Company of Heroes

Publisher: THQ
Developer: Relic
Genre: Historic Real-Time Strategy
Release Date: Sep 13, 2006 (more)
ESRB: MATURE

Offline Modes: Competitive, Team Oriented
Online Modes: Competitive, Team Oriented
Number of Players: 1-8
Number of Online Players: 8 Online

Company of Heroes is a visually stunning real-time strategy game that depicts all the violent chaos of World War II with uncommon intensity. Set during the invasion of Normandy toward the end of the war, Company of Heroes takes its cues from Saving Private Ryan, by portraying both the sheer brutality of the war as well as the humanity of its combatants. Many other recent WWII games have also drawn influence from Steven Spielberg's landmark film, but Company of Heroes is even more graphic. This and the game's highly authentic-looking presentation are its distinguishing features, and it boasts some frantic, well-designed strategic and tactical combat to match. Company of Heroes trades a wide breadth of content for an extremely detailed look at WWII-era ground combat, and its action is so fast paced that it's best suited for the reflexes of an experienced RTS player. So if you're unfazed by any of that, you'll find that this latest real-time strategy game from the developers of Homeworld and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is one of the best, most dramatic and exciting examples in years.

Provided you have a powerful-enough system and graphics card to fully appreciate the visuals in Company of Heroes, you'll quickly be struck by the level of detail depicted in the game. Infantry move in teams, darting from cover to cover. They may be ordered to occupy any building on the map, and you'll see them shutter the doors and take aim out the windows. Vehicles are shown to scale, so tanks and other armored vehicles look big and imposing, and, indeed, they are. Infantry seem almost helpless against tanks, and you'll hear the men screaming as tank shells explode around them, sending bodies flying, while lucky survivors dive out of the way. Yet by attacking a tank's vulnerable sides and rear armor with explosives, it's possible to turn the tables on these lumbering threats...turning one of the most basic confrontations in Company of Heroes into a thrilling cat-and-mouse game, much more than a typical clash between a couple of RTS units. What's more, the battlefields themselves have at least as much character to them as the various infantry squads and vehicles as your disposal. The quaint French towns that are the set pieces of many of the game's skirmishes truly look as if a war was waged there once the battle is done, since buildings will catch fire and collapse, telephone lines will topple, blackened craters will appear in the wake of artillery blasts, and more. These changes aren't just cosmetic, either. Those blast craters provide cover for your infantry, while the ruined husks of blown-up tanks might interfere with a machine gunner's line of fire.

The game focuses on the Allies' invasion of German-occupied Normandy in 1944, specifically on close-quarters skirmishes between infantry and armor. Company of Heroes presents a number of novel twists to real-time strategy conventions, but at heart this game works like other RTS games do, by putting you in charge of base construction, resource gathering, and tactical command of various military forces in an effort to defeat the opposition. The game includes a good-sized single-player campaign spanning more than a dozen missions, in which Able Company lands on Omaha Beach on D-Day, liberates a number of key towns and strategic points, disrupts German supply lines and secret weapons, and finally helps crush the remnants of the Nazi war machine in France. It's an exciting campaign, tied together with cutscenes and mission briefings coming from a variety of voices, which creates a few threads that help tie the missions together. In addition to the campaign, you can play skirmish matches with up to seven computer-controlled players on a series of different maps, and you can also jump online into the proprietary Relic Online service to challenge other players in ranked and unranked matches. The Relic Online service is a cut above most similar offerings, and lets you easily find a ranked match against players of similar skill or host a match with your own custom settings.

Because of its limited scope of the Second World War, Company of Heroes has only the two playable factions, which it calls the Allies and the Axis--but really they're the Americans and the Germans. In the campaign, you always play as forces from Able Company and you're always fighting the Germans. There isn't a separate campaign from the German perspective, though the Axis faction is fully playable in skirmish matches and online, and turns out to be fairly different from the Allies despite the basic similarities between the two sides' weaponry. In fact, in a strange departure from similar games, Company of Heroes always forces you to play Allies versus Axis, even in multiplayer matches. Matches with more than two players are always team-based, with one side as the Allies and the other as the Axis, and so forth. While the game's units and battlefields are unusually detailed, it's hard not to wish for additional playable factions and a greater variety of settings, especially given how well Company of Heroes handles the American and German sides.

The gameplay in Company of Heroes is all about frontline combat, and forces you to quickly explore the map. You typically start out with a headquarters and a squad of engineers, who can build structures and setup defenses. Maps are divided up into territories that all have a resource point in them, and the resources you'll need are manpower, munitions, and fuel. Infantry may capture neutral or enemy resource points, causing them to indefinitely contribute a flow of the given resource to your military efforts while also increasing the total number of units you can have in your army. However, all your territories must be connected for the resource flow to continue unabated; if an enemy takes a key territory, this may cut off your supply lines. All resources are used for building more-advanced structures and vehicles, but you only need manpower for basic infantry, who may use special abilities like hand grenades or armor-piercing machine gun rounds for a one-time cost of munitions. Munitions may also be spent to upgrade individual squads with special weapons, like recoilless rifles useful against enemy armor, or Browning automatic rifles that can suppress opposing squads. Your infantry squads are highly resourceful, acting as single units that can be effective down to the last man. They'll last much longer when attacking from behind cover, such as a row of sandbags or the bell tower of an abandoned church.

If you've played Relic's last real-time strategy game, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, you'll note that many of these conventions were derived and extended from that game. However, Company of Heroes still plays quite differently from Dawn of War because of the nature of its densely packed battlefields and its even greater focus on unit tactics. You have some very interesting options to consider, such as how, when faced with an antitank gun manned by a squad of three, you may attempt to destroy the thing altogether with heavy weapons, or flank the gun and kill its squad, taking the artillery piece for your own. Heavy machine guns and other special weapons work much the same way. One of the great things about Company of Heroes is that, in spite of its somewhat glamorized portrayal of World War II, the game looks and behaves realistically, in how the sorts of tactical maneuvers that are central to the gameplay feel intuitive in practice. For example, you'll naturally want to avoid making your infantry rush a machine gun nest head-on, especially since the withering fire from a German MG42 will force your squad to drop prone, pinned down.

