Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped PS1

GamePlay:

Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped is a platform game in which the player controls Crash and Coco Bandicoot, who must travel back in time and gather the 25 Crystals from the previous game in their original places in time before the antagonists of the story do so. Much of the game takes place in the Time-Twisting Machine, which acts as the hub area of the game. The Time-Twisting Machine is split up into five chambers; only the first chamber is initially available. Each chamber has five buttons that open portals to different levels.The goal in each level is to find and obtain the Crystal hidden in the area. In some levels, the Crystal will be located at the end of a level or must be earned by completing a specific challenge.Some levels contain a "Bonus Platform" that leads to a special bonus area, where the player must navigate through a separate area and collect everything in sight. As no lives are lost in the bonus areas, the bonus areas can be played through as often as the player desires until the bonus area can be cleared.After completing all five levels in a chamber, a sixth button that opens a portal to a boss level will appear. By defeating the boss, the next chamber will become available for play.When all 25 Crystals are found and all five boss characters are defeated, the game is won.Crash and Coco start the game with four lives.A life is lost when they are struck by an enemy attack or suffer any other type of damage. More lives can be earned by collecting 100 "Wumpa Fruits" or breaking open a special crate to collect a life. If the player runs out of lives, the game is over. However, the game can be continued by selecting "Yes" at the "Continue?" screen.Crash has the ability to jump into the air and land on an enemy character, spin in a tornado-like fashion to knock enemies off-screen, slide across the ground and perform a body slam to break certain objects.These abilities can be expanded on by defeating boss characters, often resulting in more powerful attacks or increased jumping and running prowess.Boxes play a prominent role in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped and can be broken with all of Crash's techniques. Boxes contain helpful items or can augment Crash's mobility. Check Point boxes allow the player to return to a specific point in the stage upon losing a life. TNT Boxes explode after a three-second fuse when jumped on, while Nitro Boxes explode upon any physical contact. All of the Nitro Boxes in a level can be detonated at once if a green-colored box with an exclamation point on it is touched; contact with this box is necessary in obtaining the level's Gem, as Nitro Boxes count towards the total number of boxes broken in the level.Besides Crystals, Gems and Colored Gems can be collected for extra accomplishment. Gems are rewarded to the player if all of the crates in a level are broken open or if a secret area is completed. There is a total of 44 Gems in the game. Colored Gems are found in special levels and lead to hidden areas. There are five Colored Gems in the game. "Relics" can be won by re-entering a level where the Crystal has already been retrieved. To obtain a Relic, the player must initiate the "Time Trial" mode by touching the floating stopwatch near the beginning of the level and race through a level in the pre-designated time displayed before entering a level.Scattered throughout the level are yellow crates with the numbers 1, 2 or 3 on them. When these crates are broken, the timer is frozen for the number of seconds designated by the box. As no lives are lost in the Time Trial mode, the level can be played through as often as the player desires. Sapphire, Gold and Platinum Relics can be won depending on how low the player's final time is.The first five Relics the player receives unlocks access to level in the "Secret Warp Room". Every five Relics thereafter open up another level in the Secret Warp Room. The levels in the Secret Warp Room must be won before the game can be completed.

The player is free to roam the game's open levels, not having to focus on collecting the crystal at the end and progressing.

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Crash Bandicoot 2 Cortex Strikes Back

Review:

Let me go on record and say that I was never a fan of the original Crash Bandicoot. Even though Crash was disarmingly cute and fuzzy, and even though the game's graphics were just about as good as they got in those days, the frustrating design of the game made playing it such a painful experience that I still have flashbacks when I see small marsupials on the Discovery Channel. But just one short year after his debut, Crash is back in a sequel that is so far superior to the original that I'm willing to forget the mistakes of the past.

The new storyline is simple: A very gullible Crash is corralled into collecting crystals for the evil Dr. Cortex and gems for the terrible N. Brio. There are 25 levels in all; each level contains an easy-to-find crystal and hard-to-earn gems. Instead of being forced to approach the game in a strictly linear fashion, you progress through a series of five warp rooms. Each warp room contains five levels, which you are free to tackle in any order. After you have found the crystals in each level, you can progress to the next warp room. This system of warp rooms is a great innovation; it's clear how to progress in the game, and yet you have the option of moving to a different level if you're hopelessly frustrated with one area. Best of all, you can save your game in the warp room at any time (a big improvement over the original game's horrific save system).

