Bomberman World (SCEE) £39.99 -~ t
For those poor wretches who don't know, Bomberman rs Pacman armed wrth black, shrny, fuse-crackrng spheres of explosrve death and for nrgh on frfteen years he has provrded one of the easrest, cutest and most addrctrve methods of blowrng up your frrends. Unfortunately, the formrdable head-to- head modes were always let down by poor srngle—player games Can Bomberman World solve thrs age-old problem?
Well, there are two more solo games to try — one a trrne challenge, the other a story-led serres of mazes rnvolvrng strange new worlds and brg bad monsters. There rs also an added pretence of 3D, th0ugh thrs rs often confusrng, resultrng rn bomb placement error and our hero berng sent, prematurely, to the moon. The story game rs rnfurratrngly slow and the trme challenge fee!s redundant
It rs no surprrse, then, to drscover that Bomberman's savrng grace rs rts two- player Battle Game Furrous, frantrc and guaranteed to cause frstrcuffs between Irfelong buddres, there are strll very few games that can touch Bomberman battles for addrctrve slmplrcrty (ID)
The Atari Collection 2 (GT Interactive) £39.99
In these large-trousered trrnes of brg ups to the old skool, vrdeo games have got therr nostalgic shrt down even a medrum obsessed wrth and dependent upon technologrcai advance has got a place for vrntage thrrlls.
So we have The Atarr Col/ec tron 2, a package of srx PlayStatron conversrons of mrd-80s arcade games, Some trtles, however, have translated better than others. lt/lr/lrpec/c.> and Crystal Castles were always rubbrsh and, guess what, they strll are. Much more successful, Road Blasters, whrc n Involves drrvrng along a strrp of black tarmac sl.ootrng other cars and prc krng up strange mothball-lrke petrol, rs srrnple but effec trve
The real sellrng pornt for thrs package, though, has to be the double-wlrammy of Paperboy and Gauntlet Both classrcs, the former sees the eponymous hero chuckrng papers at the marlboxes and avordrng runaway lawnrnc)\r'>rers, skateboarders
STAR RATINGS
Unmrssabie
Very good
Worth a shot
Below average You've been warned
Detonate collectors: Bomberman World
and the lrke, whrle the latter rs a massrve 2D dungeons and dragons- type shoot 'em up
Thrs rs a good game for what rt rs, but you really should be askrng yourself whether the money could be better spent than on a lo-fr trrp down memory lane. tPRr
Fluld
(SCEE) £29.99 - .
It has to be sard: games are gettrng Increasmgly werrd. Game makers have realrsed that not everyone wants to marm, krll or run about endlessly lookrng for the hrdden magrc key under the rock behrnd the gerbrl.
The new breed of games takes musrc as the startrng pornt and burlds from there. After PaRappa The Rapper and Sprc‘e World comes Flu/d Thrs game allows you to create your own tracks from surprrsrngly authentrc drum 'n’ bass to techno and aCrd Jazz
You begrn as a nameless clolphrn, flapprng around a 'Srlent Space' of basrc vrsuals Swrm about, prck up samples, muck about wrth them In the erght track 'Groove Edrtor’ and then srt for hours as you morph the psychedelrc graphrcs III trme wrth the musrc. What rs especrally unnervmg rs that after you play the game, far too many CDs rn your collec'tron sound rust lrke the musrc you've Just been ’creatrng' Put one of these rn the c‘hrll-out room of a club and you can forget the DI. IRW‘I
Frenzy (SCi) £34.99 T()\‘.’<3I'(IS the end of hrs career, Alfred Hrtchcoc'k created a frlrn called Fren/y whrc h was mrsanthroprc but brrllrant Thrs anythrng-but-brrllrant game of the same name wrll turn normally mrld- mannered players Into ravrng mrsanthropes Ill no trme, and the creators should have therr careers ended pronto