Minimum System Requirements
System: 2.0GHz Intel Pentium IV or equivalent
RAM: 512 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB
Hard Drive Space: 6500 MB

Recommended System Requirements
System: 3.0GHz Intel Pentium or equivalent
RAM: 1024 MB
Video Memory: 256 MB
Hard Drive Space: 6500 MB

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Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

Publisher: EA Games
Developer: EA Games
Genre: Fantasy Action Adventure
Release Date: Jun 25, 2007 (more)
ESRB: EVERYONE 10+
ESRB Descriptors: Fantasy Violence
Resolution: Widescreen
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Number of Players: 1 Player

The Harry Potter series of books has captured both the minds of children and adults alike. The movies haven't disappointed either and are amongst the highest grossing films of all time. For some reason, the video games that have been released alongside the movies haven't been able to reach the same level of quality that the movies and books have achieved. The latest game, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, continues that trend. There's a faithful re-creation of the Hogwarts campus to explore, but once you've seen the sights, there's not much else to do. Even the most diehard Potter fans will grow tired of seeing the grand staircase as they return from their umpteenth fetch quest.

Order of the Phoenix follows the story of the book and the movie of the same name. After narrowly avoiding expulsion for using magic in front of a muggle, Harry finds that Hogwarts' new defense against the dark arts teacher seems to have it out for him. To make matters worse, Voldemort is threatening to rear his ugly mug again, and Harry fears that the school will be unable to defend itself. With the help of Ron and Hermione, Harry rallies the students together to form Dumbledore's Army in an effort to ready them for a fight against the dark lord. This all makes perfect sense if you've read the book, but the story's exceedingly difficult to follow if you haven't read it because vast segments of the story are told via brief full-motion video cutscenes and newspaper clippings. It's easy to understand how a three-hour movie might have to leave bits and pieces out, but it's puzzling that an eight-hour game can't tell even the most basic aspect of the story.

Though the game's box says you'll get to play as Sirius Black and Dumbledore, you do so for less than five minutes, so you'll spend nearly the entire game controlling Harry. Ron and Hermione will be by your side the whole time offering hints on where to go or what to do next. You'll also encounter every recognizable character from the Harry Potter universe along your journey. The game starts off with a tutorial where you'll learn basic spells like wingardium leviosa (levitation), reparo (repair an object), accio (pull an object toward you), and depulso (push an object away) by helping people fix broken dishes, pack their suitcases, and move furniture--not exactly riveting stuff. On the PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation, 3, and Xbox 360, you cast spells by pressing a button to point your wand and moving the right analog stick in a specific pattern.

Rotating the stick clockwise will cast reparo, pressing down twice will cast accio, and pushing forward twice will cast depulso. You can also use the keyboard and mouse on the PC and this works fine. On the Wii, you'll hold the remote vertically then tilt it forward to cast depulso. To perform wingardium leviosa, you'll raise both the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk to lift the object then move the controllers around to maneuver the object. This works surprisingly well, and it makes it feel as if you are actually casting spells, which goes a long way toward making the game more enjoyable. The PS3 does use the Sixaxis' motion controls, but tilting and twisting the controller as you hold it in your lap doesn't add much to the experience.

Later in the game, you'll learn combat spells. These are cast in the same way as noncombat spells and mostly use the same patterns. But there will only be a few instances where you'll need to perform these combat spells because there's hardly any dueling in the game. This is probably a good thing because the combat isn't very good, and it's tough to tell if you're actually hitting someone. Even during the last fight, you just stand there casting the same spell over, waiting for a cutscene to signify the end of the battle.

Once you've learned some basic spells, it's off to Hogwarts, which is faithfully re-created in a game for the first time. The Hogwarts campus is absolutely huge, which is both a blessing and a curse. Fans should really get a kick out of seeing the grand staircase in motion and candles floating above the tables in the great hall, as well as sneaking into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. But traversing back and forth across such a large area quickly becomes tiresome. Once you find the proper passwords, you can use the passages behind paintings as shortcuts, but they don't cut that much time off the journey. Another problem is the in-game navigation system. You're given a map that lists all of the different areas on campus, as well as the location of each person you need to find. Once you've highlighted the person or place you're looking for, footprints will appear on the ground to lead the way. Unfortunately, the footprints are black, so they're difficult to see; they don't appear far enough in front of you, so you're constantly forced to stop to wait for them to appear; and the camera will often switch angle midstride, so you don't know which way you're facing.

You've got a huge campus and healthy number of spells at your disposal, so you'll no doubt be doing all sorts of awesome things in incredible, mystical places, right? No. You spend most of the game running around trying to inform everyone as to the whereabouts of the room of requirement. You'll pick a character on the map, follow the footprints, and then tell people about the meeting place. In almost every single case, they'll have a reason for why they can't go. Of course, you've got to help them. This means you'll run all over Hogwarts collecting items, moving benches, fixing things, and helping people with their homework. This is how you spend the entire game. It's literally one fetch quest after another. Being able to pick the quest you want gives the illusion that you've got the freedom to do what you want, but the game is extremely linear in that there's only one way to accomplish any given objective. And sometimes you'll be performing the same exact task over again, such as when you're helping to disable the school's intercom by moving benches then pouring a potion into the speakers. You do this, not once, not twice, but five or six times; each time in a different room.