A lot of variety is packed inside this game. You'll navigate through simple run-and-jump areas, try to outrun a very mad polar bear, work your way through sewer systems, and even fly around with a jet pack. Within each level, the basic gameplay is similar to the original Crash: Running, jumping, and spinning are still the order of the day. Even though most levels are set in a semi-3D environment, Crash Bandicoot 2 is a platform game, plain and simple. The graphics are in a league of their own among PlayStation games, and the music couldn't be better. Unlike the original, Crash 2 is rarely frustrating enough to make you want to throw your controller at the TV. In fact, some expert gamers might find Crash to be a little on the easy side.

There are only two real problems with Crash Bandicoot 2. First, the semi-3D setup is sometimes hard to navigate, and you'll find yourself missing jumps because you're unable to judge distances properly. Secondly, the game is just plain cheap at times; in some areas you must sacrifice many lives until you memorize a level's layout.

In any event, these problems are balanced out by the game's excellent gameplay and intelligent design. Crash Bandicoot 2 is a topnotch platform game. If you're a fan of the genre, you owe it to yourself to check this title out.

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Crash Bandicoot PS1

GamePlay:

Crash Bandicoot is a platform game in which the player controls Crash Bandicoot, who must traverse the three islands of the game, defeat his creator Doctor Neo Cortex and rescue his girlfriend Tawna. The game is split up into levels, which the player must progess through one at a time to proceed in the game. The player is given a certain amount of lives, which are lost when Crash is attacked by an enemy or falls into water or a pit. If all lives are lost at any point in the game, the Game Over screen will appear, in which the player can continue from the last level played by selecting Yes.Crash has the ability to jump into the air and land on an enemy character, as well as the ability to spin in a tornado-like fashion to knock enemies off-screen. An enemy that is attacked by Crash's spin attack can be launched into another enemy that is on-screen at the same time. These same techniques can be used to open the numerous boxes found in each stage.Most boxes in the game contain Wumpa Fruit, which give the player an extra life if 100 of them are collected. Another item found inside crates is the Witch Doctor's Mask, which shields Crash from one enemy attack. Collecting three of these masks in a row grants Crash temporary invulnerability from all minor dangers. Arrow boxes (marked with arrows pointing up) propel Crash further than his ordinary jump can, while TNT boxes explode after a three-second fuse when jumped on. Boxes with an exclamation mark on them cause previously intangible objects in the area to solidify. Check Point boxes allow Crash to return to the point where the first Check Point box has been opened upon losing a life. If more than one Check Point box has been opened in a stage, Crash returns to the last Check Point box that has been opened.

Special tokens can also be found inside boxes. These tokens may feature the likenesses of Tawna, Doctor Neo Cortex or Doctor Nitrus Brio. When three tokens have been collected in one stage, the on-screen action freezes and Crash is immediately teleported to a "Bonus Round". In the Bonus Round, the player must break open a large number of boxes to earn Wumpa Fruit and special items such as keys to hidden areas. If Crash falls off the screen in the Bonus Round, he is transported back to the level he came from rather than losing a life. He is also transported back to the level if the Bonus Round has successfully been traversed. The player can save their progress in the Bonus Rounds accessed by collecting Tawna tokens

If the player completes a level without losing a life, a special "Stage Clear" screen appears in which the player is informed of how well they've done and if any special items have been earned. They are also shown how many boxes (if any) have been missed in the level. If a life has been lost during the stage, the player is simply returned to the world map. If the player manages to both complete a level without losing a life and break open all of the boxes in that level, they are awarded a gem.Gems allow the player to enter new areas in previously completed levels that were not accessible before.