Basrcally, there's a sc rentrst of the mad varrety wreakrng havoc o'er the land, havrng unleashed a cornucopra of nastres rncludrng dragons, robots and far-from-pathetrc sharks Your task, as an rntreprd br-plane prlot, rs to use your mac hrne gun and bombs to lay waste to the boft'rn’s at'vful scheme
Thrs rs a trac k—based game so, although you may thrnk you're free as a brrcl In your sky wagon, you can basrcally only move forwards and backwards All thrs rs Improved greatly by wacky cartoon vrsuals and soundtrack, but even thrs gets annoyrng after a whrle (PR)
REVIEWERS THIS ISSUE Iarn Davrdson, Paul Owens, Peter Ross, Rory Weller
SCANNER
Totally wired
The weird world of the Web
Katie Holmes http://membersaol.coml
magsea3 I 03lkatie_ho|mes.html Katre Holmes was by far the coolest krd rn Dawson ’5 Creek (admrttedly not hard when up against chubby teen temptress Ivlrchelle erlrams and James Van Der Gee/cl and she upgraded her hrp credentrals as a prll- popping Dostoevsky buff In Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. But her star rs really set to shrne opposne Helen Mrrren rn Kevrn erlramson's forthcomrng Kr/lr'ng Mrss Trng/e In the meantrrne, y0u can read all about her and look at some very attractrve prctures at thrs srte.
Belle And Sebastian http://www.totalwebco.uk/belleandsebastian/
The offrcral srte for thrs most elusrve of bands has to be your frrst port of call If you're lookrng for a defrnrtrve explanatron of what they’re all about. Contarns press revrews and rntervrews (such as they are), competrtrons, merchandise, the opportunrty to chat wrth fellow fans and, most excmngly, you can download songs from the ultra-rare Tr'germr/lc album.
Top Cow Comics
http://www.topcow.com
Cool srte from Top Cow comrcs, the peOpIe who broke away from Marvel In 1992 and have set up therr own enormously successful Irne of trtles. Thrngs are gomg multr-medra at Top Cow, wrth Olrver Stone's productron company turning the Wr‘rchb/ade strrp rnto a serres. There rs also a Wr'tchblade album rn the prpelrne, rncludrng songs from Babes In Toyland's Kat Brelland.
alt.cu|ture
http:/r’www.pathfindercom
Anythrng you want to know about 90s y0uth Culture from cyberpunk to Douglas Coupland, gangsta rap to gold teeth rs avarlable at thrs srte, put together by Steven Daly and Nathanrel Wrce, authors of the celebrated alt.cu/ture book. The srte recerves frve new entrres each week, so always has rts frnger on the pulse of
the zertgerst
Futurama httpzrrtvww.mrshowbiz.com/news/todays. .sr980727/groening
O72798_content.html
Get you." ’toon-tokrng ass to thrs srte rf you want to hear Srmpsons creator Matt Groenrng talk about hrs new scr-fr cartoon Futurama. It’s about a guy called Fry, who ac‘crdentaily gets cryogenrcally frozen on New Year’s Eve I999 and wakes up on New Year’s Eve 7999 Any celebrrty rs welcome to do guest vorces, says Groenrng, ’rf they're erlrng to play a drsembodred head rn a Jar'
253
http:/r’www.ryman-novel.com
Sc‘r-fr wrrter Geoff Ryman's novel 253 has Just hrt the shelves StateSIde, but was orrgrnally publrsned on the Internet. Workrng from the fact that a seven-car trarn on the Bakerloo Irne of the London Underground carrres 252 passengers and one drrver, Ryrnan has wrrtten a character study of each person on a frctronal trarn. In another prec e of formal showboatrng, each character study rs 253 words long.
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy http:/rscifi.simplenet.com/starwars/prequelsltechhtml
Okay, so thrs rs a brg old sporlsport of a srte, but If your Chewbacca Y—Fronts are bulgrng wrth antrc'rpatron of George Lucas's new Star Wars movre, then surf here for leaked images (see below), sc'urrrlous rumours and the lrke.
IO~2~1 Sep I998 THE “ST 93