Performing one menial task after another would be bad enough on its own, but other issues conspire to make it worse. The game does a decent job of showing you where people and places are, but once you've met with someone, you're quite often on your own when it comes to figuring out how to help him or her. For example, at one point in the game, you must help a kid find five talking gargoyles. Now, you've encountered several talking gargoyles to this point, but for some reason, you can't tell the kid this and you must find the gargoyles again. Not only are you doing something you've already done, but the map doesn't show you where these gargoyles are, so you're forced to scour the entire campus in an effort to locate them.

When you're not playing the role of messenger boy, you'll spend much of your time cleaning up Hogwarts by putting statues, paintings, and urns back together. You can also search behind curtains for giant chess pieces, move blocks to find hidden plaques, light torches, and even sweep floors. These tasks are actually pleasant diversions for a short while, and you can unlock extras by performing them. But the tasks speak poorly for the game as a whole when sweeping the floor is a highlight. Another way to pass the time is to play chess, exploding snap, and gobstones. Gobstones (think marbles) and exploding snap (pick out matching pairs of cards) are simple but fun. Chess plays similar to Battle Chess and is actually quite engaging--if you've played chess before. The game will show you the moves that each piece can make, but there's no tutorial mode, which may leave many younger players clueless.

Visually, Order of the Phoenix is all over the place. Many areas of Hogwarts, such as the grand staircase or great hall, look spectacular and are very detailed. However, many of the hallways look the same and are largely empty. Combat spells look really cool when you cast them, but there are so few duels that you'll rarely get to enjoy seeing the spells in action. At first glance, character models look just like their movie counterparts and are quite nice. But once you see them in motion, you'll notice that they all look kind of like zombies. Things are even worse in the cutscenes that utilize the in-game engine. Characters stare blankly off into the distance, they face the wrong way, their mouths often don't move when they talk, and they'll appear then disappear from view for no apparent reason. The PS3, 360, and PC versions look the best. Other than lower quality in-game cutscenes and some nasty aliasing, the PS2 and Wii versions hold their own, though the PS2's frame rate is pretty iffy at times. Having the actors from the films voice their characters in the game goes a long way toward immersing you in the experience, even with the shoddy cutscenes and script. The familiar musical score is here and suits the game perfectly, which kind of makes you wonder why it was used so little.

It's hard to imagine that the video game version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will appeal to anyone. Older fans of Harry Potter will enjoy exploring Hogwarts for a while, but they'll soon be bored to tears by the low level of difficulty and the tedious objectives. The younger set will also get a kick out of seeing the sights and will appreciate the forgiving difficulty, as well as the simplicity of the tasks at hand. But they'll quickly grow tired of using their favorite character to perform a seemingly endless parade of chores. If being the most famous wizard in the world were this boring, there wouldn't have been more than one book.

System Requirments
Optical Drive: DVD-ROM
CPU Speed: 1.0 GHz
Disk Space: 2.0 GB
Display: AGP Video Card With 64 MB+ and NVIDIA GeForce 3+ or ATI Radeon 8500+
RAM 256MB
Operating System Compatibility: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/VISTA, Mac OS X

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Marvel Trading Card Game

Publisher: Konami
Developer: Vicious Cycle
Genre: Card Battle
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Alcohol Reference, Blood, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes, Tobacco Reference, Mild Fantasy Violence
Online Modes: Competitive
Number of Players: 1-2

Upper Deck Entertainment, one of the more prominent purveyors of collectible trading-card games today, has teamed up with Konami to create a digital version of Upper Deck's Marvel-licensed TCG with the succinctly (if dryly) named Marvel Trading Card Game. It seems like a solid representation of Upper Deck's robust, flexible, and rather popular Vs. System Trading Card Game, and it packs a solid online element. As is the case with most digitized TCGs, it's not a particularly exciting game to watch. If you're not already knee-deep in the real-world Vs. System Trading Card Game, or other similarly advanced TCGs, it can be a confusing experience, as well.

In concept, Marvel Trading Card Game is a straightforward exercise in strategy. Two players, each armed with a deck of cards, take turns attacking one another by playing various cards with unique characteristics until one player has had all of his or her hit points depleted. Cards are divided into several different categories: characters, equipment, locations, and plot twists. Characters are probably the most significant cards, as these are what you'll use to actually attack your opponent, while equipment and locations can be used to enhance their abilities. Plot twists are also of great import, due largely to the wide range of effects they can have, from simply buffing up one of your character cards for a turn to forcing your opponent to discard cards. Plot twists can also be chained together, which can potentially cause several reversals of fortune within a single character clash.

Before you can put any characters into play, though, you'll need to meet their resource requirements. You can choose to play any card in your hand as a resource at the start of your turn, similar to the way mana cards are played in Magic: The Gathering. Likewise, you can only add a single card to your resources during any given turn, which generally causes the action to build up slowly over the course of a match, since it will take time to garner the necessary resources to put your more powerful characters into play. There's certainly a significant element of luck to your success, since you'll be drawing cards randomly from your deck, but there are several thick layers of strategy to it as well. Which characters you play is important, as each has a unique attack and defense rating that will determine how it'll fare against other characters, but where you actually place them on the playing field can matter just as much. There are two rows your character can be played in--front and back--and how they'll behave when placed in either can depend on whether they have flight abilities and ranged attacks. Where they're placed in proximity to other characters that share their team affiliation also matters.

All of these elements can make for some really interesting play, if you can figure out what's actually going on. There's a series of interactive tutorials to help beginners, which is instructive, though you'll ultimately still have to jump in feet-first to fully understand the ins and outs of the game. Even then, the interface is dense with icons used to signify lots of important stuff. Plot-twist chains, which will regularly determine the outcome of a specific confrontation, can be especially difficult to keep track of due to the way they're presented. Though the game does try to spruce things up with some nice background and card art, as well as some light particle effects, it can still look like some kind of alien tax return. The interface on the PC version is significantly more manageable than the PSP or DS versions, due simply to the size of the screen and the more intuitive mouse interface, though you'll still find yourself right-clicking to pull up lots of sub-menus, and referencing the manual for certain vital, keyboard-only commands. And, in a move that will certainly frustrate some players, the PC version apparently only plays in a fixed-resolution window.