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Countdown Vampires PS1

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The gameplay is highly similar to the earlier games in the Resident Evil series, to the extent of being labelled a "clone" [1]; although there are some additions like a dart gun as a secondary weapon, used to sedate most enemies (mainly, zombie-like "vampires") and then sprinkle "white water" in them to restore their humanity, instead of simply killing all enemies that approach the player (which can also be done). This encourages the player to use a wide variety of fighting techniques, that if he/she wants to "save" the enemies. As the game advances, more and more creatures appear (whose origins are not that well explained until late in the game), such as Giant Vampire Bats, Werewolf-like creatures, giant humanoid Mantis-like insects, Giant Frog Mutants (which are quite similar to the hunters of Resident Evil), and Purple Blob-things. The dart gun won't work in these ones.It is possible to reload all guns and to switch between the dart gun and a lethal weapon in real-time without having to use the menu screen. It was also possible to reload in real-time before emptying a firearm's bullet count. There's an "e-mail" system in the item storage boxes which is mainly used to further explain and expand the backstory. It's also notable that there are minigames available in the first part of the game (set in a casino), like roulette and slot machines; the money won in these games can be used to buy food and drinks, the in-game recovery items.If the game is cleared with an S Ranking, a special story mode is unlocked which shows an altered version of the original story and includes additional characters not present in the first playthrough. This also gives the option to gather the 5 "Lucky coins"; if this is done a minigame called "Prince of Darkness" is unlocked. In this minigame, the player controls a vampire version of Keith which slays humans within a 20 minutes time limit. Game characters appear here as enemies, such as Mira, Sheck, and The Man in Black.


Plot:


The gameplay is highly similar to the earlier games in the Resident Evil series, to the extent of being labelled a "clone" [1]; although there are some additions like a dart gun as a secondary weapon, used to sedate most enemies (mainly, zombie-like "vampires") and then sprinkle "white water" in them to restore their humanity, instead of simply killing all enemies that approach the player (which can also be done). This encourages the player to use a wide variety of fighting techniques, that if he/she wants to "save" the enemies. As the game advances, more and more creatures appear (whose origins are not that well explained until late in the game), such as Giant Vampire Bats, Werewolf-like creatures, giant humanoid Mantis-like insects, Giant Frog Mutants (which are quite similar to the hunters of Resident Evil), and Purple Blob-things. The dart gun won't work in these ones.It is possible to reload all guns and to switch between the dart gun and a lethal weapon in real-time without having to use the menu screen. It was also possible to reload in real-time before emptying a firearm's bullet count. There's an "e-mail" system in the item storage boxes which is mainly used to further explain and expand the backstory. It's also notable that there are minigames available in the first part of the game (set in a casino), like roulette and slot machines; the money won in these games can be used to buy food and drinks, the in-game recovery items.If the game is cleared with an S Ranking, a special story mode is unlocked which shows an altered version of the original story and includes additional characters not present in the first playthrough. This also gives the option to gather the 5 "Lucky coins"; if this is done a minigame called "Prince of Darkness" is unlocked. In this minigame, the player controls a vampire version of Keith which slays humans within a 20 minutes time limit. Game characters appear here as enemies, such as Mira, Sheck, and The Man in Black.


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Clock Tower Ghost Head PS1 (The Struggle Within)

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Following its predecessors, the gameplay is more about hiding and solving puzzles, rather than fighting the player's pursuers. This degenerates as the plot advances, and the main character is eventually forced to use guns and other tools in several endgame action sequences.Its interface consists of a point-and-click system similar to the one used by Sierra Entertainment games, such as the Gabriel Knight series. There is an inventory screen that appears if the user drags the pointer to the upper side of the screen. The game's engine looks similar to Clock Tower 2 (Clock Tower in North America), with a few minor alterations.Clock Tower Ghost Head features three chapters whose length can change depending on the choices made by the player. The game's replay value comes mostly in its 13 endings, which normally portray the main character dying in different violent ways. The paths to each separate ending can be confusing and difficult to follow accurately and, as such, many players utilize walkthroughs in order to achieve them.


Plot:


In the opening FMV, two people are seen holding flashlights and digging in a graveyard. One of them uncovers the dirt and finds a baby which almost suffocated to death. This girl is taken in and later named Alyssa.Flash forward to seventeen years later, Alyssa Hale is a schoolgirl who has been having dark visions of murdering people ever since she received her father's amulet. She wakes up only to discover that those dreams have come true. There is a cold-blooded, immoral male personality inside her named "Bates" who makes her do things. However, when she has her amulet, it keeps her safe from his invasions. She was released out of a mental hospital and is staying with a family friend. As she arrives at the Tate home, she discovers the grisly secret of the "Maxwell Curse". In order to survive, Alyssa will have to trust her dark side, Bates.


