Juiced A year late and a dollar short, this racer is hurt by its delays

It can be a damn shame when there's something that could've been cool, but with the fickle nature of fate it has been given a metaphorical kick to the curb. That may a bit melodramatic, but it's pretty much what has happened with Juiced. While the game isn't spectacular it would've received a much warmer welcome last year when the game was going to be released by Acclaim. Well, Acclaim bit the dust and THQ has picked up the game, but in the past year other titles have raised the bar and Juiced is looking even worse in comparison.

Since last fall we've seen the releases of Gran Turismo 4, Forza Motorsport, Need for Speed Underground 2, Burnout 3: Takedown, and Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition. These are all fine titles that cover the spread from simulation and realism to arcade and over-the-top action. Some of these games cover extensive street-style modifications on the cars such as body kits and decals aplenty. So now with Juiced entering into the street-racing fray it looks more and more like the little brother that's trying to be cool, but still needs some time to grow up a little.

To provide some flavor of the street culture, Juiced starts out with players choosing their name and group name as well as their cell phone. After that, there's a quick race against T.K., the leader of the Urban Maulerz crew. Win the race and a bet against him and players can start the game off with $47,000 in their pocket to buy a car and get going in their new life. The initial selection of a Volkswagen Beetle GLS 1.8T, a Honda CR-X, or Peugeot's 206 GTI is a little small at first, but more cars get unlocked as the game progresses.

After this initiation to the game the career mode is set up around a calendar that's filled up with different races on about half of the days. Some of these races are free , but most of them have an entry fee. Each race has a purse that can be claimed by the winners, but the bigger money can be made by making side bets against the other racers. So even if the player doesn't come in first, they can still clean p by beating the one person they bet against. Of course, they can also lose quite a bit of money and if players get stuck in a position with very little cash it can be hard to get out of that situation and one of the game's crucial flaws appears.
The cars can take damage in the different races and as such there is almost a tax on entering races due to the cost of repairs. By not winning a few races, losing a bet or two, and banging up the cars a bit, players can see their savings get close to zero. While mysterious strangers will always come in to help fix the cars if the player doesn't have enough money for even that so they can keep racing it's easy to get into a vicious cycle of not having enough money ever. Even worse is that later on in the game the free races get rarer and rarer so that once the player can't afford any of the races the only option is to skip through the whole calendar, day by day, and pray that a single free race will come up in which to get some cash to afford a much-needed upgrade. If that race gets shot, then it's another long wait.

All of this time spent flipping through the calendar is the reason why the career mode drains the fun out of the game. After a while of trying to get some cash up again, I was looking out at the other racing games in m collection where the goal was to simply race and if I ever wanted to just jump into a race, I could. If I messed up one race, then I could simply try it again instead of trying to farm my way back up to a decent bank account. There are other ways to make money, but once again they fail to bring any excitement to the game.

Instead of actually driving in the different races there are a couple of other options: attending or letting someone else drive. As players' reputations increase in the driving world they'll assemble a crew of drivers. These are needed for the team races where victory is determined by which team gets all of its cars across the finish line first. In the regular races, they can be put out there on their own. The more they race, the better their skill gets and the more likely they are to win.

The other option is to attend and simply bet on any of the drivers. Each driver has been given odds on their winning and so it is theoretically possible to turn a hundred dollars into a few thousand with some careful betting. The only problem with these two methods is that every race that is being driven by someone else or being bet on has to be played out in real-time. In GT4 there is the B-Spec mode that allows for the race to at least be done in triple speed, but here there's no other option than to watch the entire thing. Or it's a good time to do something else, like write an e-mail or few, whatever's your pleasure because watching a computer drive in Juiced is as much fun as reading some online forums and wondering when the first idiotic response will appear.

There is some strategy in telling the drivers on your crew how hard to drive, but even that is just choosing from a couple of options. There are hard, medium, and easy levels of driving, but the last one is rarely used. All of this suddenly makes accounting look like an extreme sport and it's when the cars spin-out and end up facing the wall that one seriously begins to question whether there's any point at continuing at all. Once the AI has come to a stop and is facing the wall it will slowly back up, make the most minute of turns, and drive into the wall again. It will keep on doing this until the hidden overbrain of the game completely resets the car back on the track and it can keep on going.

After spending way too much time trying to bet or watching other cars drive I was spent wishing yet again that this racing game was all about racing. The career mode fleshes out the world with other characters to race against and impress in order to open up other parts of the game, but the oppressive calendar system takes away any chance of just jumping right in to race in the career mode. Making bets against specific people makes the game more personal, but that's about the only aspect that should be salvaged here. Life has enough problems without a game reminding you that having no money still sucks.

Get beyond the career mode's style and there's a decent racing game here, but it's still not enough to make the game stick out among the rest. The action is closer to Burnout 3 than GT4 or Forza with its high-speeds and blurry effects to give a sense of speed, but it still has a few touches of realism that don't help a lot in its favor. One of these is the way that the cars can spin-out and come to a standstill. Computer-controlled cars will do it both on the turns and the straightaways and while bumping up against the other cars in the race, the player-controlled car is much more likely to get spun-out than the others which leads to some confusing moments and a flurry of profanity. Even with all of the possible mods to the car to improve the handling this can still happen.

Even though the action has been done better elsewhere, Juiced still has the high-speed racing with the dueling against the other drivers that keeps it interesting. Where it really shines is when it gets to be more of a personal fight with the betting. Losing to a smarmy driver is one thing, but losing to one who is walking away with $14,000 of your own hard-earned cash is another. It's really this aspect that keeps the game going for a little while.

Since the races happen all within a city and the developers worked towards making the locations realistic there are also several sidewalks and curbs that are in the tracks that can royally screw with trying to take turns quickly. Navigating these makes the game more intricate and difficult, but it can also lead to yet another spin-out. It would've been more fun to have tracks that are made difficult by the turns and tight squeezes rather than crap in the road that can mess with a car's alignment.

And all of this stuff that gets in the way of the racing, the career and the spin-outs, is a shame because the rest of the game is a fun enough racer on its own. Steadily increasing the power of the cars with upgrades and buying more powerful cars is a way to gradually increase the speed of the game and the new territories open up some new tracks to race along. The tracks aren't as inspired as they could've been, but there's enough variety to keep the action interesting.

But instead of a game that takes the street culture and uses that as a clever backdrop for a racing game that entertains with the thrill of the race, Juiced has the feel of a game that was a decent racer with lots of other ideas tacked onto it. Even though the ideas of betting and racing for pink slips (all backed up by an aggressive auto-saving function in case you tried to turn the machine off in the middle of a race) bring in the feeling that all of the races matter it's the same exact things that take the fun out when just trying to play a racing game.
One key area that Juiced has a unique idea is in the Showoff mode where points are earned by doing 360s, donuts, drifts, J-turns, and other tricks involving clever use of a handbrake. Mastering the moves is interesting at first, but it quickly reveals itself to be just another gimmick. Combos are done by doing moves one after another and mixing them up so that the crowd doesn't get bored, but how many times can you get excited about another 180 followed by a boomerang?

Closing Comments
argument for Juiced. The street racing genre has had some strong entries recently and what Juiced offers is a career mode that has ideas about respect and making connections, but in the end is a clunky racer where the main gaming mechanic of making money to spend on more races and car parts can easily backfire and put players in a position of struggling to make ends meet. With all of the work put into the other areas it would've been better if the racing itself had been made more interesting to make the core of the game more fun to play so that it would've risen up to being something more than just decent.

Medal of Honor: European AssaultAttention! EA got it right this time soldier. Now move out!

By now, everyone and their mothers have played a World War II first-person shooter. Surprisingly, there are as many good games in this sub-genre as there are healthy soldiers lined up for physicals. And while it's true that their shaved heads and crew cuts may look similar, each one still offers a little something different. EA's Medal of Honor series, the granddaddy of them all, is no longer the star soldier of it once was. Sad as it may be, EA has done as much to hurt its series as it has to help it. If Medal of Honor: Allied Assault on PC was the pinnacle of the series, Medal of Honor: Rising Sun was its Waterloo.

Maybe that's why Medal of Honor: European Assault plays and satisfies differently from any other game in the franchise. EA has returned from the Pacific theater and is back to focusing on European action with open scenarios, likeable mechanics, deep and varied level designs, and enough of the little things to make the whole thing work. It's not a perfect game; it's got problems. But the recognizable moments of high-quality gameplay outweigh its minor insufficiencies.

European Assault is not an original concept, nor does it do much that other first-person shooters haven't done before. In fact, everything here -- the adrenaline feature, open design, leaning and shooting, and squad combat -- has been done. But EA's development team handles each aspect well. The combination of good mechanics, a few really choice levels, and an excellent graduation of enemy AI gel together and force you to think, strategize, and manage your team and weaponry. Turns out, this one is pretty darn good after all.

Starting in French city of St. Nazaire, players are presented with an easy introductory mission: Get in, get used to the controls, shoot some guys, and get out. The first three missions in St. Nazaire visually display the kind of thing that's made the WWII FPS genre feel somewhat formulaic over the years. Although perhaps realistic, the dark skies, the muddy gray and black and brown palette, and the general darkness of the missions aren't very fresh. You really do feel like you're returning to WWII, and it's with little enthusiasm.Still, the first mission (or even the first couple of missions) is deceptive. European Assault develops slowly, building in intensity, nurturing you, and providing some surprises along the way. For fans of the series, or disillusioned players like me, the game initially plays like the former titles: It seems linear, pretty straight-forward, and filled with moderately tough enemy AI. But once you're out of France, things become much more interesting.

Little touches paint a much more favorable impression as the game progresses. You have a squad that can be sent out to attack or be called back. The squad is only partially useful, but its existence adds a little element of strategy. They don't kill too many enemies, but they help, and you're rewarded with med kits for keeping them alive at the end of a level. However, unless you stash them behind solid cover, they'll blindly and gleefully rubber band right back to you -- like a knuckleheaded dog crossing busy freeway traffic, even if a grenade or tank shot is about to peg them in the head.

Additionally, the button for reload is the same button for replenishing allies with health. This can be frustrating when in tense situations, and even more frustrating because your squad is full of hyper little children. Occasionally, you'll have to physically chase down a teammate to give him heath. That's not good. Full Spectrum Warrior and Brothers in Arms do a far superior job of incorporating squad tactics into their gameplay. Again, the squad is not terribly useful, yet they add a small degree of strategy and depth.

On the other hand, the enemy AI is much smarter. There are four levels of difficulty, with the second one being the default level. With it, you'll find that the enemy German soldiers are aggressive, travel in groups, tend to deliver a healthy amount of accurate fire, and can actually throw a punishing grenade from time to time. They duck and hide for cover, and they run from place to place. You'll even find that they'll recognize whether you've trained a scope on them, and will duck out of the way to avoid taking a shot to the head. In short, if the same-team AI falls a little short, the enemy AI does not.