If you can get the hang of it, though, Marvel Trading Card Game brims with ways to play. There are two unique and lengthy single-player campaigns to play through, putting you in the role of either hero or villain. You can play against a live opponent either over a LAN or through the game's online mode, where you can jump right into games with players from around the world, or compete in numerous sponsored and user-created tournaments.

The PC version also finally makes good on the promise of cross-platform support with the previously released Marvel Trading Card Game for the PSP. You can now play against PSP players, and your account can be used seamlessly between the two platforms. All of this works well, and the addition of PC players to the already healthy pool of PSP players means it's never too hard to find someone to battle with. Taking the digital trading-card concept to its logical conclusion, you can also buy additional booster packs and starter decks of "cards" to enhance your online deck. As a nice little bonus, the PC version comes with a voucher for 10 free booster packs.

With its capable implementation of the well-known Vs. System, Marvel Trading Card Game will make those who've already got a taste for TCGs quite happy, and it makes pretty good use of the Marvel license on top of that. It's a step up in sophistication from the Yu-Gi-Oh! games that Konami has been churning out for years, and the online component is surprisingly solid. It's a fairly well-made digital trading-card game, but ultimately, its accessibility is hindered by its inherent trading-card game format.

Minimum System Requirements
System: Intel Pentium III 800 MHz or equivalent
RAM: 128 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB
Hard Drive Space: 3000 MB
Other: NVIDIA GeForce 2 or ATI Radeon 8500 video card or higher

Recommended System Requirements
System: Intel Pentium IV 1.4 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video Memory: 128 MB

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Grand Theft Auto : Vice City

Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar North
Genre: Modern Action Adventure
Release Date: May 12, 2003 (more)
ESRB: MATURE
ESRB Descriptors: Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Violence
Number of Players: 1 Player

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for the PC needs no introduction. Not only is this game in many ways better than its amazing predecessor Grand Theft Auto III, but it's also technically superior to the original version of Vice City that was released on the PlayStation 2 a number of months ago. Like GTAIII for the PC, Vice City is identical to the original PS2 version in terms of content, so if you've already played that version to death, you won't find the PC version to be much different. However, the PC version of Vice City does offer enhanced visuals and controls, improved loading times, and a few extra frills. More importantly, it offers the same refreshingly open-ended gaming experience, which has occasionally been reviled for its controversial subject matter, but has far more often elicited much-deserved praise. Simply put, if by some chance you've put off playing Vice City up till now, don't wait any longer.

To be clear, Vice City is an extension of Grand Theft Auto III, rather than a completely overhauled sequel. That's definitely a good thing, because GTAIII's freestyle gameplay was extremely entertaining and offered tremendous replay value, yet still had more potential. Vice City fulfills a lot of that potential, as it features improved production values (including over eight hours of licensed music and plenty of Hollywood voice actors), new types of drivable vehicles (motorcycles, helicopters, and golf carts), new weapons, better vehicle damage modeling, indoor environments, and more.

Yet the most obvious difference between GTAIII and Vice City is that in the new game, you're in a brand-new setting, a sprawling city styled after Miami, Florida, circa 1986. Laced with neon and featuring miles of beachfront property, Vice City simply looks a lot more pleasant than GTAIII's oppressive New York City-inspired Liberty City. Nevertheless, like Liberty City, Vice City is actually a den of corruption and evil. And it's your playground. You're free to roam Vice City on foot or in any manner of vehicle you can get your hands on, and you can undertake a wide variety of action-packed missions, explore the town, wreak havoc, or whatever. The game's convincing physics and terrific atmosphere make any of the huge variety of activities available in Vice City enjoyable in themselves, and even greater than the sum of their parts when you put them all together. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single-player action game with more variety than this one, and Vice City will more than likely surprise and impress you even if you've already played GTAIII to death.

Rather than put you in the role of a nameless, voiceless antihero like GTAIII, Vice City lets you assume the role of Tommy Vercetti, a tough guy who has just gotten out of the slammer. He gets himself back into trouble fast when a drug deal goes bad and he barely makes it out alive, so the basic plot of the game is to get the drug money back and take out the double-crossers. In so doing, you'll get to kill all your enemies, buy up the town's priciest hot spots, and eventually become Vice City's resident crime lord. Vercetti, who is expertly voiced by Ray Liotta, is a likable and memorable protagonist, and many of the other characters he'll meet, like a crooked lawyer and a South American crime boss with an explosive temper, are also well done.

Vice City pays closer attention to its characters, making the proceedings seem more cinematic and more story-driven than GTAIII, which was criticized in the mainstream media for letting people live out their sociopathic fantasies. Regardless, if you were surprised by GTAIII's unflinching portrayal of mature content, be advised that Vice City doesn't pull any punches either. And, like GTAIII, Vice City somehow brings to bear a truly inspired dark sense of humor amid all its violence and chaos. Smartly written dialogue, scathing social critique and caricatures, and a remarkably well-done depiction of '80s excess make Grand Theft Auto: Vice City far more than just a game about causing mayhem.

The story missions in Vice City are generally more complex and often more entertaining than those of GTAIII. They're multiple-stage affairs, often requiring you to take out various targets, make deliveries to key areas, drop someone off in exchange for something, and so on. They're fun, and they also do a great job of introducing you to Vice City's gameplay and new features. You usually have multiple missions to choose from at any given moment, and, true to the game's open-ended nature, many of the missions play out quite differently if you attempt them multiple times. Like in GTAIII, you can also steal squad cars, ambulances, fire trucks, and now even pizza-delivery mopeds and take on various peripheral missions in them, all of which make for fun diversions. The game's save system, which requires you to constantly return to a specific save point, is identical to that of GTAIII, so it might slightly frustrate those accustomed to being able to save anywhere and at any time. But since the missions aren't that long, being able to save your progress only in between missions simply helps maintain the game's pacing, forcing you to accomplish each of your objectives in one, dramatic take.