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Clock Tower The First Fear PS1

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Clock Tower is a 2D point-and-click style game, where the player controls a cursor to direct the main character, Jennifer Simpson, and give commands such as investigating objects or opening doors. The interface is akin to 1990-era computer adventure games, but simplified to work better with a gamepad. Primarily, the player can only move Jennifer left and right through the environment, although there are some rooms in which an action requires Jennifer to step into the background.Clock Tower is unique to other adventure games of the era in that it features a stalker pursuing the main character; this delays puzzle solving and requires the player to run in order to find objects or hiding places to fend off or avoid the attacker. The stalker is a slasher villain, named Bobby, who wields a large pair of scissors. If directly confronted by Bobby, the player engages in a "panic" phase and must repeatedly pound the "panic button" to struggle with the attacker. If Jennifer is low on health, or the player does not tap the panic button fast enough, Bobby will attack Jennifer and the player will be presented with a game over screen.Although the game refers to it as Jennifer's health, the color of the background where her face is shown changes to represent her current fear level. Blue means she is in a calm state, while yellow means she is startled, orange meaning she is alarmed, and finally red, where she will begin to panic. In red, she is more likely to be attacked during a direct confrontation with Bobby. Additionally, while running away from Bobby, there is a chance Jennifer might trip over her feet, making her vulnerable if Bobby is close by.Many of Bobby’s appearances are triggered by the player inspecting certain objects, but there are some cases in which he will come out of a hiding place and chase Jennifer as soon as she enters a room.


Plot:
Jennifer Simpson is a child from the fictional Granite Orphanage in Romsdalen, Norway.She and her friends, who are also orphans (Laura, Ann and Lotte) are adopted in September 1995(the same month the game was released) by a wealthy recluse named Mr. Barrows, who lives in a mansion known as the "Clock Tower", named after its most predominant feature.The game immediately begins with these characters walking towards the Barrows mansion and settling in the main foyer. Mary, the woman who brought the children to the mansion, leaves to find Mr. Barrows, but she takes an unusually long time.Jennifer offers to investigate, but upon leaving the room, a scream is heard from the main foyer. Jennifer returns to find the lights are off and the girls are missing. She soon finds herself being stalked after finding either Laura or Ann killed by a murderous little boy with deformed features, wielding a huge pair of scissors.The boy is Bobby Barrows, the Scissorman, who will be Jennifer's main stalker and tormentor for the rest of the game.While exploring the mansion, Jennifer will need to find out Mary's true intentions - either by discovering Simon Barrows trapped in a jail cell inside the courtyard, or by discovering her father's corpse in a hidden room. If the former happens, Jennifer will need to give him a piece of ham as food.If the latter happens, Jennifer will find his death letter that tells of his account about Mary Barrows and her twins, Bobby and Dan.It says that he was trapped there for three days, until his death on November 10, 1986.Jennifer visits a small, Satanic-looking church. However, to obtain the key to that church, Jennifer fights off a possessed doll in Bobby's room that tries to kill her. If the player has collected all the necessary items and clues, then Jennifer is able to gain access to the underground catacombs of the mansion - using either the Devil Idol or the Sceptor, but the former is canonical as it appears in the sequel.Jennifer sees a cloaked figure walking ahead of her; this is Mary. She follows it, wearing a disguise to fool the guard dog using Mary's perfume, and a black cloak found in the mansion.If she did not need to rescue Jennifer from the jail cell, Lotte can be found dying at an altar, and tells Jennifer about the switches in the clock tower.Otherwise, she rescues Jennifer from the jail cell, but is shot by a threatening Mary.Jennifer enters a room, where she discovers the humongous Dan Barrows, hidden within curtains. At that point, the awakened Dan chases down Jennifer to a steep cliff. She successfully climbs over, knocking down a can of kerosene which splashes onto a nearby candle. This triggers an explosion that immolates Dan,and Jennifer rides an elevator in the catacombs. She ends up defeating Bobby in the clock tower,and Mary as well in (or around, depending on prior actions) the clock tower. If Ann (or Laura) had not died yet, then this survivor would reunite with Jennifer at the clock tower, but later be thrown down the tower by Mary. These actions would lead to one of Endings A, B, or C - any of these could be canonical according to the events of the next game. Because of the game's open-ended nature, the player can also discover a number of other endings.


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Carmageddon PS1

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The usual mechanics remain intact: either complete all the laps, destroy all opposition, or run over all the zombies in a level. There are also mission levels where the player must complete a task. Levels are arranged into tiers, and all levels in a tier must be completed before the player can proceed to the next one.Players earn credits during the races, which can be used to repair/recover the car in-game, or buy new vehicles in the Car Shop.Unusually, this is the only Carmageddon game where the opponent cars have the ability to recover from danger in non-life-threatening situations. Also unusual is that the pedestrians are zombies (there is no pedestrian version of the game), but spout red blood on impact. Powerups with negative effects, such as greased tyres, have a much shorter duration than in other games, lasting between 5 and 10 seconds.