The mini-bosses are a treat. Each level has one, and they can always be found about half-way to three-fourths of the way in. They have one level of aggression: Fierce. Ironically, they're actually easy to defeat in one-on-one encounters given enough space. But, as soon as you rush them, they'll whale on you, ripping you apart even with .0001% health left in them. I once rushed a mini-boss with about 1/4th health, and he shredded me in three seconds. In another encounter with the same boss, I hung around for too long in one spot, and he threw a grenade and then rushed me. Surprise! And if they're surrounded by goons, they'll work you over good. From a medium range, however, every mini-boss is easily dispatched by simply whittling away at it, using cooked grenades, and constant pressure. All told, the mini-bosses are a great addition to the series and it makes me wish there were more evil Nazi soldiers with personality to confront.
European Assault controls well too. You can crouch, lie flat, and quickly and smoothly lean from behind objects. This mechanic is beautifully worked into gameplay throughout its entirety, becoming a real friend in uneven firefights. Of course, you'll run and gun like in previous games, but the enemy AI is tougher, i.e. a better shot, and can quickly overcome you with numbers. But by mixing cover, running and gunning, and stop-lean-and-shoot tactics, Medal of Honor develops a comfortable and agreeable pace. Aside from the game's smooth and gradual increase in difficulty, I probably like the genuinely excellent pacing best of all.

Speaking of pace, by building headshots and staying relatively unscathed, you build the Adrenaline meter. When triggered, you enter a modified Bullet Time. Adrenaline mode lasts about 10-15 seconds. When energized you're invulnerable, your shots do more damage, and you're faster, or at least that's what we're told. In actuality, you move slowly, but everyone else moves slower. It's not false advertising, but Adrenaline mode is more of a shallow novelty than a consistently useful tool. I used it when in a crunch, but it doesn't last very long. So right when you feel you're actually kicking serious ass, it wears off. Be wary.

Straightforward gunplay works right on the money. You'll find yourself armed with a standard arsenal of authentic World War II weapons, from the M1 Garand rifle, M1 Thompson SMG, MP40 SMG, Karabine 98k, and more. The bazooka is easy and slow to use. The machine guns arch up when firing for too long, and the reload animations are all enjoyable. The sniper rifle is probably my favorite of them all. It's slow to target but highly accurate. You can pinpoint all parts of the body, and the enemies react in enough ways to keep things fresh. In a nice subtle touch, you can kick an enemy grenade right back at them in time for it to send them flying.

The progression scheme enables you to play any level over if you want, and it rewards you with bronze, silver, and gold medals, depending on how well you've done. The missions don't offer save points, instead opting for the similarly useful Revive Units (first recognizable in Star Wars Republic Commando). It works like this: You die and a Revive Unit magically brings you back to life. It's just a little bit more seamless than save points. It also increases the difficulty.
How? When you run out of Revive Units, you start the whole level over again. Revives are sparsely placed, providing just the right amount of skill to have one left over before a level ends. You also earn health and Revives by keeping your dumb-ass teammates alive. You can heal either yourself or your teammate. This provides yet another little choice for you. Which is more important? You decide.

One of the more interesting additions to the game is that before each mission loads, you're presented with two to three primary goals, and a few secondary and tertiary goals. The display is a little confusing at first, but it does make sense. The primary goals are stated, others are veiled. Unlike any Medal of Honor game ever, you're actually encouraged to explore. This might sound incredibly obvious to most folks, but the concept of exploration has not been a major (or even minor) element in any of the MOH games.
Here, scouring the landscape rewards you with multiple things. Because the environments are often wide open, you can approach enemies from different angles, causing you to stop and think about which is the best tack to pursue. You encounter more enemies, and by killing them you can scour them for health or ammo. Health, guns, and ammo are also hidden in outposts, nooks, and less obvious places than before. The open environments surprise and create tension, too. Enemies pop out of areas you might not have seen before with mini-bosses, and sometimes the extra ammo, you've been searching forMost importantly, though, by exploring you'll receive audio cues to fulfill hidden objectives. Beating a level by only knocking out the primary objectives feels a little cheap and easy to me, so it was with great pleasure that I attained them all. These additional goals offer great replay value, and it convinced me into playing some of the later levels over and over again. Again, it's not as if this technique hasn't been used before in other games, it has. But EA has done a better-than average job of it, and the game is enjoyable because of it.

In terms of the visuals, compared to the bland and generic style of Rising Sun, the style of European Assault is slightly more appealing. If Rising Sun was bad, then this game's approach with its nearly faceless soldiers and general all-purpose buildings, is not as bad. The game looks so very generic, cookie cutter, and impersonal. You cannot tell one soldier from another. Sure there's occasionally a captain or commander that starts off an in-game cutscene who usually looks relatively believable, and the enemy mini-bosses are distinguished, but that's as far as the variety goes. There are boxy, generic tanks that lack detail and obvious rubble and broken down buildings that look like they could have come from any WWII FPS.

The graphics aren't all bad, however. Guns are more detailed than most other objects and come complete with the appropriate animations, while the environments (carefully lit by spare usage of bloom lighting) look pretty good too. My favorite graphic animation is the visible shot of a tank shell crossing the field. Yes, you can actually see the shells heading right at you. Very cool. Getting back to the environments, the variation of the four locations (France, North Africa, Russia, and Belgium) provide a satisfactory amount of diversity for the eyes and you'll be able to enjoy them in both widescreen and progressive scan.

As is always the case in the series, though, the sound in European Assault is the best thing about it. There are numerous instances of genuine audio that literally digs into your consciousness with convincing realism. The delayed echo of a sniper shot in an open field; the click and clack of metal and weaponry as you run across a field; the crunch of your boots in deep snow; the whir of a tank turret's gears as it turns toward you; the hollers of angry Nazi soldiers as you encroach into their territory. These kinds of experiences and several more are what Medal of Honor is all about. The list is endless.

Closing Comments
Medal of Honor European Assault may not have the best gameplay, but it's still pretty good. Like Frontline before it, though, this iteration of the series delivers enough superb micro-moments and excellent presentational value that it ascends beyond the weaknesses of specific individual parts. There are a few great moments in North Africa, Russia, and even in the Battle of the Bulge, though those last levels are more of a pure slog than anything.

Sure there is nothing particularly inventive or innovative about the game's features, but played as a whole, the overall experience is still very satisfying. It's good despite the faults in AI, the less than attractive visuals, and an unnaturally slow beginning. EA listened to the critics and its audience, giving players open environments, squad control, and levels you can actually explore.

Despite the morass of so many WWII shooters crowding the market in the last six years, European Assault manages to emerge from the fray, and even if other games have risen higher, the series is back on track.

Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This At HomeIs the title of this game nothing more than a moniker or perhaps a prophetic warning?

We have the details inside.As the popularity and size of Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Entertainment promotion has increased over the years so too has the number of independent wrestling organizations. Though WCW and ECW have gone the way of the dinosaur, a number of smaller regional federations have been popping up all over North America. Reminiscent of the old days before the WWF, NWA, and AWA had begun their "Big Three" push of the 1980s; this latest rebirth of sports entertainment has provided plenty of options for disenchanted fans on the lookout for something new.

One such substitute is the increasingly popular phenomenon of Backyard Wrestling: which is generally considered to be a brutal underground exhibition of violent hardcore antics. Featured on several news magazines and prime time broadcasts as the scourge of Middle-American teenagers, Backyard Wrestling continues to rise in popularity with every passing month. Inspiring the formation of countywide associations, amateur home videos, and weekly events that bring in almost as many people as High School wresting matches, this new favorite of alternative culture appears to have a long future ahead of it -- and U.K. publisher Eidos seems to know it.

Collaborating with the X-Men: Next Dimension and Thrill Kill contractors Paradox Development, Eidos has managed to nab the official Backyard Wrestling license in conjunction with the Insane Clown Posse's own promotion JCW. Boasting over 20 different grapplers from both organizations, a truckload of different weapons, and a couple of interesting gameplay mechanics, BYW appears on the surface to give THQ and EA a run for their wrestling dollar. Dig a little deeper, however, and the truth becomes more readily apparent: Backyard Wrestling still has a ways to go.Gameplay
From the outset, it's obvious that the team at Paradox has taken a much different approach towards wrestling than the current genre champs Aki and Yukes. Opening up the field of play quite a bit, Backyard Wrestling provides seven reasonably large free-roaming environments and a multi-tiered height system that allows players to climb on top of different structures for varying damage. Given the "wrestle anywhere" mentality of BYW, this concept is a good one and takes some getting used to for fans of more grounded titles like RAW or Smackdown.

BYW's locales are pretty bizarre though: with a messy backyard, filthy truck stop, and bloody slaughterhouse serving as the game's first three stages. From there it gets even more peculiar as your character moves into the confines of a gentleman's club complete with pole-dancing strippers preceding the parking lot of a suburban mall. Afterwards you're headed off to a rich doctor's mansion before ending your journey on the set of a sleazy afternoon talk show that also happens to double as the plot device between stages.

The arenas are fully interactive and entirely destructible too, standing out as the game's most compelling and entertaining component. Trucks, gasoline pumps, windows, doors, sofas, and a score of other obstacles can be shattered, broken, or abused in a myriad of different ways and some of the remains can even be picked up and used as weapons. More conventional armaments such as barbed wire baseball bats, Tiki torches, and television sets are scattered throughout every stage as well and play an important role in the wearing down of your opponent -- as they can do twice the damage of regular strikes and can move an opponent's dizzy meter in the upwards direction rather quickly.

Speaking of dizzy meters Backyard Wrestling provides not one, not two, but three different gauges used to confuse your opponent. Given one bar each for strikes, slams, and jump damage, the meters rise depending on what kind of maneuver is performed and can even be chained together for prolonged dizziness. These three measurements work entirely independent of each other and are separated from the fourth and final character display: the standard health gauge. This system on the whole works pretty effectively and provides a rather complex recipe for tracking a wrestler's well being without becoming overly systematic.Unfortunately the area of expertise that the Backyard Wrestling team should view as the game's most important aspect of success is actually where it begins to falter; namely in terms of the combat mechanics. Hindered by the fact that your characters are constantly running around from place to place in search of weapons or obstacles to use against each other, an emblematic bout consists of a series of short-distance sprints and item retrievals. The reason it works this way is because the flow of the action is heavily dependant on an opponent's momentum -- with the last person to attack gaining split-second advantages over his victim. When playing against the more difficult A.I. opponents especially, gamers will need to keep their distance as long as possible in order to fight off an inevitable computer shellacking. But where's the fun in constant escape if you're playing an offensive wrestling game?