Minimum System Requirements
System: 800 MHz Intel Pentium III or 800 MHz AMD Athlon 1.2GHz Intel Celeron or 1.2 GHz AMD Duron processor or equivalent
RAM: 128 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB
Hard Drive Space: 915 MB

Recommended System Requirements
System: Intel Pentium IV or AMD Athlon XP processor or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB

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Kim Possible

Publisher: Disney Online
Developer: Disney Online
Category: Adventure

SRB: EPC

Kim Possible: Legend of the Monkey's Eye is just what you'd expect from a Kim Possible action game, a lot of twitching fingers on the commands, the need for precise timing, and, of course, monkies!! Many, many monkies. Oh, and puns of course. Usually bad ones, which means you'll groan while you are laughing. You know, like the storyline starts with “legends speak of an ancient Monkey King who ruled over Noh Goh”. Yep, I heard it. You groaned.
Ok, so bad puns aside for a moment, what is the game really like? Well, my kids were a bit luke warm about it, to be honest. It isn't that the game is not well done, and actually quite fun in a “twitchy fingers” sort of way. What I mean by that is that you have to have really good timing on hitting the keys on your keyboard in order to make a particular jump, or kick a monkey at just the right time. Things typical of an action game, but that somehow seem much easier to do on a console type game than on a PC based one. (And yes, for those who have followed my reviews over the months, that is as much a surprise to me to say as it is for you to hear. Somewhere along the way I've learned to play console games.) The game plays out much like your typical video-game turned PC game would, in other words. Which isn't nescessarily a bad thing, it is just a thing.

So why were my kids luke warm about it? I think it has to do with the fact that there really isn't much of a challenge to the game, and they have been spoiled by the excitement and variety in a 3D world. Kim can move left, right, and up/down, but it is all along a straight line path. And she doesn't interact with her world other than punching/kicking her enemies. So it is a pretty straight forward, arcade style game as far as that's concerned. Again, nothing wrong with it, but the thing that our kids are used to games that are more 3D and the characters have a variety of powers. Kim can get power-ups as she goes through the level, like a temporary invulerablity that really helps when fighting some of the bigger boss mobs. And there are a lot of things to collect as you go through the level as well. There are tacos from “Bueno Nacho” hidden through each level, cans to collect (which also help to guide you through the level) and special “super cans” too. This provides replayability for each level.

In fact, when you play through a level, you get a message saying that you have unlocked the “Timed Trial”. The timed trials are just what they sound like. You are given a time to beat, and one chance to beat it. (In the regular game you have three lives, or chances, to get though the level and mini save points in the level that if Kim is defeated she'll go back to so you don't have to redo the whole level.) My kids have found this more fun than playing through the level the first time, actually, because they can just take off and speed through the mission. They've replayed some of the levels a few times over now looking for the hidden tacos and trying to beat their sibling at how many cans are collected.

When I asked my kids, ages 5, 8 and 11, about the game, they all said about the same thing. “It is ok. Its fun to be Kim Possible.” From a parent's perspective, I can tell you that it isn't the first game they pick when they go to the computer, but it isn't one they play so rarely that it only takes up hard drive space. My guess is that if they didn't have game consoles like a PS2 available to them, they would like this particular game more than they do. But for just playing through the levels to unlock a more competative mode, the timed trials, the kids would rather have me unlock the level for them and let them just play, not worrying about the storyline itself. If you are looking for an action game for your young PC gamer, this one will keep them playing for a few hours a week. If you're looking for something that is going to grab them and keep them busy for longer periods of time, then there are other games on Disney's Games Cafe that will do that.

System Requirements

Windows ME/2000/XP
Pentium III ® 800MHz CPU
128 MB RAM
16 MB 3D graphics card or better
80 MB free hard disk space

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Grand Theft Auto III is a faithful

Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: DMA Design
Genre: Modern Action Adventure
Release Date: May 20, 2002 (more)
ESRB: MATURE
Number of Players: 1 Player

Since its release last October for the PlayStation 2, Grand Theft Auto III has become one of the most popular games ever made. Far superior to its predecessors, GTAIII let you go on a free-form crime spree in a surprisingly lifelike city. It was so successful that, even amidst stiff competition from games such as Halo and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, it earned GameSpot's Video Game of the Year award, both from GameSpot's editors and its readers alike--and the accolades didn't stop there. Now, publisher Rockstar Games has finally released a version for the PC. And while it has somewhat steep hardware requirements and doesn't offer any significant new content, it doesn't manage to screw anything up either. Six months after its initial release and in a relatively unchanged form, Grand Theft Auto III still remains a great, great game.

The basic appeal of GTAIII is the ageless fascination with using firecrackers to blow up model cars, staging horrific toy-train wrecks, and lighting plastic army men on fire. It sets you down in the middle of a detailed clockwork world, presents you with a physics model and a wide variety of interesting objects to interact with, and then gives you the freedom to smash them into each other and enjoy the resulting mayhem. Within this metasandbox mode, you're also presented with a series of missions, which tell the ongoing story of your life of crime among the game's cast of unsavory characters.

While these 73 missions provide a proper plot and a beginning, middle, and end to the game, you can attempt them at your leisure. In between the missions, you're free to do whatever you want, either on foot or in any number of vehicles, most of which you can relinquish from their owners at the touch of a button. Other than the always satisfying manufacture of general chaos, there are plenty of more-structured tasks to undertake. For instance, if you steal a cab, you can begin accepting fares in what amounts to a nearly complete re-creation of Crazy Taxi. Police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances also each have timed subgames associated with them. In addition, there are 20 mass-destruction challenges (called "rampages"), 100 hidden packages to find, and 20 cinematic superjumps hidden throughout the city. Completing these side tasks grants you various bonuses, ranging from access to extra weapons to cash bonuses.