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Capcom Vs Snk PS1

Review From GAMESPOT

You may already be familiar with the Capcom vs. SNK 2D fighting game series, which was intended to be a dream-match fight between popular characters in Capcom's Street Fighter and SNK's King of Fighters games. Other than a few Marvel vs. Capcom games, it's the only "new" 2D fighting game series that Capcom has released in several years, and even then, the series heavily recycled old game characters and animations. So, you probably wouldn't expect too much from Capcom vs. SNK Pro: Millennium Fight 2000 for the PlayStation, a port of a game that originally appeared on the Dreamcast console two years ago. But it's a surprisingly competent port. Unfortunately, it's a port of a game that most fighting game fans consider to be completely obsolete.Joe and Morrigan rejoin the cast...just like they did two years ago.That may sound like harsh criticism, but the fact is, most serious 2D fighting game fans have been playing Capcom vs. SNK 2--a game with an expanded character roster, new background stages, six standard "groove" modes of play, and a six-button attack setup--for the past year or so. While some fans aren't especially happy with Capcom vs. SNK 2, nearly all of them will agree that it's difficult to go back to the original Capcom vs. SNK after playing it. And since Capcom vs. SNK Pro is merely a slightly updated version (with two additional characters, a few new options, and some balance tweaks) of the original game, it's just as hard to go back to. 


Capcom vs. SNK Pro's two play modes ("Capcom groove" and "SNK groove"), its limited character selection, and its four-button attack setup will seem very limited to anyone who's played any version of Capcom vs. SNK 2.That said, Capcom vs. SNK Pro reproduces most of the gameplay of the original Dreamcast and arcade versions. Unfortunately, that means it also reproduces some of the same problems. The PlayStation version does in fact play like the original game--the most effective way to defeat your opponents is to unleash devastating combinations of standard and special attacks in sequence. The game's timing has been successfully transferred to the PlayStation version, so if you're familiar with the series, you'll feel right at home with it. Capcom vs. SNK Pro lets you pick a team of characters using a total of four ratio points--medium-strength characters are worth two points, weaker ones are worth one, and the strongest characters in the game fill up an entire team at four points. Unfortunately, the game's character roster isn't very balanced, a fact that will be much more apparent if you've played Capcom vs. SNK 2 and are familiar with the different modes and ratio points you can spend to even out your teams in that game. 


And unfortunately, Capcom vs. SNK Pro for the PlayStation also reproduces the same stiff, sometimes unresponsive control of the original game. Pulling off some maneuvers on the PlayStation's Dual Shock controller is even more difficult than on the Dreamcast's four-way D pad.The Capcom vs. SNK Pro series originated in the arcades, though it was brought to the Dreamcast console as a nearly perfect port, thanks to the Dreamcast's ability to handle both 3D graphics and 2D animation. The PlayStation is notoriously poor at handling 2D graphics, but Capcom vs. SNK Pro actually looks pretty good. For instance, the PlayStation version makes hardly any cuts in character animation, something the PlayStation was infamous for with other fighting game ports in the mid to late 1990s. Then again, the original Capcom vs. SNK generally had poor character animation to begin with, since many of the game's character sprites--especially those from the Street Fighter Alpha series--were already several years old. In other words, the characters in the PlayStation game don't look much worse than they did in the Dreamcast version, but they didn't look all that good to begin with.Unfortunately, the same can't be said of the game's background stages or special effects. Capcom vs. SNK for the Dreamcast had several different background stages, and while none of these stages were particularly interesting--most of them were set in nondescript city or outdoor areas--they were detailed, animated 3D backgrounds. 