To their credit, the designers have attempted to fix this shortcoming by including the ability to counter any single maneuver. Irish whips, slams, or throws can be reversed simply by hitting the directional pad and proper button the moment your wrestler flashes white. With the ability to counter or reverse any type of offensive attack, players should be less likely to jog around the environments or get caught in long strings of A.I.-initiated ass-whippings -- or at least, in theory they should. The problem is that your opponents will chain punches and kicks together more often than any other type of attack; but unlike throws or grapples, your character doesn't give any type of signal to let you know when you can reverse the chain (and most times you can't interrupt the sequence anyway). This tactic works for human opponents too, making the need for slams and holds almost useless until someone is dizzy. All you'll have to do is keep punching or kicking someone until they're punch drunk, perform one of your slams, and repeat. Boom! It's an instant knockout and you don't even have to worry about pinning.With this type of system it appears that Backyard Wrestling is setup more like a fighting game rather than a wrestler -- and the move list obviously reflects that: as each of the 20-plus characters has only eight grapples apiece as well as a single finisher. Strangely Paradox and Eidos have additionally chosen to exclude any type of block or defensive button as well, and with an emphasis on strikes and only eight moves to counter or reverse against, its depth in any genre remains somewhat limited. But at least the team has seen fit to include a couple of extra modes besides the main Talk Show quest, including the survival and king of the hill modes. There's a create-a-wrestler feature too, but it's so basic and restricted in comparison to every other wrestling game out there that it'll probably be disappointing for spoiled wrestling fans.

Graphics
If there's one thing that Backyard Wrestling does well, it's render blood. A virtual geyser of crimson hemoglobin, BYW's level of gore is up there with other classic bleeders such as Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance and Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven. Just about every attack you perform creates some kind of violent reaction to your opponent's person and before all is said and done the visuals can get pretty brutal. Also worth mentioning is the excellent camera -- it manages to stay with your wrestler no matter where he may be; panning out when necessary and keeping you abreast of the action.

Unfortunately the slowdown in some of the more convoluted areas of a stage can get pretty bad at times. With extremely noticeable stutter when one of your combatants is surrounded by obstacles. The level of detail on the character models aren't exactly cutting edge either, and the poor collision detection will see your grapplers clipping through objects more often than not. Animations, on the other hand, are quite nice.Sound
Backyard Wrestling's soundtrack is very solid. It boasts an unbelievable amount of hard rock from the last 15 or years or so and contains artists such as The Insane Clown Posse, Machine Head, Sepultura, Anthrax, and American Hi-Hi. Of particular note is Biohazard's "Punishment" (which is one of the best ass-kicking songs of all time) and Dropkick Murphy's "This is Your Life". Of course, this sort of music won't necessarily appeal to everyone but for the target audience that Eidos is shooting for, it's the perfect backdrop.

In terms of sound effects and vocals, Backyard has done a good job of capturing the Foley that it needs to. Grunts, groans, and other such noises make their appearance in all the right places and the humorous voice acting during cut scenes provides a couple of legitimate laughs. As an added bonus, wrestlers whose likenesses are used have provided their voices for taunts and intros as well, so their fans should be happy to know that they're well-represented.

Closing Comments
Because it's aimed at a very particular audience and is so vastly different than any other wrestler out there, Don't Try This At Home is a difficult game to judge. On the plus side, it offers plenty of cool weaponry and environments to toy around with, a violently satisfying theme, and an easy pick up and play control scheme. The fans of the Backyard Wrestling line of DVDs, Insane Clown Posse junkies, and blood fiends should probably go nuts over it.

When evaluated on some of its more technical merits, though, there are still plenty of issues that hold it back from reaching the same success as THQ's bigger line of grapplers. Overly shallow in the mechanical department and not quite sure if it wants to be a fighting game or a wrestler, Don't Try This At Home isn't as fulfilling as it should be. If given the proper amount of refinement in the gameplay department, however, and if expanded upon in the create-a-wrestler and the story modes, then this new approach to a dominated genre could definitely have potential. But as it stands now, we can't see ourselves recommending this beyond a rental.

Tenchu: Fatal ShadowsSega's sneaky action title shows promise, but fatally wounds itself.

Wrath of Heaven signified the arrival of sneaky ninjas on this generation of gaming platforms. While that last Tenchu title didn't exactly revolutionize the genre, it did adequately expand the franchise that helped popularize third-person stealth action. That is, Wrath of Heaven may not have represented the pinnacle of PlayStation 2 gaming, but it easily offered fans of the series a significantly improved title to appreciate. Knowing that, it's sad to have to admit that Fatal Shadows not only fails to enhance the genre as a whole, but also fails to offer any serious improvements over its predecessor. Though this latest Tenchu will certainly deliver stalwart Tenchu fans more of what they have come to love and loathe, it will do little else.

Despite being transferred over from Activision, Tenchu has been altered remarkably little over these past two years. The basic gameplay formula has remained almost entirely unchanged. In Fatal Shadows players take on the role of one of two female ninjas. Series staple Ayame is the protector of her land and must investigate the slaughter of a rural village, while newcomer Rin is a survivor of that massacre who now seeks revenge. Together, and against one another, they progress through a tale of greed, power, malevolence, and wacky agendas.

Even though each of the game's distinctly clichéd archetypes is designed to be exactly what he or she is, Fatal Shadows never manages to tie the story together in an exciting or even believable way. The voice work, as is typical of most ported Japanese titles, screams of a weekend's worth of professional input and rivals Rumble Roses for the most outrageous interpretation of what a tough girl trying to be cuter than an eight-year-old might sound like. In fact, several of the actors seemed to be shared resources.

Poor acting with good writing and excellent direction is still tolerable, however. Fatal Shadows, unfortunately, binds its levels together with melodramatic narration that recounts the events of the title with a kind of profound heavy-handedness so stylized it makes little to no sense when taken in context. More troublesome is how each of the game's cutscenes is actually made of about a dozen floating woodcuts and static renders that pop in and out of place. The narrator speaks of battles and vengeance and blood as renders of Rin, Ayame, and some miscellaneous feudal lords merrily cycle on in the background. This makes the already convoluted attempt at storytelling practically senseless. While the in-game visuals of Wrath of Heaven were never to be knelt before and praised, their flaws become all the more prevalent this time around when much of our generation of gaming has done away with angular environments, poorly articulated models, and muddy textures. In adding larger environs, it seems the team didn't afford itself enough time or resources to increase the level of detail. Notably, characters suffer from puppet-jaw, levels are tired and sharp, and the game offers very little interactivity.

Though the raw technical quality of any given object, environment, or character within Fatal Shadows is a bit less than impressive, the animations have been reworked. While they too may pale in comparison to other products (namely Prince of Persia and Jak III), the speed at which the game's protagonists now move is a terrific bonus that helps quicken what were sometimes tedious maneuvers in previous Tenchu titles. Performing actions without being burdened by drawn-out animation routines helps the title retain a slick, quick sort of gameplay that strengthens the fundamentals behind its emphasis on stealth kills.

Actual play does focuses on stealth, but stealth is not required. In fact, the surest way to complete any given level (aside from pass / fail scenarios) is to simply pop the auto-map onto the screen and navigate to where the end objective would likely be (which is super easy to find). To test out how pacifistic a player could be while remaining successful, we set ourselves to completing a level without ever striking an enemy. We managed to beat six missions in this way before we tired of it all. We jumped and ran straight through and over guards and other obstacles. Only the occasional forced fight slowed our pace. We paid no mind to patterns, aggressors, or collectibles. We just ran and won, every single time.

That's obviously not the way Fatal Shadows was intended to be played. It's disappointing that skipping all the action and stealth in the game can still result in a quick and easy win, but there are still incentives provided to lure people into putting more effort into actually playing. Ready to knife somebody?

Tenchu titles boast stealth kills. Whenever a player manages to sneak up on an enemy, he or she is offered the option to dispatch that foe instantaneously by pressing a button -- precisely depressing the same attack function a second time will even make for a more dramatic kill. Still, each stealth finish isn't as visceral as it could have been, which leaves dismissing enemies in these ways somewhat unfulfilling, especially since the same set of animation routines repeat. What stealth killing does do is award the player with points and scrolls, which are used to purchase new moves and a wealth of extra content. These incentives give Fatal Shadows quite a bit of staying power and a real reason to go about things properly.

In addition to quiet backstabbings and absentminded sprints toward goals, Fatal Shadows also offers some rudimentary combat. As has been the case since the series' inception, the melee is hardly an attractive sell. Massive fights are not intended or encouraged. Though it's possible to make use of jump attacks, aerial flips, basic three-hit combos, and precision blocks to dispatch waves of enemies, the somewhat clunky camera and control system prohibits this approach. It's just easier and cleaner to jump away or turn a corner. If you do flee, an AI unit may see your departure, but probably won't pursue and definitely won't pursue aggressively.

To illustrate how underdeveloped the AI is, consider this example... At one point our hero Rin stood face-to-face with an alerted enemy guard, who, just behind some bamboo latticework, had noticed her incursion and was quite miffed about it all. He freaked out, sounded his double exclamation mark alarm, and then ran headlong into the fence. And then he didn't stop running. He just stood in place running into the fence like a man on a treadmill. Had he stopped and looked to his left, he would have noticed that he was literally two millimeters from the edge of the latticework. His arm was even protruding past it! All he had to do was shift his body an inch to the left and he could have attacked. Pity softened our hearts and we walked over to him, punched him, and absorbed a few retaliatory strikes to humor the poor sap. Then we walked back to our original position and watched in further amazement as he once again ran dutifully into the fence, face first. This kind of thing happens a lot. Enemies are almost lazy.

Closing Comments
In one way, laziness lets Tenchu boast stealth action without having to emphasize hardcore trial and error routines. But, when the stealth and the combat don't always work because of camera, control, and rather serious AI issues, there remains little benefit to playing the game in those ways. These problems were present in one form or another throughout Wrath of Heaven, but now seem more imposing given the current state of many other titles.

Fatal Shadows simply isn't the successor it could and should have been. And while avid fans will find redeeming qualities and few improvements, Tenchu may yet serve as an accessible first step that leads to more developed titles.

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai TenkaichiDBZ fans take note: the world's best martial arts fighting tournament is about to begin! I know it sounds a bit cliché, but fans of Atari's PS2 Dragon Ball titles could be in for their best game yet. Announced today via an exclusive hands-on playtest with IGN (in other words, me), Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi is headed for North America this November. Known as Dragon Ball Z Sparking! in Japan and developed by the Fire Pro team at Spike, Tenkaichi aims to take everything that made the first three Budokai titles so popular and improve on them in every way.

Rather than focus on a particular saga as the previous games did, for instance, Tenkaichi retells almost the entire DBZ story from scratch. Beginning with the arrival of Raditz in the Saiyan Saga and ending with the Goku's last journey in the Kid Buu episodes, Budokai should now hit every major plot point in the series' history. The only real question is just how much content from each saga will be in the game when it's finished (because Atari itself doesn't even know yet since Spike and Bandai are still finalizing the plotline at press time). I guess that means you'll just have to wait until later on to find out of Vegeta's first Super Saiyan transformation and subsequent humiliation of the androids make it in.