The real star of the game, however, is the environment itself--a corrupt municipality called Liberty City. Scotland-based developer DMA Design (recently renamed Rockstar North) has done an amazing job of creating a living city dense with detail. The streets are busy with both pedestrian and vehicle traffic. Time passes, the sun rises and sets, and different weather patterns move in and out. And unlike in most games, you can actually drive to the skyscrapers on the horizon several miles away. What's more amazing is that the huge city is presented as a virtually seamless world. There is a short one-to-two-second loading time (down from the PlayStation 2's five to seven seconds) between the city's three districts, but otherwise the only breaks for loading occur momentarily before mission cutscenes.

The PC version permits you to play the game in resolutions as high as 1600x1200, a huge leap over the relatively low-res PlayStation 2 version. In addition, the textures have been reworked and are now much sharper. Details, like some store signs, that were blurry on the PS2 are now clear enough to read easily. The polygon counts, on the other hand, are unchanged. The higher resolution makes the simple geometry stand out, especially on the character models. However, the impressive view distance and general amount of activity on the screen counter the somewhat chunky models. Pop-up is a more serious problem. The "bubble" in which active objects in the world exist ends long before the horizon does. On a long stretch of straight road, vehicles and people simply materialize in the distance. On the low-res, fuzzier PS2 version, this effect was much less noticeable. It would have been nice if the object draw distance had been made adjustable, but it's more of a minor visual distraction than something that actively interferes with gameplay.

It's worth noting that the enhanced graphics come at a price. We tested the game on the "recommended" system--a 700Mhz CPU with 128MB of RAM and a 32MB graphics card--and were required to turn every detail to its lowest setting to make the game playable. And even then, it stuttered enough that the PS2 version seemed like the better alternative. It's hard to imagine that Grand Theft Auto III would run at all on the so-called minimum specs. Fortunately, when we tested the game on a higher-end system, with a newer graphics card and a faster processor, we experienced significantly better results.

Minimum System Requirements
System: PIII 450 or equivalent
RAM: 96 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB
Hard Drive Space: 700 MB

Recommended System Requirements
System: PIII 700 or equivalent
RAM: 128 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB
Hard Drive Space: 700 MB

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25 to life

Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Developer: Avalanche Software
Genre: Modern Shooter
Release Date: Jan 17, 2006
ESRB: MATURE
ESRB Descriptors: Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Sexual Themes

Connectivity: Online
Offline Modes: Competitive
Number of Players: 1 Player
Number of Online Players: 16 Online

Throughout the early and mid '90s, there was a boom in movies that took place in "the hood." This urban-themed movie trend really kicked off due to the success of John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood. After that, the "me too" phenomenon kicked in, and there was suddenly a glut of gangsta movies--the quality of each steadily declining the further in you got. The same phenomenon is happening with games. While games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas stand out as Boyz n the Hood or Juice equivalents, we're also getting our video game equivalents of junk like Tales From the Hood or (shudder) Phat Beach. 25 to Life is the latest in line, and this third-person shooter is, in a word, dumb.

25 to Life is an overly simple third-person shooter that has a story-driven single-player mode and a team-based multiplayer mode. The single-player starts you out in the role of Freeze, a gangster who's trying to get out of the game and escape with his wife and son. You're asked to do "one last job," which, of course, goes spectacularly wrong and messes everything up. You'll also play as a cop surrounded by dirty cops and as a gang leader who gets banished to Mexico only to end up taking over the organized-crime scene there by force. The story is all over the place, and since the playable characters are to a certain extent connected, you're never really sure if you're playing as a good guy or a bad guy. But the narrative is so lame that you probably won't care.
The single-player action boils down to hiding around corners, popping out, and mowing down as many enemies as you can. You'll come across a bunch of different weapons--including pistols, dual pistols, submachine pistols, assault rifles, and even a LAW rocket launcher or two. In case you're silly enough to get up close, you'll also be packing a melee weapon, such as a knife or a hammer or something. There's almost always enough ammo around to prevent you from having to turn to your melee weapons, and there's usually enough health around--at least on the default difficulty setting--to prevent the game from ever being too difficult, assuming you're careful and don't stand out in the open. An onscreen radar displays enemy positions, which is good for letting you know when you're safe and when you've got trouble coming around the corner.

The environments vary, giving you outdoor and indoor levels to play in. You'll run through some Los Angeles-like streets, rob a bank and a casino, run through the streets of Tijuana, and break out of a prison during a riot. There's a good amount of variety, though none of the environments are particularly noteworthy. Most simply contain singular paths that take you from start to finish as you blast your way through the game's short story mode.
As you play through single-player, you'll be unlocking new custom items for use in the multiplayer. The team-based multiplayer is cops versus criminals for up to 16 players in four modes. War is your basic team deathmatch. Raid puts the criminals on the defensive as they protect their stash from the cops. Robbery puts a series of loot items on the map, which criminals must steal and return to their base while the cops try to prevent them from doing so. Tag pits criminals against criminals in a graffiti war. The taggable walls act as control points, and it's up to your team to hold down as much of the map as possible to earn points. If you like, you can disable or limit respawns to adjust the finality of death.
While the multiplayer setup's focus on team games makes it resemble Sony's popular SOCOM series at a glance, you won't find any of that game's tactical elements here. Death comes quickly if you expose yourself to enemy fire for too long. Overall, it's a simple mode that doesn't beat out its competition on any of the three platforms.

25 to Life is available on the PC, the Xbox, and the PlayStation 2, and the experience is roughly the same across all three platforms. The PC offers slightly better control, with its standard mouse-and-keyboard setup, but the Xbox and the PS2 versions control just fine. However, a bug in the PC version caused all of the music to constantly skip, forcing us to disable it. The Xbox and the PS2 versions come with a soundtrack CD, though it is conveniently missing all of the game's best music, while the PC version comes with a Freeze playing card for use with the collectible card game Street Warriors.