The PlayStation game's backgrounds have far fewer frames of animation, and though the port has every last one of the original game's background stages, they all tend to look fuzzier and less detailed. Some stages also suffer from some animation slowdown in some of the busier levels, like the "exploded tanker truck" level. Most of the original Capcom vs. SNK's special effects made use of colored lighting, and some of them, like certain projectile attacks, look decent in the PlayStation version, but other effects, especially the flames from fire-based attacks, look ugly and pixelated. This is especially apparent in the game's intro sequence, which suffers from both animation cuts and unattractive special effects.The game's sound is actually pretty good. The PlayStation port has all the different character voice samples from the original game, and even though they tend to sound a bit tinny, they don't suffer from the odd sound bug in the Dreamcast version that sometimes caused voice samples to be muffled. The PlayStation game also has all the music from the original game, most of which is rather generic techno that isn't all that interesting, especially if you've all ready heard it in previous versions of the game. Unfortunately, as you'd expect from a PlayStation game, the game pauses to load between every match, so you won't hear any continuous music tracks. Capcom vs. SNK Pro for the PlayStation has between-round load times of around five seconds, and it tends to load a bit longer between fights. 


Thankfully, the game has a handy option that lets you press start at the end of a fight to immediately begin the next fight with your team in the same order.The game looks surprisingly decent, all things considered.Capcom vs. SNK Pro for the PlayStation obviously doesn't have the record-a-playback option or network options of the original Dreamcast game, so it attempts to compensate in terms of replay value with a new "price mode." Price mode is basically the character-buy system from the very first Capcom vs. SNK game--beat the arcade mode, and you'll earn points to unlock alternate versions of characters, as well as the game's two not-so-secret characters, Morrigan and Nakoruru. Otherwise, the game has regular arcade mode, a practice mode, and pair attack mode, which lets you play through a set of computer rounds as any two characters, including two of the same character. Unfortunately, choosing the same character doesn't shorten the load times at all--a full-on survival mode or continuous same-character match mode with shorter load times would definitely have been an improvement.Capcom vs. SNK Pro for the PlayStation is about as good a port as it could be, all things considered. However, there are a lot of things to consider: The game is on the aged PlayStation hardware, it has some pretty substantial load times, it doesn't play very well with the standard Dual Shock controller, and, thanks to its lower graphical resolution, it tends to have less-detailed backgrounds and ugly special effects. It's also a port of a game that came out two years ago and has since been totally eclipsed by its sequel, Capcom vs. SNK 2. But all this seems academic, because if you're at all serious about 2D fighting games, you probably left Capcom vs. SNK Pro behind some years ago and have some home version of the much-better sequel already.

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Bomberman World PS1

Review:

Although Bomberman World joins the last few Bomberman games in its jump into the third dimension, it's actually quite unlike its contemporaries. While both of the preceding titles broke away from traditional Bomberman play in their own way, Bomberman World returns to convention. It just does so in a way that's a little more 3D than before.

The first-person scenario within Bomberman World is very familiar. In fact, it can easily be seen as a polygonal version of Saturn Bomberman - one viewed from a slightly more skewed isometric perspective. As in SB, you fight your way through four different elemental worlds (in this case, gathering crystals to jail your foes with), each with its own distinct boss. And once this is accomplished, you travel to a final area where the last boss resides. As in nearly every Bomberman title, the basic gameplay sees you in mazelike, block-filled environments, which must be blasted through in order to reveal helpful power-ups and clear enough room to properly destroy enemy creatures. There's some slight graphical fandango in BW, but basically, the structure remains the same. And the sound is noteworthy insofar as that the voice-overs are even worse than Sega's translation of Saturn Bomberman.

But if the Bomberman games have been about anything, they've been about getting several of your friends in the same room and blowing them to smithereens, along with a couple computer opponents. The multiplayer matches in BW are played on flat, isometrically viewed boards, where you clear paths to each other and through each other. Some new twists have been added to the arenas, such as exits allowing you to go out one side of the screen and come back in the other (by way of a mining cart, for example, on an intertwining track), revolving doors, and platforms that hover above the main playing field onto which you can hop back and forth, to and fro. Also, new power-ups allowing you to pick up and throw enemies or pass through walls, as well as increased setup options, such as choosing which and how many power-ups appear over a round, are features in BW. The variety is nice, but there's something definitely missing from the mix this time around, even if it's not easily identifiable exactly what that is.

In comparing the single and multiplayer modes, in individual play, while much the same as in earlier titles, the characters in Bomberman World seem to move very slowly - a holdup that can understandably cause much frustration since it counts for a lot in a game where timing is everything. The multiplayer mode appears to run a little faster, though the 3D nature of the title is to blame for taking away from the fun in this case. Items are often partially hidden behind objects in the foreground, enough so that it's hard to identify what these items are. And the fact that areas of the arenas can appear offscreen at times makes it difficult for you to keep track of your opponents. Overall, it leaves you wondering if the series really needed to go the 3D route. Perhaps 2D was the best bet for Bomberman after all.