Speaking of Vegeta, you can expect to see him in the lineup along with more than 60 other combatants -- the most ever in any Dragon Ball Z game. In fact, just about every character you can think of has made the final cut for Tenkaichi with some of them being a little less traditional than expected. The entire Ginyu Force (yes, including Guldo), all the Androids, all the Saiyans, every bad guy, and plenty of other surprises (giant monkey anyone?) will join up returning favorites like Goku, Gohan, Piccolo, Trunks, Frieza, and Ginyu so that you can recreate all your favorite battles.

To make each and every one of these 60-plus characters as close to their anime counterparts as possible, Spike has also gone and built a brand new engine from scratch instead of expanding on the existing engine used by Dimps for the last three games. The result is pretty impressive too, as the high-polygon models and pseudo-cel shaded style really adds a lot to the presentation. And unlike previous DBZ titles, Tenkaichi has a much wider variety of animations and idle poses than before. Of particular note are the special effects and super moves, which have been ripped right out of the television show. Needless to say, if you liked the super-cinematic staging of the dragon rushes and ultimate attacks in Budokai 3 you'll love these too.In terms of gameplay, I only had the chance to sample the eight characters that will be available to show-goers at E3 in a couple of weeks (Perfect Cell, Kid Buu, Super Saiyan Goku, Janemba, SS Vegeta, Piccolo, SS Gohan, and Frieza). The surprising thing about the way these guys played, though, is that they're near-identical to the mechanics found in Dimps' previous titles in just about every sense. The speed, physics, and movesets are pretty much the same here as they were in Budokai 3, but because of the free-roaming environments (there are no more ring outs), the control mapping and character abilities have been altered.

R1 and R2, for example, are no longer used for transformations and throwing opponents. Now, that pair of buttons is used for the much more important task of up and down mid-air flight controls. Yes, that's right; your character no longer has to be launched into the sky by an attack in order to fly. Now all you have to do is hold down R1 and ascend into the heavens for a little mortal combat. The free-roaming flight changes strategies too, as now it's entirely possible to play a cat and mouse game to prolong battles and use the environment to your advantage. And yes, the backgrounds are completely destructible.

The rest of the controls aren't as familiar either. The X button now commands dash and special arts instead of the previously-set guard (which itself is now the circle button), and Triangle has been changed from kick to Energy Wave. L1 centers the camera (which is very useful by the way), and L2 doubles as both the super charge and a modifier for attack combos. The amazing thing is that as different from the previous control scheme that this setup provides, it still feels like nothing has changed at all; In a nutshell, Budokai 4 basically plays like Budokai 3 had it been running on the Virtual On engine.Unfortunately the E3 build of the game is still undergoing a lot of balancing issues, so the AI of every opponent I faced created merciless no-death bastards. These guys were seriously tough too, with more combos in a single flurry than I've seen in the series provide before. On my side of things combos were pretty easy to pull of, and were a little more shallow than in Budokai 3. That is, until I discovered how useful the L-Trigger modifier was and that changed everything. Fans of the last effort needn't worry -- this is still a pretty deep game.

Speaking of deep, Tenkaichi offers quite a bit in terms of replayablity. Though the complete feature set hasn't been finalized yet, Budokai will definitely feature a ten-attribute customization system similar to what's been available before (not to mention three different super moves per character, two-player split-screen action, and branching story points that allow users to explore interesting questions like "What if Frieza beat Goku?"). And as I mentioned earlier, the stages are completely destructible too, with things like boulders, buildings, and other such obstacles left to your vicious mercy. As for the stages themselves, there are a total of eight currently planned, with the Cell Games Complex, Craggy Place of Earth, and Planet Namek already confirmed.

Unfortunately the E3 build didn't allow us to explore all of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi's options, but there's still plenty of time left to check them out. Besides with modes called Ultimate Battle, Dragon Capsule, and Evolution Z, the game is just begging for some future exposure. We'll be back said exposure around E3 time -- including impressions of how the underwater (yes I said underwater) battle physics work, and how some of the other characters specifically play in comparison to their Budokai 3 versions. In the meantime, click on our media page below for the latest screenshots and movies taken from the U.S. version.

Tekken 5Heihachi Mishima may be dead, but Namco's latest fighter is anything but.

I really liked Tekken 4. It took the popular "King of Iron Fist" series to an interesting place by successfully borrowing ideas from competitors like Dead or Alive 2 and Virtua Fighter 4 while adding its own unique touch. It presented a legitimate revamping of a franchise that had remained relatively unchanged for close to seven years, and brought such novel additions as uneven surfaces, strategic wall damage, destructible objects, and position changes to an already addicting gameplay mechanic. It was a great sequel and definitely worth picking up.

As cool as I thought Tekken 4 was, however, it couldn't hold a candle to Tekken Tag Tournament. I loved that game. It was the reason I plunked down the cash to pick up a PlayStation 2 in the first place, and it became an after-work obsession of mine for nearly two years. I'd spend entire weekends participating in pleasant competitions with my closest friends, I'd devise bizarre and unworkable strategies with my co-workers, and I'd practice Jin and Jun's crazy ten-strings with my woman between dinner dates. We had fun... lots of fun, and it was all because of that game's terrific timing, pacing, and balance. To be honest, though, I had secretly hoped that the developers would go back to something closer to Tekken Tag for Tekken 5 -- and wouldn't you know it? Somebody at Namco apparently read my mind, because Tekken 5 is awesome.

To be more accurate, Tekken 5 is really more of a Tekken series melting pot. Though it more closely resembles the Tekken 3/Tekken Tag pair of games, it still takes the best elements from the previous four titles and combines them into a single kickass experience. So while the bothersome wall infinites from Tekken 4 have been completely eliminated, players can still use the occasional barrier to get an advantage on their opponent. The uneven, mulutiple-elevation stages have been nix too, but to acknowledge the fact those destructible goodies from the last game were a pretty good idea, the floors, walls, and certain other environmental spots still show damage when you smash into them. On a slightly less important note, the crouching command has thankfully been returned to its old "down press" designation instead of down-diagonal -- meaning that players probably won't end up walking forward by accident when trying to duck as they did in the last one.
These alterations are made even better by Tekken 5's obvious increase in speed. Though still not as fast as DOA Ultimate or a 2D fighter like Guilty Gear, it's still the quickest game in the series by far. And when coupled with some of the most even character balancing I've seen since VF4: Evolution, this speed increase provides a great base for what turns out to be an excellent fighting ga"me. I'm particularly jazzed that Namco finally toned down newbie "mash bastards like Christie Monteiro and Lee Chaolan -- who still chime in as powerful characters but with a lot less cheddar to go along with it.

Speaking of characters, it's hard to get angry at the lineup here. Boasting more than two dozen popular fighters from throughout the series' history, the roster in Tekken 5 is pretty much a who's who when it comes to fighting games. Returning favorites like Jin, Kazuya, Marshall Law, Paul Phoenix, and Hwoarang join more recent names like Steve Fox, Craig Marduk, and the aforementioned Christie Monteiro. Plus, as I said before, they're all extremely well balanced and are easily the best versions of the characters yet available (especially Steve -- he's a tank). Additionally, the three brand new combatants (Asuka Kazama, Feng Wei, and Raven) are incredibly cool to use and a lot of fun to learn. In fact, Raven and Feng Wei quickly became two of my favorite alter egos thanks to a pair of fighting styles that haven't really been used in this franchise before. Raven's uncanny resemblance to Wesley Snipes as Blade is was a humorous side touch too.

One of the primary reasons that Tekken 5's large cast of characters is so fun to use, though, (other than the usual list of insane juggles and intuitive reversals), is because there's literally a million things to do with them. Namco has always been famous for making its home versions of Tekken better than the arcade originals, but this time it has outdone itself. There's literally something in here for everyone.And when I say there are a million things to do, I'm not just referring to the typical list of training modes, time trials, or two-player matches either. Tekken 5 goes way beyond that. The game's beefy story mode, for instance, is definitely the best in the series: offering hand-drawn and fully narrated prologues that are book ended by several badass ending cinemas. What's more, is that almost every single one of these endgame movies are surprisingly humorous in nature, and are fully packed with several laugh-out-loud moments. Go ahead and try to keep a straight face when enjoying the endings for Anna, Nina, or Asuka, for example, or try not to crack a smile when Heihachi's ambitious but highly entertaining finishing moment plays through.

Another cool addition to the game is the changes that have been made to the arcade mode. Following the standard set by Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution a few years back, Tekken 5 offers players the ability to play ranked CPU opponents for a simulated arcade experience. This feature further enables users the ability to set up and name their own personal profile to keep track of how good they really are and to use that stature to earn money. This basic philosophy means that the higher the rank of your CPU opponent, the more money you'll get when you beat him -- and once you have enough gold in your reserve, you can then go ahead and spend it to get tons of bonus goodies.

These purchasable bonuses also take a queue from VF Evolution as they're primarily made up of a wide selection of customizable clothing. So if you'd much rather see Heihachi wearing an eye patch and a motorcycle helmet instead of his default outfit, you can go ahead and do that. Likewise, if you'd prefer to see Paul Phoenix wearing Legion of Doom motorcycle jackets or King adorned as royalty, you can do that too. This kind of modification is one of the primary reasons that SEGA's fighter still has so many fans today, and I can see it having the same effect for Tekken fans. It's truly an addicting little feature, and I just wish that there were even more clothing items to select.

Namco has also included a bonus action/adventure mini-game known as "Devil Within," which follows Jin Kazama as he runs around and kicks plenty of hive-minded robotic butts. Interestingly enough, Devil Within implements a completely different control scheme from the regular Tekken fighting mode -- so it may take a bit of getting used to before you can be as effective here as you are in a regular match. Personally, I preferred Tekken 4's "Tekken Force" as an action/adventure alternative, but considering the fact that this is all bonus stuff and not part of the primary experience anyway, it's really not that big a deal. Besides, I still had more fun with this than I did Death by Degrees and I absolutely had to unlock the Devil Jin (which becomes accessible by completing this feature).The development team could have left the features list at is and still had one of the deepest fighting products around for the PlayStation 2. But in a move that has to be considered one of the best bonus additions ever, Namco has also included three arcade-perfect emulations of Tekken 1, 2, and 3. Known as Arcade History Mode, these three classics could have warranted their very own compilation disc -- so when you consider that they've been included with Tekken 5 free of charge (and with almost zero loading time), you have yourself one hell of a great deal.

The only real disappointment is that Tekken 5 is devoid of any online feature whatsoever. And while I'm always the first to concede that the PlayStation 2 doesn't exactly provide the greatest online experience around, it's still a little heartbreaking that there's absolutely no way we can compete against worldwide players without having to travel to a regional tournament first. Just imagine how cool it would have been to hop on over to Tekken Zaibatsu and challenge some of the top tier players only to face them in a matter of minutes. Or even better, what if you could call up some old pals halfway across the country for a friendly competition to remind you of the good old days? Oh well, maybe the lack of online is good thing -- since true broadband Tekken would probably rob me of sleep for a couple of months.Luckily Tekken 5 is put together so gorgeously that it's easy to forgive its lack of an online mode. Supporting 480p progressive scan and 16:9 widescreen, the game looks brilliant on any HDTV that can support it. But even if you don't have the hardware to enjoy such things, Tekken 5 is still one of the best looking PlayStation 2 games around. Whether it's the meticulous detail given to the character models, the excellent animations in each character's faces and bodies, or the beautiful environments that have been recreated for the stages, Tekken 5 is seriously good looking. And for fans of Namco's always-killer CG, they won't be disappointed here. It's easily some of the best work the studio has done and makes me wonder if the powers that be will ever authorize a full-length motion picture ala Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The team certainly has the technology and talent to do it.