Graphically, the game isn't much to look at. The bland environments and generic character animation stick out, and the rag doll-like physics of falling bodies look cheap, especially when dead bodies clip right through solid objects. The sound effects are similarly standard--you've heard gunfire in a video game before, right? The voice acting is passable, though the script's low quality negates any of the game's better voice actors. The soundtrack is a quality mix of hip-hop, both old and new. It's good, which makes the PC version's music bug all the more disappointing. Containing classics from Boogie Down Productions and Public Enemy ("Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" plays during the prison riot scene, which is a perfect fit, even if your in-game motive doesn't match the song's), it's the high point of the entire package.
While 25 to Life works as intended, the third-person shooting doesn't differentiate itself in any way, making it feel like a sad Max Payne clone--lacking that game's style and acrobatic shot-dodge maneuvers. The multiplayer is functional, yet thoroughly unexciting. Even if you're a fan of the subject matter, you could certainly do better than 25 to Life.

Minimum System Requirements
System: 1.4Ghz CPU or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB
Hard Drive Space: 2500 MB
Other: DVD-ROM drive

Recommended System Requirements
System: 2.4Ghz CPU or equivalent
RAM: 512 MB
Video Memory: 128 MB
Hard Drive Space: 2500 MB
Other: DVD-ROM drive

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Command&Conquer Renegade

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Westwood Studios
Genre: Sci-Fi First-Person Shooter
Release Date: Feb 27, 2002 (more)
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Blood, Violence



Westwood's Command & Conquer, released back in 1995, is one of the most famous, most influential real-time strategy games ever made. It achieved unprecedented popularity due to its superb gameplay, intense action, and strategic depth--and also its great setting. You'd control the military forces of either of two futuristic military factions--the Global Defense Initiative (GDI), a technologically superior version of the United Nations; or a terrorist group called the Brotherhood of Nod--in an effort to wrest control of the world's supply of a precious mineral called tiberium. Many aspects of C&C were original and memorable, down to the individual military units you'd control. Perhaps the greatest of these was GDI's commando, a one-man army capable of single-handedly taking out legions of Nod infantry and entire Nod bases. Now, that GDI commando is given an entire game to call his own in Command & Conquer Renegade, a solid first-person shooter spin-off of Westwood's classic. The game does have some noticeable problems, though C&C fans may find themselves having too much fun to care. Renegade makes great use of the source material, yet it's suitable both for C&C fans and for those who enjoy team-based multiplayer competition in general.

Throughout the single-player mode of Renegade, you'll play as Captain Nick "Havoc" Parker, a special forces operative for the GDI who's cocky and insubordinate and prefers working alone--but he's got more than enough skills to back up his bad attitude. Havoc loses the laid-back Southern drawl of the original C&C commando in favor of a rough-and-tough personality laced with a chauvinistic streak, similar to Solid Snake from the Metal Gear Solid games. Like Snake, Havoc may not be the perfect role model, but he manages to be likable--that's partly because he spouts a number of great one-liners during the course of Renegade, many of which are based on the commando's lines from C&C.

Havoc will need to complete about a dozen sequential missions, all of which are quite big and pit you against droves of Nod troops. Most of the missions center on a rescue operation--you're trying to find a group of scientists who've been captured by Nod. You won't rescue them right away, but at least you'll get to gun down a whole bunch of bad guys while trying to do so. The best thing about the missions in Renegade is that they can give the sense that you're part of a larger battle already taking place. You'll see familiar C&C vehicles--transport helicopters, various tanks, humvees, and more--all taking part in the action. Sometimes you'll be joined by other GDI troops in pitched battles against superior numbers of Nod forces. These moments will make you feel as though you're right there in the middle of an intense C&C skirmish. The fact that the game recycles many of C&C's sound effects helps maintain the effect.

Renegade has a number of such moments, but the brunt of the action actually tends to fall flat for several reasons. It's sometimes hard to tell when you're taking damage from enemy fire--this is also a problem in the multiplayer mode, where you'll sometimes suddenly drop dead, without any indication that it was a sniper who picked you off. Though you'll fight a number of different types of enemy troopers throughout the single-player game--from Nod's lowliest fodder up to its elite, the black guard--they all exhibit the same sort of scripted, robotic behavior that makes them uninteresting to fight, though not necessarily easy. Nod troops will sometimes do a good job of weaving left and right to avoid your fire. But in general, they'll all stupidly charge straight at you while shooting or just keep firing at you from sniping positions. They'll get confused by obstacles such as tables and doorways, and out in the open, they'll stand perfectly still off in the distance while you snipe at them. If two are standing side by side and one gets shot in the head, the other usually won't even twitch. Defeated enemies will randomly drop armor, health, and ammo power-ups as their bodies mysteriously disappear in shimmering, blue light. While the game sometimes gives you the sense that you're actually involved in a real battle, all these things undermine that effect.

There's a ton of weapons available in Renegade, but most of them are similar in function, a number of them seem underpowered, and some of them will serve little purpose in the single-player game. Almost all of the weapons are very direct--just point and shoot. The weapon models look good, but many of the sound effects lack punch, and the weapons themselves often seem ineffective unless you hit your enemies right in the head. When you do shoot a Nod grunt, you'll see him reel in pain, opening him up to further attacks. The enemies in Renegade animate smoothly, since their movements were motion-captured to look realistic. The violence in Renegade isn't particularly graphic, though--defeated soldiers mostly just crumple to the ground. There's no blood in the game, unless you count what looks like a faint red puff of smoke that you'll see emanate from wherever you shoot your opponent.