While Bomberman World isn't a particularly bad game, per se, it's clearly not the best representative of what the series has to offer. It's a shame that the two best Bomberman games in recent memory, Saturn Bomberman and Saturn Bomberman Fight!! (the latter of which is import only), have been for the least popular system here in the States. It's unfortunate that the first Bomberman title for the Sony PlayStation really won't be wowing the new players it's bound to attract. Here's to hoping that the next titles find some better way of bringing back the game everyone seems to have grown dangerously attached to.

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Bloody Roar 2 PS1

Review:

When Bloody Roar first appeared on the fighting-game map a little more than a year ago, it was a refreshing surprise by a development team not known for fighters. Eighting/Raizing, whose previous effort was the critically acclaimed shooter Soukyugurentai, practically came out of nowhere with this savvy blend of anthropomorphic/lycanthropic combatants. The fast, furious fighting found in the game made playing other fighters of the time (Dead or Alive, Street Fighter EX) seem tedious and sluggish by comparison. The American version went one step further by adding a sidestep, a feature sorely lacking in the Japanese version. Now that the sequel has emerged, will the fighting genre see another step in the evolution of fighters? Unfortunately not.

Upon starting up Bloody Roar 2, no one can deny the wealth of features available at the outset: arcade mode, story mode, training, survival, time attack, etc. It's all in here. There's also the extra customs menu, where you can select things like the big-head modes and other stuff also found in the first game. While there isn't anything as luxurious as a Tekken Force mode or an RPG mode, most gamers usually don't fret over such details, and won't miss them here either. Graphically, the game is as gorgeous as the first installment - in fact, it looks almost exactly the same, with beautiful light-sourcing, speedy 60fps action, and all sorts of special effects when switching into beast mode. The soundtrack, and all its thrashy hard-rock ways, suits the mood just fine and matches the aggressive dueling, beat for beat. Basically, the game is a subtle repeat of what the first one was, which is a good thing. So, what, you may ask, is the problem?

The problem is that it is a repeat of the first game. The difference is that they took out the characters Mitsuko (the female boar, yuck!), Greg (the monkey man), and Hans (the girly-looking fox guy), and replaced them with four new characters - Marvel (the leopard girl), Busuzima (the chameleon), Jenny (the bat chick), and Stun (the insect). Oddly enough, Bakuryu the mole and Uriko, the boss from BR1 are back, except that they both look like teenagers now. One would think that this is a prequel, except that the story mode indicates that BR2 does indeed follow in the footsteps of the first game. Gratuitous character swapping aside, little has changed from the first game, prompting the question, "why bother?" Why bother indeed when Bloody Roar 2 actually takes a step back and removes the ease of executing the sidestep! For reasons unfathomable, somebody actually went ahead and removed the perfectly functional sidestep, which was the main reason the American version of BR1 was a fairly balanced fighter. While there is an option in the custom mode that activates the sidestep (performed by pressing right after executing a block), it's hardly intuitive and only serves to give the computer an additional edge while you struggle with the controls. Without this function, Bloody Roar 2 reverts to the all-out frontal assault that the import version of the first game was. While the new characters are much better than the ones they replaced, and the number of available moves per character has increased, the incentive to keep on playing wanes severely after a few rounds. The mode most gamers will enjoy playing is the story mode, which gives you a good deal of background material on each fighter. While the storyline in most fighters is merely a superfluous excuse to let the gathered combatants beat the crap out of each other, it actually adds to the overall flavor of Bloody Roar 2.

In its defense, the voice-overs and sound effects are very well done, while the overall gameplay is responsive and fast paced, making fighters like Dead or Alive seem slow and ponderous. Nevertheless, you'd be foolish to call BR2 a Tekken-killer. It's really disappointing, because it really could have been. Unfortunately, while surprise developer Eighting/Raizing could have used Bloody Roar 1 as a blueprint for even greater things with the sequel, it appears as if the team dropped the ball.

The bottom line is, if you never picked up the first game, Bloody Roar 2 is still a good game, with a much better cast than the first one. However, in contrast to the original American version of BR1, Bloody Roar 2 is a marginal improvement that still suffers from second-best status due to the exclusion of integral gameplay elements that should never have been messed with. The game is a major disappointment for such a promising series.

GamePlay:

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