Equally inspiring is the overall audio presentation. More diverse and less repetitive than any of the other game's in the series, Tekken 5's soundtrack has finally beaten out Tekken 2 for the title of "Best Tekken music. The ending themes in particular are done extremely well, and there's a wide range of tunes that fit the cast of characters rather effectively. Happily the sound effects are just as powerful and provide everything you'd expect to hear in a high-quality fighting game. What impressed me most about Tekken 5's aural quality, though, was the voice-acting. Because for the first time in the history of the series, each and every character speaks with full lines of dialog before, during, and after their matches -- and usually in their native languages (well except for Lei and Xiaoyu that is)!

Closing Comments
After a slow start, 2005 has turned out to be quite an exciting year for the PlayStation 2, and Tekken 5 is one of the main reasons for it. Just like other recent high profile sequels like Devil May Cry 3 and Gran Turismo 4, Tekken 5 has managed to expand on its long-established gameplay mechanics without sacrificing the things that made it great. Better balancing, a ton of gameplay modes, smarter AI, and high-quality presentational elements are tough things to beat -- but Tekken 5 has all of them.

And while I'm just as bummed as you are that there isn't an online mode included in the package, Tekken 5 still packs enough value to be an easy recommendation for fighting game fans of any and all skill levels. Namco's last PS2 Tekken is definitely its best... even if Jinpachi Mishima is a cheap little he-b1tch

Character customization adds a lot of personality to your alter ego.

Grand Theft Auto: San AndreasThe best PlayStation 2 game ever?I'm not going to beat around the bush. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the single best PlayStation 2 title I have ever played. It's larger than the biggest RPG, has more story than the heftiest adventure game, and has almost as many mini-games as Nintendo's Mario Party. Additionally, it has a production value that's second to none, boasts a faithfulness to '90s source material with an eerie accuracy, and provides more hours of entertainment than all the previous Grand Theft Autos combined. In short, it's a terrific unending masterpiece of a game -- and one that will never fall victim to an over-exaggeration of its lofty status. It's the defining piece of software for Sony's successful sophomore system, and it's almost impossible to imagine a PlayStation 2 library without it.
Now I realize that with a statement like that, I leave a lot of expectations on the table. Immediate questions from longtime GTA players (and haters) will no doubt surface regarding what kind of problems San Andreas must have. Does the framerate still stutter? Is pop-in and draw distance still an issue? Are there any collision quandaries or other graphics-related bugs? Are the sound effects still tame by other action game standards? Does the AI ever have stupid moments or not perform the way you'd want it to? And is it true that there's absolutely no form of online play whatsoever? To be honest, the answer to all those questions is a definite yes. But an even better question to ask (and one that has a lot more direct impact) is, "Do any of the issues explored above really detract from the overall experience?" In a word: No.
But how is that possible? Isn't that a significant number of concerns for one game to handle? Sure it may sound like the case when clumped together like that, but in practice it's almost completely unnoticeable. For starters, the frequencies at which the graphical hitches mentioned above appear in comparison to when they don't is so lopsided, that I'm left unaffected. Additionally, there's literally so much to experience in the single player game that the lack of online play isn't missed in the least, while the minor sound effect kinks and other presentational issues get completely dwarfed by everything else that the game manages to do right.The big curiosity, of course, is just what is it that San Andreas does so right in the first place? After all, IGN and every other videogame publication on the planet have been sworn to secrecy since first getting our hands on the game late last week. And while it's true that we've told you all about the different kinds of features that Rockstar had plans to implement by release day, nobody's talked about how those features actually felt. Even more importantly, though, no one has mentioned the number one reason that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is so amazing to begin with: it's the first game I can ever remember that asks its players to wonder "What can't you do" as opposed to "What can you?"
Johnson N The Hood
The storyline of San Andreas should feel somewhat familiar to fans of 1990s cinema. Borrowing rather heavily from John Singleton, Spike Lee, and Ernest Dickerson pictures, this iteration of Grand Theft Auto is all about the thug life when it was still in its infancy. Following the exploits of young Carl Johnson, the game begins as CJ returns from exile in Liberty City after learning that his mother's been killed via unknown circumstances. CJ feels pretty torn about coming back too, as he originally left Los Santos five years ago when his younger brother Brian was mercilessly gunned down. Nevertheless, family's family and Carl returns home to San Andreas to pay his respects.
Within seconds of arriving in Los Santos, however, CJ is met by two bastardly police officers: Frank Tenpenny and Eddie Polaski. Rotten to the core, the pair of crooked officers robs Carl of all his money, frames him for the death of a cop that's on to their schemes, and tosses him into the middle of enemy gang territory. Weaponless and outnumbered, CJ is forced to run back to his old neighborhood in an effort to survive. Once resolved, things really begin to take off, and players will meet a huge assortment of characters in a short period of time. CJ's older brother Sweet, his sister Kendl and her boyfriend Caesar, Carl's friends Big Smoke and Ryder, and a massive gallery of supporting personalities all weave an intricate plot that's easily among the best storylines this year.In fact, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has probably the best narrative of any of the three PS2 GTAs far. It's certainly more multifaceted than 2002's Vice City anyway, and offers up a large selection of interwoven and completely independent plot threads that really help to tell an effective story. And while the characters don't grow or evolve the same way they would in an adventure game or an RPG (save for CJ), they're still vastly different from one another and do a great job of keeping things interesting. The absolutely terrible rhyme-deficient street rapper OG Loc, for example, is in complete contrast to your serious older brother Sweet. San Fierro's honorable Tong leader Wuzi is a great alternative to the tough-talking mystery man Mike Torreno. And your harsh but loving sister Kendl is as different as can be from your psycho 'kill everything that moves' girlfriend from the San Fierro countryside. Best of all, though, none of these characters are annoying or out of place (unless they're intended to be) -- and almost all of them offer up some truly memorable scenery.
Those that are ethically opposed to the content of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, however, aren't going to find anything different this time around. The plot is still brutal, the characters are still ruthless, and the moral of the story is that there isn't really a moral. So yes, this still isn't the type of fairy tale you'll want to show your children (unless you want to show them what NOT to do); but for adults who love crime dramas, action films, and gangsta rap, the devices here are strong and offer up a great deal of twists, turns, and interesting visceral situations. It even ties in rather nicely with Vice City and GTA3 for long-time fans of the series.
Menace II Three Societies
One of the reasons that the game is so impressive is because of the technology that powers it. No longer restricted to just a single city, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is huge: almost six times the size of Vice City and even more so than GTA3. Broken into three major metropolises (Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas) the map's major designations are separated by countryside, desert, mountains, and a dozen smaller towns in-between. Though not an official time stamp by any means, it took me more than half an hour to drive from the southern-most part of Los Santos into the west through San Fierro -- and then Northeast into Las Venturas. Keep in mind; I didn't stop for anything along the way and avoided traffic as best I could. I didn't stop off at any of the smaller towns either. Needless to say, enormous doesn't even begin to describe how big this monster really is.
Making the trip even more jaw dropping is the fact that the entire state of San Andreas streams entirely off the disc -- with no loading screens to be found except for when transitioning to the indoors or when activating missions at a key point. Even then, the waiting time tops off at about five to six seconds before starting again which is comparable to the period typically found in other action titles for the system. And though Vice City worked on the same technology, the number of framerate hitches and pop-in issues are much lower here than they were before. Granted, you will run into some slowdown and a few bizarre glitch moments when the screen is populated with car crash casualties, but as I mentioned earlier, the frequency at which the appears is more than forgivable when compared to how smoothly the game usually runs
What specifically caught my eye about the world of San Andreas, though, is the fact that it's a true mini-society. The dynamic climate, for example, differs quite drastically from area to area. The San Francisco-inspired city of San Fierro, for example, is frequently cursed with a mixture of fog, rain, and overcast afternoons. Los Santos, on the other hand, is surrounded by a constant haze brought on by the area's terrible level of pollution while Las Venturas is almost always sunny thanks to its arid climate. These weather patterns behave just as they do in real life too, which enables climates the ability to change their spots from time to time. DJs on the radio will even mention these weather breakups and inform players when they can expect to see alterations to their environment.But there's more to recreating a mini-society than just simulating a bunch of weather patterns and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas seems to know it. Rival gangs, for example, are at constant war with one another -- so don't be surprised if you see members of the Orange Grove Families blasting away at rival Ballers while you drive through the city streets. Cops will stop and bust them for their crimes just as quickly as they'd bust you as well, making it easier to get away with robbing or killing if they've already got their hands full with somebody else.
Additionally, people on the streets will make comments to CJ based on his appearance. If Carl's fat and out of shape, for instance, he'll be ridiculed and made fun of. But if he's buff and well-dressed, the townspeople will recognize this and make positive comments supporting him. This is just one example of how the world is alive and players can also expect to see drug pushers walking the streets and making deals, citizens running for their lives from criminals other than you, and normal everyday fender benders happening between the game's less coordinated AI drivers. But that's only scratching the surface: cars can rust and get dirty the more you use them unless they're washed; traffic flows more heavily during the morning and evening hours to mirror real-life rush hours; pedestrians change clothing styles and speech patterns based on the towns they live in; construction workers holler and whistle at women as they walk by; and cops make a much more concerted effort to follow their targets until they're completely and totally out of sight. Sure it may not be The Sims, but for what it is it's damn extensive.How Do U Want It?
Naturally, it would only make sense to allow CJ to be just as alive as the world in which he lives; and that's exactly what Rockstar has enabled him to do. By far one of the most dramatic improvements that's been made since Vice City, the ability to customize CJ anyway you want is more than just presentational -- it also has a direct effect on how well you can play the game. Cycling, driving, holding your breath underwater, and riding motorcycles are all individual skills that can be improved upon by undertaking them more often. And the more you do them, the easier they are to perform. What's so cool about this aspect, though, is that none of these skills have to be worked on in order for CJ to be successful; your own ability with the dual shock and some determination is really all you need. But for those of us that enjoy the role-playing ideal of building up experience and becoming more powerful, it's a great incentive to try things we normally wouldn't repeat.
These kinds of improvements aren't just limited to how responsive your vehicles control either. Dressing well, keeping fit, and increasing the amount of respect that you have in the eyes of other thugs can be improved upon as well. Should you let yourself go and become a fat slob, for example, you'll be less likely to earn points for your Sex Appeal stat in order to woo the ladies for those always-fun girlfriend fornication side-missions (plus it'll be harder for you to increase your stamina attribute). If you head to the gym and jump on the treadmill or bench-press, however, you can burn the fat consumed by eating food and turn it into muscle and increased stamina. Your new buff bod not only makes you more attractive to the ladies and better respected by your homeboys, but it also makes your melee attacks more powerful and your ability to sprint last longer.
There are a number of other customizable goodies at CJ's disposal as well. Clothes can be bought at several different garment stores all over San Andreas, and each one offers a specific kind of look that uses just about every style imaginable from the 1990s. Haircuts and tattoos can be added to your character too, and depending on the quality of your appearance, you'll evoke bigger reactions out of women and fellow gang members. Similarly, ugly or cheap clothing gets you laughed at or ignored by those you're trying to impress most, but regardless of the reactions you get it's just further proof of how realistic Grand Theft Auto has truly become.
The Player's Club
Of all the improvements made to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, however, the most important are the enhancements that have been made to the existing gameplay mechanics. Though similar to Vice City in that you can still lock on to enemies with the R1 button and cycle through targets with the L2 and R2 keys, the system is much smarter than it was before. One of the biggest complaints in Vice City, for instance, was that the target-cycle would lock onto dead enemies as well as live ones -- costing you valuable firefight time and making missions more frustrating than they should be. Now that problem is completely fixed with a much more accurate (and faster) cursor that locks onto the biggest threat in front of you until it's completely eliminated. In short, it's what Vice City's targeting system should have been.Rockstar has also incorporated several of the gunplay elements from last year's brutal stealth actioner Manhunt. Players can finally move, fire, and zoom in on their opponents all at the same time with deadly accuracy. The optional manual targeting camera (which can be activated at any time with the right analog stick) feels terrific and enables players to pinpoint specific locations on their victims. To supplement this feature, your proficiency with each weapon is increased each time you fire it -- which opens up new abilities for Carl to toy around with as his skills progresses. When mastering the micro sub-machine guns, for example, players will eventually gain the ability to strafe and fire their weapons simultaneously while wielding two guns instead of one. Hand-to-hand combat has also been drastically upgraded with a wider variety of moves, the option to learn new techniques at gyms across the state, and the incorporation of a limited combo system. Carl is by no means a helpless badass.
But the targeting system isn't the only aspect of Manhunt that San Andreas has claimed for its own, as it's taken its stealth-oriented mechanics as well. Though not as important or as frequent in comparison, the need to crouch in the shadows and sneak up behind your victims adds a nice touch to what's otherwise a high-speed action game. In truth, the stealth missions are among my favorites: with the heavy breathing of CJ the only sound you can hear while sneaking from place to place and silently cutting throats. And while it's nowhere near as brutal, graphic, or meticulous as it was in Mahunt, it's still somehow just as satisfying. But then again, that's really what makes San Andreas so appealing in the first place -- its ability to consistently present players with missions that not only introduce all-new gameplay features, but in which each feels as important as the last, regardless of whether they're directly tied into the storyline progression or not.
In the Las Venturas desert mission "Monster Mash," for example, Carl is called upon to drive to the Terra Robada ranch just outside of San Fierro for a meeting with a mysterious man. Once he arrives a stranger approaches him with simple orders: take a monster truck and race through several difficult checkpoints in less than seven minutes. Simple as it may sound, it's a clever way of introducing you to an all-new gameplay feature: full four-wheel steering via the R1 button instead of the typical handbrake. Similarly, CJ will eventually reach a point where he undertakes "Learning to Fly" -- a series of airplane and helicopter tests which teach him how to pilot the fastest transportation in the game. It's fast, fun, and like every mission in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, is overly challenging.
But that's only a smidgen of the different kinds of missions that players can look forward to. San Andreas does offer more than 100 different quests and challenges after all, and boasts everything from the scenarios mentioned above to escort missions, stealth-oriented home robberies, on-rails shooting situations, traditional car races, and lots, lots more. There's even an unparalleled selection of mini-games to undertake in your spare time -- including a Dance Dance Revolution-type rhythm game to play when in clubs, a small collection of arcade games that play exactly like Tempest, Asteroids, and Defender, and a fully-realized pool game that has its own physics system and betting option. And don't forget, you can also travel into town and bet on horse races, gamble at practically every known game inside the Las Venturas casinos, and even team up with second player for two-person rampages.

