Games and Internet
PLAYSTATION ISS Pro '98 (Konami) £39.99 -: i.
Console sports fans who couldn't get enough of EA's World Cup ’98 but who were bored by the real live football fiesta itself are probably not gomg to find much to love in lSS Pro 98. Konami's follow up to the:r classic: ISS Pro is not a game for those who like to make Craig Burley score spectacular goals wrtn minimum effort to the strains of Cnumbatramba. t’s about tactics, perseverance and soccer kl‘.()‘.'.-l‘:0\.‘.. Unlike EA’s flashie.r effort, you've no chance of beating Bra7il ‘.'.’hll(? out of your box on Hampden :ager and ‘. .ndaloo
At first glance, there's little difference from. lss Pro players are still massive, solid polygons and the gameplay still seems to drag slightly But closer .I‘.'.'(‘Sii{}dii()." reveals :i’noressive graphical I.’TT_{)TO‘.’PTTTE?ITI and a likeable, controlable pace Make no mistake, this is a hard game \‘.lil‘ goals haying to be created out of considered plays rather than hopeful blasts from the centre circle, so you'll be glad it doesn't move too fast If you already O‘.'.’I‘. lSS Pro then you probably don't need this, but EA’s forthcoming Fifa '99 um nave to go some to top .t iPRi
Actua Tennis
(Gremlin Interactive) £39.99 r x— s, The word hasn't been good abOut Actua Tennis, but any game which
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1080° Snowboarding (Nintendo) £39.99 a at it 1*: v‘r
You'll be glued to your couch, eyes bugging out like Peter Lorre on E, staring at the screen and cranking down the Alpine slopes of your mind. But enough about those Pepsi Max ads, 1080° is nothing less than the greatest snowboarding simulation of all time.
This game has been hot news in the industry since last Christmas and, boy, has it been worth the wait. Putting gameplay aside for a second, 1080° is .- graphically superb. The backgrounds are delightfully rendered, the snow is ’ incredibly realistic and the players are so big and satisfyingly chunky that you'd think they were made from Yorkie bars instead of polygons. Horace Goes Skiing this ain't.
For a start, the player selection screen is well cool. You choose one of five funky snowboarders by scrolling around the chalet where they are chilling out, deciding who you want on the grounds of their technique, max speed, balance, power, jump prowess or, hell, even the width of their hip hop trousers. You then choose one of eight boards, all of which are rated on a range of attributes.
You can play one of five game modes: Match Race, where you challenge a single CPU opponent; Time Attack, where you attempt to log your best time; Trick Attack, where you
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1080° Snowboarding: eat my flakes
compete for points by performing colourfully-named stunts like Indy Nosebone; Contest, where you must compete for the high score over three slalom courses and two trick courses; and 2P VS, where you can attempt to make a pal eat your flakes.
The handling is excellent. The control stick allows for naturalistic turning and lets you alter your centre of gravity during jumps. Admittedly, this is more complicated and difficult than, say, Cool Boarders 2, but it is ultimately more rewarding and involving. When it comes to separating the piss artists from the piste artists, 1080° Snowboarding rocks harder than Lemmy in a landslide. Fact. (Peter Ross)
comes With a press release claiming that the ’spirit of Dan Maskeli is smiling benignly at us from that great tennis coort in the sky' has got to be worth ts wc—ught in strawberries and cream
No great shakes graphically and a wee bit on the slow side, Actua Tennis IS eminently playable and even slightly addictive. The controls are easy to master, although the range of shots on offer could be greater, and the various modes of play are everything you would expect. You can play in professional and amateur tournaments as well as tOurs, Singles, doubles and mixed doubles, taking on the persona of one of 32 male and 32 female real players including Tim Henman,
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Actua Tennis: Dan Maskell died for this
Commentary is even provided by Barry Davres, Sue Barker and Pat Cash, although it's pretty poor to be honest What Actua Tennis could do With is a sense of humour Would it be too much to ask for pissed-off pixellated CPU players to dispute line calls.7 Also, how about the opportunity to replay classic: Wimbledon finals like McEnroe/Borg in '81 in the same way World Cup ’98 allows you to experience legendary cup finals? Here’s lookzng forward to the sequel. iPRl
MediEvil (SCEE) £39.99 x 9i rt it The Resrdent Evil games are undeniably brilliant, but imagine you got to play a zombie instead of a pissy little cop. How cool would that be7 Enter Med/Evil, in which you play an absolute rotter a decomposing former heroic knight called Sir Daniel Fortesgue, all bones and gaping sockets
Your mission is to trac k down and defeat the evri sorcerer Zarok, killing tagaini any fellow members of the undead who stand in your rather whiffy path. It's a fairly simple storyline, but it's dressed up in excellent animation sequences and graphic s clirec tly inspired by Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas
Merl/Evrl is, essentially, a 3D third- person action-adventurer, a fairly accomplished example of its genre but not a patch on the Tomb Raiders of this world. As zombie games go, it opts for the humour angle rather than
Res’s gore ’n' scare fest which is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, you can only poo your pants so many times before your flatmates start complaining. (PR)
The Fifth Element (SCEE) £34.99 s 1%
Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element was described by one film mag as a better sci-fr movre than Star Wars. One can only assume that they hadn't seen George Lucas's classic for a While. Similarly, if anyone ever described this game as a superior 3D third-person action-adventure to Tomb Raider, they’d need their head examined With an oxacetylene torch. It sucks more than a Hoover grvrng head.
Kicking off with an impressive live action seguence, the game proper begins With you playing Korben (Bruce WIHIS' Coinplete the first mission and you get to play Lee-Loo ttvlilla lovovrcni, one of the worst characters ever to grace the PlayStation She has no gun, so you're forced into hand-to- hand combat which, thanks to the 3D and poor camera work, is a matter of luck rather than skill You Will be killed frustratingly often
What is the problem With film tie- ins.7 Men In Black, Mission Impossible and noW The Fifth Element crap, crap, crap, Just because a games company have shelled out on a movre license doesn't mean they can skimp on the game design If you buy this, you’re wasting your money. (PR)