline. You will also be able to play as Mitsunari Ishida after you finish the game once and experience a different point of view of the story. So, in that sense, there is a decent amount of replay value in the game.

Japanese history buffs will definitely love this game, and even novice players will appreciate the game, with its stunning visuals and sounds. The only question is whether you are willing to sit down and play the game, with its continuously redundant nature.

Ridge Racer V all but ignores most of the gameplay refinements that the series has seen over the years, returning to the general driving style of games like Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer Revolution.

The original Ridge Racer was the meat in Sony’s launch sandwich when the original PlayStation hit the States. The arcade driving game came home and introduced console gamers to the next big thing. But today, those halcyon days seem like ancient history. As the Ridge Racer series evolved, it became much more than a simple arcade port, adding more tracks and cars, and refining the game’s trademark powerslide style of driving. The last installment of the game, Ridge Racer Type 4, really seemed to be as good as the series could get on the existing hardware. Thankfully, Sony has come along with a new box, and Namco is keeping pace with a new Ridge Racer game. But Ridge Racer V all but ignores most of the gameplay refinements that the series has seen over the years, returning to the general driving style of games like Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer Revolution.

When the PlayStation 2 launched in Japan back in March, Ridge Racer V was the most impressive game on shelves, graphically speaking. Now, eight months later, we have games like Midnight Club, SSX, and the newly revamped Tekken Tag Tournament to consider, and Ridge Racer V definitely looks dated when compared to more recent PS2 efforts. The game looks like the other Ridge Racer games, but without as much pop-up or pixelated vehicles and environments. Little things like trees on the sides of the track, and the glow that emanates from your red-hot brake pads as you brake while driving around corners really bring a lot to the look of the game. You can even see the gauges inside your car light up when your headlights come on in a tunnel or while night-driving. The cars are well designed, and the environment mapping that creates the almost-too-shiny reflection on your car is pretty amazing. The display isn’t flawless, though. The entire game has a very aliased appearance, making the edges of the cars and tracks look really jagged. The better your TV is, the more noticeable the aliasing becomes. The game still sports only two camera angles, a first-person and third-person view. The third-person view is much tighter and closer to your vehicle than in the previous games, and it takes a bit of getting used to. The two-player mode runs at roughly the same speed as the single-player game, though the draw-in distance is a bit closer in the splitscreen mode, making the two-player races look a bit foggy. Also worth mentioning is that the game has horrendously slow load times between races.

The gameplay in Ridge Racer V is centered on the grand-prix mode. This is the mode that will net you additional cars, trophies, and new engines. You start out by picking one of three difficulty settings and entering the standard grand prix. Then you go on to the extra mode, a collection of four grand-prix events. Standard mode lets you pick any one of the game’s base-level cars, then as you progress with that car into the extra ranks you’ll earn upgraded versions of that base car. The track design is pretty standard Ridge Racer fare. Each track uses lots of the same portions of road, and certain sections of track will open or close depending on which track variant you’re racing. This makes all the tracks seem a little too similar and limits the game’s replay value. As in R4, the final track is an oval-shaped racetrack built for sheer speed. Another knock against the track design is that a lot of the sections are lifted from, or at least heavily influenced by, the track from the original Ridge Racer. You’ll recognize the tunnels and turns the first time you see them. It would have been nice to see multiple environments and a more varied track design instead of being limited to racing the tracks both forward and backward. The car-handling is similar to that of the older Ridge Racer games in that it places a much heavier emphasis on powersliding around corners so you can traverse the tracks at high speeds. The sliding is emphasized by reducing the turning radius on most of the game’s cars, which all feel a little sluggish when you’re maneuvering back and forth across the lanes, when compared with any of the previous games in the series. Even the grip cars require you to do a decent amount of sliding around turns. The drift cars lose traction at the blink of an eye and really force you to play to perfection. Luckily, the control is excellent with the Dual Shock 2, and the game supports both of Namco’s driving controllers, the Negcon and the Jogcon. The game uses the analog buttons of the Dual Shock 2, but it’s extremely hard to notice when the analog gas and braking make a difference. Some of the later drift cars in the game seem to slide a bit differently depending on how hard you tap the brake button.

The sound effects in Ridge Racer V are pretty nice. The squealing tires and engine noise of the cars sound realistic. The game has an announcer similar to the ones in the previous games, but he repeats himself a little too often (for instance, he almost always says, “That was tight” whenever you pass the second- or first-place car) and mispronounces a few words, like “comfort” and “rookie.” It’s almost funny.

The music has always been a large part of the Ridge Racer series, and Ridge Racer V offers up a bit more of a variation than usual. Rather than sticking solely to various forms of electronic music, RRV delivers some poppier tunes from the Boom Boom Satellites, as well as some pretty hot techno numbers. One of the best tracks is the music that plays in the menus before the race actually starts.

Ridge Racer V is a fun, great-looking game that will please older Ridge Racer fans. Players that picked up the series around the third or fourth game may be a little disappointed with the way the cars handle, but not so much that their fun will be ruined. Overall, the game feels a little rushed with its easy-way-out track design, and it’s really a shame that Ridge Racer V wasn’t given the same treatment that Tekken Tag Tournament received when it was translated for the domestic market.

DrumMania is just as much fun as the other games in the series, but it definitely has a steeper learning curve than any other game in the Bemani line.

Konami’s Bemani series has always demanded that you have a real sense of rhythm to succeed. But at the same time, the games aren’t really all that demanding when it comes to musical skill. You don’t need to spend any time at the Guitar Institute of Technology to excel at Guitar Freaks, and Beatmania didn’t exactly require that you know how to cut it up on the wheels of steel. DrumMania, however, is significantly more demanding and is more like the musical instrument it is trying to emulate than any of the other games in the series.

While you can play the game with a standard PlayStation controller - in fact, some may find the game easier when using a pad - Konami’s drum controller is really the true way to play the game. The DrumMania controller is essentially a five-drum pad that rests on a metal stand (putting it about three feet off the ground) with a small, pressure-sensitive foam pedal that serves as the bass drum. It is a pretty high-quality item, with one glaring exception: The bass-drum pedal is annoyingly flat and pretty unresponsive.

The gameplay is identical to that of Guitar Freaks and Beatmania. The screen scrolls in time to the music, and bars, separated into six columns, move from the top of the screen down to the bottom. When the bar reaches the line at the bottom of the screen, you hit the appropriate drum pad. Miss too many beats or drum off-time with the song, and your excite meter slowly drains. When it runs out, you lose.

Aside from the game’s main mode, free mode, and all the other options we’ve come to expect from Konami’s Bemani games, there is also a session mode. Session mode lets you plug a guitar controller into the second port (or, if you have a PS2 multitap, you can plug in two guitars) and jam along with the drumming action in most of the game’s songs. Now if you could just hook up a DDR dancemat and maybe a Beatmania controller too …

Graphically, DrumMania is arcade perfect. No big surprise there. The music contained in DrumMania includes some old favorites, such as a few songs from Guitar Freaks. The style of music on DrumMania is distinctly more varied than other games in the series, including styles such as ska, punk, fusion, metal, samba, and rock.

Overall, DrumMania is just as much fun as the other games in the series, but it definitely has a steeper learning curve than any other game in the Bemani line. Plus, once you’ve gotten pretty good at the game, there’s the added bonus of actually having a head start on the basics of playing real-life drums.