Pre-E3 2005: Hitman: Blood MoneyIO's cold blooded killer is back and more famous than ever. Briliant new trailer inside.

The man named 47 has to be one of the most brutally interesting characters in mature rated video games today. He's uncompromising, violent, skilled, and extremely professional. While we've seen a little bit into his past and slipped into his bloody shoes in the first few games, 47 will have his biggest challenge yet when Hitman: Blood Money gets released to stores. IO Interactive is intent on making this sequel one to be proud of and in turn are adding a ton of new features, a deep story with just as many twisted turns as before, new weapons, and an updated engine. This is one of those games you don't want your children to play, but for those of us that can handle the content and context, Hitman: Blood Money should provide both a thoughtful and strategic experience and a brutal shooter... but this all depends on how notorious you're willing to get.

After so much death, you would think that a man would finally have his fill of blood and pain. But it seems that our bald buddy still has some room in the cracks. At the beginning of the game, 47 is back in the business and working for the ICA again. "Blood Money introduces a great new storyline," states Blood Money Producer Neil Donnel. "Admittedly when the player begins it may seem like business as usual for Agent 47 but by the second level, they'll know something's up and as they progress through the game, the plot will gradually unfurl and reveal some nasty surprises." Unfortunately, that's as far as Eidos and IO seem willing to go with the details of the story beyond the press release, which clearly states ICA assassins begin getting killed one at a time. After losing all contact with ICA, 47 does the wise thing and picks up shop to begin anew in America.

The trailer, which we have for you exclusively today, actually hints at quite a bit more. It seems as though the CIA may play a bigger role as 47 rises in noteriety and becomes legend. The first few lines speak as though he's a fairy tale. While there's little other than those few clues, we can also clearly see that 47 will be heading down to Las Vegas for some dirty work. Some of the concept art that we've been presented with also suggest the seedier side of the game comes back full force with hints at the pornography industry, a crazy gun toting bishop, and leather clad ladiesAlong with the hints of notoriety for 47 come a couple of new game systems that actually take advantage of that idea in a way that should make the way levels are completed more important to future levels than it ever has been in past Hitman games. The first idea is that of Notoriety itself. It seems pretty obvious, but if you're a hired assassin, it's probably in your best interest to stay in the dark and complete missions with the least fuss possible. In and out with no one the wiser. "Think about it, if you are an assassin your career will last much longer if you are able to take out your hits undetected," says Donnel. However, as anyone who has played Hitman games in the past knows, sometimes stealth just aint gonna happen. As before, you will be able to complete missions in whichever way you wish. "If you do choose to play through guns blazing, this will have a natural effect on a lot of the newly improved feature sets but this only increases the depth and experience of the gameplay to follow."Basically what that means is that "...those who have 'played like a murderous freak' and drawn a little too much attention to themselves, their work won't go unnoticed by the media… The new Notoriety system means that anyone causing a bloodbath worthy of front page news is risking being recognised by civilians and guards in the future." I tend to like this idea. There's still relative freedom as far as gameplay goes, meaning you can play a level through however you wish. But now there's a great amount of encouragement to play the game like an actual hitman.

But the consequence of gaining Notoriety reaches farther than risking recognition during later levels. Those that complete the levels without being noticed and complete the perfectly clean hit will be rewarded with greater amounts of cash. With cash comes opportunity. Enter the Blood Money system. "The player can choose to spend their earnings on fully customisable precision weapons and specialist equipment, or they can buy additional information upon the targets and location at hand, to aid a successful and professional hit." Additionally, if you manage to leave a bloody scene behind, you'll have the option to have it "cleaned up." For a fee, you can make sure that any evidence like a dead body or witness won't cause future problemsThat deadly arsenal, which could easily justify calling in a cleaner, just seems to grow and grow with each passing game. "Other than 47's standard weapons, like his Silverballer pistols and W2000 sniper rifle (which have over 50 customizable options available now) there is a new set of weapons in game. Expect different kinds of silenced firearms, close and long range weapons, household items, poisons. The trusty fibre wire is still available of course…" explains Donnel. If you watch the trailer you can get a look at some old favorites and new goodies, including a nice kill with a set of weights. Heavy lifting indeed. One of the other weapons looks to be a timed explosive... which is super cool. Watch the bodies go flying in all directions. Not the cleanest hit in the world, but certainly exciting enough to let your enemies know you care.

While weapons certainly have a lot of flash and bang, there are several other important actions that can be taken in order to both stay out of sight or just cause a stir. "Expect some other cool new mechanics for 47. He now has greater interaction with the environment which results in a new style of moves, for instance causing accidents and distracting guards. He also has greater interaction with other characters, for instance, he can now use people as human shields and dispose of bodies in some new 'interesting' ways." One other move seen pretty clearly in both the trailer and one of the screens shows 47 pistol whipping victims from behind. Donnel also added that new moves are still being placed into the game that they aren't quite ready to talk about calling these "just a taste of things to come...."

But even with all of the new moves in the world, one of the most important aspects of a Hitman game is the realistic nature of the AI. It's gotten better with each game up until now, so it wasn't hard to figure out AI might also improve in Blood Money. "The engine and scripts that power the game's AI have been completely re-written," says Donnel. "Expect NPC's to react accordingly to the environment and the people around them, they will follow blood trails and investigate suspicious items and behaviour." While this could potentially make things more difficult, Donnel suggests that it actually opens up new possibilities for gameplay by creating the opportunity to use distractions to draw guards away from sensitive areas. "Additionally a new pathfinder engine provides further improved tracking and movement, resulting in more realistic NPC behaviour and interaction. This enhanced behaviour can also aid Hitman as the NPC's can provide information that'll give the player clues as to how to get passed them or through the level."Speaking of the engine, Donnel points out that the AI isn't the only aspect that's been improved. "Graphically, Hitman: Blood Money is the first game to be powered by IO Interactive's latest implementation of the powerful Glacier engine. This features a new render engine supporting up to shader model 3.x, allowing realistic refraction based environment effects. Both the Xbox and PC versions will feature dynamic soft shadows, and a new character rendering system consisting of a highly realistic rendering system, utilising normal mapping, self shadowing and rim lighting. If you watch the trailer and look at the shots, you'll notice a definite improvement in the visuals, especially when dealing with detail on the characters. 47's face has a slightly different look than previous incarnations, going for a squarer jaw and meaner face in general. As usual, there's also a pretty large emphasis being placed on detailed texture work to make the environments pop more than they might otherwise.