Not all the action takes place on foot. You can commandeer a number of GDI and Nod ground vehicles over the course of Renegade's single-player mode, and they figure even more prominently in the multiplayer mode. All the vehicles look good, which is fortunate since you can only control them from a third-person view--but they seem hollow and lack any real sense of mass and girth. The vehicles are very simple to drive, but C&C fans will still love seeing, and directly controlling, their old favorites such as the GDI mammoth tank and the Nod flame tank in a 3D environment. Most of the vehicles can absorb a great deal of damage, they all have swiveling weapons and unlimited ammo, and even if they're blown up with you inside, you'll always emerge unscathed.

Renegade's single-player mode offers three different difficulty settings, the toughest of which should be challenging for shooter veterans, while the other two should be suitable for less experienced players. Whatever difficulty you play at, you don't need to set aside more than 10 hours to complete the single-player game. Renegade's multiplayer mode, which is the superior part of the game, should last you a lot longer. It's a team-based GDI-vs.-Nod showdown that challenges players to be the first to destroy their rivals' bases. The bases in Renegade look like they're straight out of the original C&C game, which is just one detail that helps the multiplayer mode succeed in playing like a C&C skirmish.

Minimum System Requirements
System: PII 450 or equivalent
RAM: 64 MB
Video Memory: 16 MB
Hard Drive Space: 500 MB

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Ascension to The Throne

A turn-based strategy game with RPG elements, Ascension to the Throne places players in a fantasy environment in which they must make new allies and fight enemies...

Genre: Fantasy Turn-Based Strategy
Release Date: TBA


Ascension to the Throne is a turn-based strategy game with RPG elements. In a world of fantasy the hero will have to pass many tests on his way to victory. Enemies seek to stop players from regaining power and having taking revenge, gain new friends to aid you in reclaiming the throne. Become the King you were born to be - wise, brave and courageous.
Players will act as the last offspring of the ancient family, which has ruled Airath for ages. But times have changed and traitorous enemies attacked the castle. They slaughtered his family and destroyed the settlement, but they didn't crush his will. A very powerful spell cast by a magician threw the hero far beyond the borders of the country. He was on his own - without relatives, friends, without an army and without money. He lost everything he was proud of but still he was alive and chose the path of vengeance.
Players will explore a new fascinating world, full of foes and friends. They will have to crush hordes of enemies and find new followers to regain the title and ascend to the throne.

Features
Combination of real-time movement around the game world and turn-based battles
Large-scale tactical battles. Up to 20 squads (up to 10 units in each)
Players are not bounded by separate missions. They can go to any part of the game world and explore it. The game world is integral and players are free to choose any direction
Original concept. The Hero is the player, and instead of giving orders and watching the battles from a safe place, he participates in them by himself. But remember, that you can easily loose your Hero in the heat of a battle

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Devil May Cry 3 Special Edtion for PC

Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Capcom
Genre: Fantasy Action Adventure
Release Date: Oct 16, 2006 (more)
ESRB: MATURE
ESRB Descriptors: Blood, Suggestive Themes, Violence

Sound: Dolby Pro Logic II
Number of Players: 1 Player


Released earlier this year for the PlayStation 2, Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening - Special Edition was a budget-priced, updated version of one of last year's toughest, best, most intense action adventure games on consoles. Between its manic hack-and-slash gameplay and its over-the-top anime-inspired presentation, the game never seemed like it would make a good fit on the PC. But a PC version came along anyway, offering up a no-frills port that loses some of its charm and quality in translation, yet retains some solid action and a lot of personality underneath it all. So the underlying game is still great, but unless you categorically can't play this game on a PS2 yet feel compelled to play it anyway, this version isn't your best bet.




This update rebalances the original game's notoriously hard difficulty setting while adding a new playable character (as an unlockable bonus) and some new battles. What made Devil May Cry 3 such a great game in the first place was its flashy presentation and its fantastic combat. As the brash demon hunter Dante, you can kick all kinds of otherworldly ass top to bottom, courtesy of your various over-the-top firearms and melee weapons. Split-second timing is necessary to avoid your enemies' ferocious counterattacks, and learning to dodge properly and to not get blindsided by an occasionally awkward camera angle definitely takes time. But eventually, everything feels just right, and suddenly you're making mincemeat out of tons of foes--pulling off spectacular combos involving multiple weapons, thrashing foes up into the air, high in the sky, and down to the ground, and then finishing them off while they're lying helpless at your feet. It gets all the more intense when you're battling the game's numerous boss opponents, which are arguably the highlight of the experience. Occasional puzzle-solving and backtracking offer a brief respite from the carnage, but otherwise they aren't particularly exciting aspects of play. A few basic role-playing elements are effectively integrated, allowing you to choose between some different fighting styles and learn upgraded moves and abilities for those styles the more you use them.
One of the distinguishing features of the PlayStation 2 original is how fast it moves. The smooth frame rate wasn't just for show, because many of the game's demonic foes strike quickly and hit hard, so you needed fast reflexes to get out of the way before they skewered you. On the PC, the visuals don't hold up as well, even if you have a very fast system and run the game at a relatively low resolution. Some of the cinematic cutscenes also look pretty bad here, thanks to grainy-looking video playback. It's not immediately clear why this version doesn't move as well as its PS2 counterpart, considering that these simple, somewhat drab 3D graphics look pretty unflattering by the PC's high standards. At least there's some great visual design on display to make up for the dated presentation, and the motion-captured cutscenes that make up Devil May Cry 3's ridiculous but engaging story are still excellent.

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Minimun Spec Requirement:
Supported OS: Windows 2000/XP (only)
Processor: 1 GHz Pentium III or AMD Athlon (or better)
RAM: 256 MB (512 recommended)
Video Card: 128 MB DirectX 9.0c-compliant Shader 2.0 capablegraphics card (256 Recommended)(see supported list*)
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compliant (or better
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c or higher
Hard Drive Space: 2.0 GB minimum
Peripherals Supported: Windows-compatible mouse keyboard and game pad



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