Along with the signature visuals that Hitman is known for, music will also play an important role to tension and drama. If you haven't heard the music from past Hitman games, you're really missing something special and both IO and Eidos are committed to bringing back that very important piece of the puzzle including the brilliant Jesper Kyd, who has composed the music for previous Hitman titles along with a range of others. "For this game we wanted a very epic score that would match the nature of the storyline and he's definitely delivered. The music was recorded a while back with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra and Choir." You can even get an earful of what's in store for the final game with the new trailer. While the music was recorded for that trailer and will not be found in the game, it is "inspired and representative of the score used in Blood Money" giving you a good chance to hear the magic early.

Hitman: Blood Money is definitely sounding good at this point. The new features like the Blood Money and Notoriety systems along with the new moves weapons should fill out an already impressive repertoire. We'll be checking out the game in action at this E3, so look back for a first hand account from the show floor starting the 18th of this month.

Need for Speed Underground 2You want 40 hours of racing? EA delivers the most ambitious game in the series.

Overshadowed by the big three sequels this fall -- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Half-Life 2, and Halo 2 -- the world's best selling game in 2003 really isn't something that should be ignored. Electronic Arts' Need for Speed Underground 2 is a huge makeover, improving on every aspect of last year's version by building an impressive level of depth in every facet of play.

An arcade racer by nature, NFSU2 expands into many new territories with a deep, complex progression system. It builds out an impressive customization mode, lacking in last year's model, and furthers its reach into America's trendy import tuner culture with the appropriate dialog, music, and the addition, of all things, SUVs. The result is a startling 40-plus hour game that's well composed, packed with aggresive AI, and is perhaps a little too big for its own good.

Presentation and Progression
Electronic Arts' massively expanded Need For Speed Underground 2 isn't a sequel in the normal sense of the word. Instead, it's a reinvention, derived from the open model made popular by Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series and racing-action games like Midtown Madness and Midnight Club. Comprised of a five-part city, the fictitious urban center known as Bayview is the imaginative ideal for midnight racing speedsters. It's open, large, and filled with a half dozen racing types.

Coal Harbor, City Core, Beacon Hill, Jackson Heights, and the Airport all provide distinct driving opportunities for players looking for the same kinds of racing variety presented in Need for Speed Underground. Only now, they're all tied into one thriving city. Beacon Hill, for instance, is superb for drifting, while City Core includes an impressive and extensive freeway system connecting together the whole city and giving gamers an excellent collection of drag racing and circuit courses to boot.
To get through the massive real estate of Bayview and to fulfill your destiny as an import tuning master, you'll need to do several things, the first of which is racing: Win races and you'll progress. But it's not just racing, it's the way you progress. The game encourages you to explore its many nuances, to become a part of the "lifestyle," and in many ways it rewards you for doing so. There are strategically placed stacks of cash waiting to be collected, a few shortcuts here and there -- though not nearly enough -- and glowing rings of color representing racing opportunities, garages, and more.

But if you get bored, and you will because there isn't enough hidden stuff to keep your interest high, you can drop out of the Career Mode's Explore mode and enter World Map. The difference is that Explore mode enables you to drive freely about the city looking for races, getting lost in Out Run races here, and being distracted by shops and garages there. The World Map presents the distilled version of Explore Mode, giving you a menu, a list of races to beat, stats and Quit.

I found this version of the Career mode interesting. It's a mode of great efficiency, skipping the audio chat and the random encounters, which, to be honest, become tedious. It's this way because, unlike GTA, where there are dozens of distractions, there are almost none in NFSU2. There are no civilians, there aren't that many secrets, and the shortcuts are lacking. It makes me think that EA had a hunch people might simply just want to race -- skipping the whole exploring business altogether. I know that once I found this mode, I stopped exploring almost entirely. In that sense, the huge city of Bayview is actually a big letdown.

The manner in which you must beat NFSU2 is really interesting. It's based on winning races, earning cash, earning a reputation, and by modding the hell out of your ride. You earn money by winning races; lose money by losing races. You earn a reputation by winning races with a large margin between you and the second place opponent. The more better reputation you earn, the greater the breadth of sponsors you'll have, which means more free cars and more money. The more cash you have, the more you can drop on your vehicle, which you shouldn't get too attached to because you'll eventually have to, or may want to, trade it in. You can only fit five cars in your garage simultaneously.

Your ride is measured by a Visual Rating of 10 stars. The more detailed your ride, the higher the rating goes. Smartly, EA also tied in the visual rating to progression. For instance, you have to reach a certain star quota to be on the cover of a magazine, which is a requirement of a sponsor. It's all intelligently connected.

So, if you just wanted to race, you'll find EA has plans for you to explore the import tuning culture one way or another. But it's worth it. Honestly, I have little interest in modding cars. Here, I was encouraged to have fun with it. While my first car was sleek and trim (foregoing anything garish and too time-consuming), my second car was flamboyant and colorful (OK, garish), and creating it was way more enjoyable.

Last, you progress by completing a level (which consists of the requirements of the sponsor and a few other races). There are five overall and each one ups the difficulty of AI, and the rewards of your sponsor always include a free car -- almost always faster and sleeker than the one you're driving.

In short, EA has managed to create one of the best, most robust and efficient progression systems in this generation of racers -- even if the city itself feels like an empty shell. The details are lengthy, so I'll be semi-brief: You can use a GPS system to find the race you want, the Dpad is incredibly handy in showing a detailed map of races and garages, and the map's customizable and visually easy to use. Having played a lot of Gran Turismo 3 A-spec and many other menu-heavy racing games, this one comes up aces. Navigating this massive city and simply enabling you get to all the stats, races, and spots you need to get to is great. Too bad the city itself isn't all that interesting to explore. That, and I really wished there were more freeway exits. There were so many times I was stuck on the freeway passing up a race spot, but I couldn't get off the freeway.
Off To The Races
EA's 30-plus cars are good in some ways, bad in others. Several of the rides are quite desirable, including the new Ford Mustang and the Nissan 350Z. But you'll have to wait and earn those. And you'll have to seriously upgrade any vehicle to get a good sense of speed. That takes a while, too. The other vehicles are just plain average and it's a wonder anyone would want to drive them. Surely, some are classic mod specialties, but from a strict racing perspective, the Toyota Corolla? Eck. Anyway, you'll start with the lower ranking set and, as you win, faster, more popular cars appear.

All of the cars in NFSU2 are licensed, from the Toyotas to the Nissans to the Hyundais and Cadillacs. While from an import tuner perspective, the addition of SUVs and trucks might be "kewl," driving these beasts is an exercise in misery, sluggishness, and horrific handling. You might want to "challenge" yourself with some of these, but you may also want to throw yourself off a cliff (and you can take your Cadillac Navigator with you).

There are a half dozen race types, giving NFSU2 superb breadth and depth. There's Outrun (a pick-up race in which you must ditch your opponent), Street X (rough closed-circuit technical races), Sprint (one long race), Circuits (multiple lap courses), Drag (top speed straightaway runs), Drift (point-based technique races centered on sliding), and Underground League, a set of random circuits.

The Street X races are a mixture of skill and excitement, wanton rage and sheer trial and error gameplay. The AI in Street X races is set to agro, which is fine, but they're cheap too. It's an all-out smash-'em-up derby, and sometimes the randomness goes your way, other times not. The same goes for the drag races. They are longer, have more stuff in them, and control with a more regimented steering mechanism. You tap the Dpad to switch lanes, and when in one, you're loosely magnetized to that lane. Instead of cross traffic there is oncoming traffic and roadblocks and random obstacles are more commonplace. Sadly, there are no more jumps. It's different than NFS, but after a few races, it's actually just as good.

If you're familiar with the Need for Speed series, then the way these cars handle won't surprise. There is a good mixture of arcade and realistic handling in them all, but these cars are more realistic, more "weighty," and less twitchy. The result is that powerslides and drifts work better, and more skill is required to drive them well. Unfortunately, in order for most of these rides to reach any satisfying levels of speed, you'll need to seriously upgrade them. While EA's other racer, Burnout 3: Takedown, is a different kind of game, it needs to be said that no racing game this year, including NFSU2, comes close to equaling its sense of speed. So, no, it's not as fast as Burnout 3. Nothing is.

On the other hand, even the worst cars here are capable of cool tricks, drifts, and slick powerslides. There are few, if any racers in which you can pull into a 180 turn with the brake, slam down the e-brake, and slide into a continuous rubber-burning 360 peelout. You can literally just pull off donuts all day on any main street. It's sweet.

Unlike several previous games in this series, there is no car damage (and no drivers in the vehicles), so driving can often careen into an exercise in laziness and dereliction. It's pretty sad. The biggest consequence revolves around NOS. If you've bought NOS, you can then earn more by pulling off moves -- powerslides, avoiding oncoming traffic, pulling off a clean section, getting air, etc. If you smash into other cars and beat up your vehicle, you'll lose NOS. The biggest issue with the default NOS is that it's used up so damn fast. But you can tune it to your liking. Also, avoiding traffic earns you more NOS than a more skilled trick like powerslides, which seems wrong.

One of the best parts of playing NFSU2 is its thoroughly conceived customization sections. There are hundreds of exterior parts to apply to your ride and they're all easy to apply. The range of parts is excessive -- spoilers, hoods, siding, mufflers, rims, spinners, window tinting, funky trunks, speed dials, neon undercolors, five layers of decals, etc. -- it goes on and on. Nearly all parts are unlocked due to winning races, and the newer, cooler version can be added as you get deeper and deeper into the game. They all contribute to your Visual Rating, so they thankfully tie into the best goals -- winning races.
The under-the-hood tuning is also excessively good. Unlike last year's rather trite upgrade system, this one not only exists, but you can tune your car in the Dyno Room and see instant realistic results. Street Racing Syndicate did this first, but I think NFSU2 does it better. That's mainly because the car can be tested on a track and then adjusted on the fly and brought back to dyno test again, and all of it is executed quickly and easily.

For the PS2, Xbox and PC, the online game is solid if predictable. You can get online with your custom rides and race with as many as five other opponents simultaneously. There is very little slowdown, the cars drive extremely well, and the voice chat is as good as it gets. All of the race types are playable online too. The GameCube version is not online.

Graphics
Visually, NFSU2 improves upon its excellent looking original in every way, plus several little bonuses sweeten the deal. At least that's true on the Xbox. The PS2 is a slight step down, thoug it's still quite good looking, and the GameCube is a big step down, with a slower framerate that affects gameplay. All of the consoles support widescreen 480p.

The diversity of the city is impressive in both its art direction and architecture. Bayview is an imaginary city, but if you look close it's a compilation of several cities you know. There are bridges reminiscent of Seattle, a radio tower that looks like it's been stolen straight off Twin Peaks, SF, and the city center area could easily be any major metropolitan center. Some houses in Beacon Hill and Jackson Heights look like they've been snatched out of the Hollywood and Beverly Hills.

The lighting is excellent. NFSU had many dark patches, and this one makes up for that with cats eyes and better sign placement. The cars all show realtime reflections off windows and exteriors, and EA has made sure there is some kind of Chinatown section filled with bright flickering lights. The game still takes place all at night again, but it's now during several times of the night. So you've got early evening when the sun it setting, late night when the sky is pitch black, and early dawn. The artistically handled skies and gorgeously imagined clouds help bring an additional layer of realism and beauty to the game.

The streets aren't always dark and wet now either (though the patented dark wet streets are back). The weather changes. Sometimes right in the middle of a race, you'll hear thunder and then it starts pouring, which affects your handling. When you drive beneath underpasses, you'll see the rain coming down in only those patches open to the sky. There are no people on the streets, but trees sway in the background and cars independently drive by, crash, stall and mill about the city. When you pull off donuts, clouds of smoke billow up behind you. On the whole, EA's done an excellent job with the visuals on the PC and Xbox versions, and to a certain extent, it's done as best it could on the PS2. Too bad about the Cube version.

On the downside, there are several minor quibbles. The car models aren't that detailed. I'm not sure what the polygon count for each car is, but this game won't win best car model awards anytime soon. I could easily do without the cutscene crashes -- they just get in the way -- and the graphic novel segues feel contrived and like an excuse for not having anything else. How many times can we see the same painted image of Brooke Burke? I guess a freakin' lot.

Sound
As with the previous Underground, this year's model offers a cacophony of impactful sound effects. Each car has its distinct gear revs, disinct idles, depth to its engine sounds, and distinct tire-burning screeches. The gear switches sound thick and real. The crashes sound like real metal twisting and windows shattering. And all of the little menu sounds, of ignition, keys turning, gears clicking -- create a great feeling of power and car satisfaction.

Brooke Burke's voice acting is state of the art Brooke Burke -- she's a no-nonsense car chick who knows she's hot. She likes to talk about slamming, jamming and peeling, so someone's going to like her work. As for the rest of the cast, I've now come to expect the sound of "cool" dudes that use the most "hip" lingo around. I guess people talk like that, right? Yo! Know what I'm saying dawg? Ugh...
The soundtrack is a collection of 27 songs, compiled on EA's Trax. They can be customized so you can hear them in the menus, when racing, not at all, or at any time. You can hear them in sequential or random order. I personally hadn't heard 90% of the songs, and the tunes like Snapcase's "Skeptic," Skindred's "Nobody" and SpiderBait's "Black Betty" got the "off" switch from me. I don't know, is this what the kids are listening to now? I mean, even Snoop Dogg's Doors remix of "Riders on the Storm (Fredwreck Remix)" was pretty damn bad. And it's not like I haven't heard that song a million times already.

NFSU2 supports Pro Logic I & II for Cube and PS2, and Dolby 5.1 surround sound for Xbox.

Closing Comments
While NFSU2 contains some aspects of its predecessor, several major changes make it a significantly different game. The world is massive and open, filled with many more courses that before. The progression scheme is complex and you'll find yourself winning to earn money so you can spend it on modding the heck out of your car over and over again. The cars are more weighty and a little more realistic too, requiring more skill from the driver.

The sad part is that the huge city is actually too huge for its own good. You'll grow bored driving around the mostly empty streets, and once you collect the small quantity of Info letters, find the few shortcuts, and open up the garages, there's not much left. The Outrun races ARE fun, but some of them can last up to 15 minutes, and if you want to progress, you're simply going to have to wait.

In all, NFSU2 is an impressive, and more importantly, fun game that overcomes its faults with depth, breadth, and variety.

Wake up to the smell of burnt asphalt as the thrill of illicit street racing permeates the air. From the makers of the hit Need for Speed™ Underground series, Need for Speed™ Most Wanted challenges players to become the most notorious and elusive street racer.

In the original Need for Speed games back in the day, getting into a tough cop chase was always a prerequisite. That was the peanut butter part of the PB&J sandwich. The thrill of the chase, dangerous roads, numerous escape routes, and perhaps even outthinking -- or, at least, narrowly out-running -- the cops was, and still very much is, a great concept for any videogame. You couldn't do it in the Need for Speed Underground series, but you'll be able to do it now, and hot-damn is it fun.

A New Feel
Visiting EA's Hot Summer Night event last night, I played the three-part demo for about an hour, about 45 minutes more than most games; that's because I was riveted by all three parts of the demo. The quick demo showed off a Toll Booth race, Sprint Race, and a Drag Race, each one incrementally more difficult than the last. EA demoed the Xbox version, which ran at a fast clip, somewhere around 30 FPS, with a range of cars on-screen from traffic to frenetic cop cars, to just plain opponent cars. The whole demo looked solid. The RX8 I raced in was custom modified, and the shape and design was beautiful, tasteful, and unique. The NFS team hired a custom builder who modified each car model distinctly for this game, so each one is different, uniquely designed to match its particular body shape. Every one is painted with a touch of artistry and aesthetics.

The races themselves put me in a car -- a souped-up Mazda RX8 -- that would normally be unlocked much further in the game, so it felt distinct, powerful, challenging. The car felt heavier than I expected in weight, quite burly, a lot more powerful than the real RX8 I test drove last December, and it tended to glide or slide a little to the side, almost like it rumbled, or vibrated, to the left or right due to its sheer power. It took me a while to adjust to, but I eventually did grow accustomed to its distinct style.

Adding to the game's new feel is the style of cars in it. Much has changed in the world of racing since a non-NFS "Underground" game came out. So the game is filled with street cars, and they all offer different handling, senses of speed, and varying controls. Producer Larry LaPierre said the cars do indeed feel different than in Underground, and they're still in development, so the handling on each is still undergoing examination, tweaking, and balancing.

The Game
We learned there are at least 40 cars in NFS: Most Wanted, including models from Porsche (including the new Camen S), Mazda (RX8), Toyota, Chevy (Corvette), Ford (Mustang, GT), Lamborghini, Cadillac, BMW (GT4), and Volkswagen, to name a few. The game will not include SUVs, and there won't be any Ferraris in it either. This is by no means a complete car list, instead it's a sampling of what to expect. EA will announce the full car list at a later date.

The game comprises straight racing, and pursuit races. You can play it any way you want, but eventually you'll have to encounter either the straight races or the pursuits. Pure racing includes sprints, tolls races, and drag racing, while pursuits include variations of cop chases, from point to points, time-based races, speed trap races, and more. Another new feature is the Pursuit Breaker, which is not to be mistaken with NBA Street's Breaker system. Here, it's a cool trick in which you use destructible objects such as water towers to lay down barriers for cops. The more you can trap or stop, the more points you earn.

The game features a brief story, which isn't really the gist of the game, but it's still there. You will see about 6-9 minutes of FMV setting up the story of you, the new guy in town, intent on beating all the big-shot racers on the town's "black list." Your new nemesis is Sgt. Cross, the town sheriff, who has started clamping down on streets racing, intent on banning them wholesale. During the races, you earn bounty points, which enable you to enter new races, buy new cars, or modify your own vehicles. Mods include exterior modification, though this isn't primarily a mod racing game, and under-the-hood modification, including altering the engine and performance areas.

The Drag
Honestly, while it's worth mentioning, the thing I wanted to get to was the cop chases. The first part of the three-level demo showed off a simple point to point race, in which I had to get from point A to point B in a limited amount of time. The fictitious area in which the game takes place is an East Coast town comprising long, narrow, swerving streets, similar to previous NFS games, only with more hills, turns, and many more multiple pathways, shortcuts and secret roads. The landscape ran through a suburban area, a country fair with a Ferris Wheel, in which a small amount of destructible debris littered the street. This race is simply a checkpoint affair providing a sense of how the car feels, turns, handles, and accelerates.

Once done, you race against a single opponent in the drag race that was shown at E3. This short window into the neighborhood streets sees you passing through a moderately downhill set of turns, crossing through a major intersection in which an 18-wheeler always arrives when you cross the street (it's scripted to do that), and then throwing you into a traffic-filled tunnel leading out to a launch-ramp-like hill that sends you right into a speed trap.

This second race is a pure drag race, exactly like those originating from Need For Speed Underground… only slightly different. You'll feel that same slightly magnetic tracking for each lane; you'll have to manually shift gears, and the whole race is based on reaching peak speeds and balancing your skills with a little luck. In this particular drag race, there was only one spot for cross traffic, sans ramps or jumps. But interestingly enough, there was a shortcut.
While racing, the game rates each of your shifts, from "too early," to "short," to "good" to "perfect" to "too late." You can also burn your engine out, quickly ending the race. Usually that happens when you see a hot chick stroll across the floor while some guy is demoing to you, and you're not looking at the screen anymore. Usually, that's a sign of fatigue, or ADHD, or not getting enough you know what, none of which I have or need, mind you. I'm just saying that could happen to someone, sometime, perhaps…but not to me.

Totally smoking hot, distracting chicks with heaving cleavage aside… skilled shifting in the NFS drag racing is imperative to winning. Each perfect shift enables you to increase your acceleration without interruption, leading to higher speeds faster and out-dueling your opponents. To add to the chaos, you're also fighting off oncoming traffic and the newness of fresh courses.

One new feature might change an expert driver's strategies up a bit. The key addition to NFS Most Wanted is a kind of Bullet Time effect. By pressing a single button, you slow down time enabling you to skillfully and carefully navigate tough turns, harrying moments, or near-collisions with cops or giant semi trucks. In this demo, you'll always want to use the slowdown button when that semi comes rolling around the first turn. Hit it, time slows down, and you can pass through narrowly placed cars, hit extremely sharp turns to get a better angle on the apex, or get yourself out of a tough jam that seemed otherwise impossible. Truth be told, it's more like the "Focus" feature in Tony Hawk's Underground 2 than Max Payne's Bullet Time.

The Rush
The final part of the three-part demo is the gnarliest of the three. The end of the second race sees you blazing through a toll booth. It's a cop-monitored toll booth, in fact, and it takes an automatic photograph of your car as it passes through; and it clocks your speed. The camera flash is blinding for a second, and the screen goes white, and all of a sudden cops are talking on their radios. "Unidentified car speeding through sector 89, going 142 miles per hour, apprehend."

At this point, you're on. Dozens of cops chase after you. A handy map can be pulled up to see exactly how many while you're racing, but I found it's better not to look at anything other than the road. They start by calmly driving alongside your vehicle, but as you continue to speed, they increasingly grow aggressive, until they're ramming, strafing, and speeding head-first into your car. They will drive in front of you and try to tip you, and they'll clamor about you, surrounding the vehicle, in the attempt to drive you into a stationery object, like a tree, brick wall, or cement post.
Ah, but they're not that smart. Somewhat smart, but more than anything they're just aggressive and numerous. You can out-smart them and out-drive them if you're paying attention. While they swarm your vehicle you can slow down and lead them into thinking you're going one way, and then you can quickly turn the other. You can lead them into oncoming traffic. You can coax them into a tunnel and then quickly duck out, or you can use the boost controls to blast out of their range. In the final game, there will be more than the seven cops that were on my tail. Plus, there will be police helicopters that can see you when you duck down an alleyway. Any way you look at it, with Need For Speed Most Wanted, the heat it on.