Nairlnarf's Brief Reviews

4x4 Evolution
By: G.O.D. (Gathering of Developers)
Graphics-9.75, Sound-8.0, Fun Factor-8.5, Lasting Appeal-8.0
Overall Score (weighted average)-8.7
Objectionable Content-None

My first impressions of this game was AWESOME! Why? Because the first thing you notice is graphics! And this game's graphics are amazing. Incredible detail, awesome shock action, sweet and interactive environments, cool nightime effects, nice lighting, etc. The list goes on. Unfortunately, there is not damage whatsoever, and the vehicles go airborn too easily to be realistic at all. The sound is ok, but the music gets old. It is really fun to drive around in Excursions and Durangos, and unlocking vehicles will add to the fun, but since there is no damage, it isn't as fun as it could be. Multiplayer would be fun too, but since you can't really damage each other's cars, it could be better too. As for lasting appeal, multiplayer and lots of cars to unlock help, but since it isn't extremely fun, it won't stay fun for as long as it could. However, don't let this get across the idea that this is a bad game. If you buy a game for graphics, you should go now and slap down your $$$ for this. However, if you also care about fun and lasting appeal (as you should), I'd recommend that you get the demo and try that first. There's a good chance you'll like it, but it doesn't do for offroad driving what Midtown Madness 2 does for onroad.

Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors
By: Microsoft
Graphics-9.0, Sound-9.5, Fun Factor-9.5, Lasting Appeal-9.25
Overall Score (weighted average)-9.25
Objectionable Content-Medieval-times killing, blood appears when animals/people are killed.

Expansion to Age of Kings, including many more missions, civilizations, and more intelligent vilagers. Other cool things include all-new units. Plus, buildings all look different according to the empire. Very cool and if you liked the original and have it, I would say this is worth the $30. These ratings are the same as the Age of Kings review below.

Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings
By: Microsoft
Graphics-9.0, Sound-9.5, Fun Factor-9.5, Lasting Appeal-9.25
Overall Score (weighted average)-9.25
Objectionable Content-Medieval-times killing, blood appears when animals/people are killed.

The best strategy game I've played in a long time. Ingeniously designed, excellently executed. This is way better than Tiberian Sun. Graphics are great, with smooth animations, and realistic movement. Sound is really cool with a mix of medieval music and some upbeat music added. Very fun, lots of options and stuff you can upgrade, four ages (Dark, Feudal, Castle, and Imperial. You start with Dark ages, and move up by getting enough of certain resources. Each upgraded age gives you better technology that can seriously help you win), and lots of empires you can play for. Lasting appeal is very good because there is multiplayer over LAN and internet, and there are lots of missions and the skirmishes will keep you busy for a long time. This game is more challenging than the C&C's with great AI. Missions include real characters like Joan of Arc, Genghis Khan, etc. While most of this game is all about fighting, before you can attack, you must establish a large base with lots of villagers working around the clock to gather the resources you need to win. Resources include wood (trees), food (fish, plants, wild animals), gold (mine), stone (mine). Your villagers are also the only people who can build stuff for you, so you will want quite a few of them. This game is also educational, while you might not notice that when you are battleing. Where the Command and Conquer series are fantasy, this game is all about what the people really had at that time. There is also a part in the game where you can click on one of the 10+ empires and read about them. If you are a medieval time fanatic, a strategy fan, or someone who wants a realistic, educational, and very fun game, you will want to check this game out.

Army Men: Air Tactics
By: 3DO
Graphics-4.0, Sound-5.0, Fun Factor-4.5, Lasting Appeal-2.0
Overall Score (weighted average)-4.0
Objectionable Content-Shooting plasic army men.

Junk. Junk, junk, junk. This came out in '99? It looks like it should have come out in '97! Simple, 2-D graphics that could have been way better, boring explosions, choppy animations. Sound is ok, music is tolerable, but not much better. Fun factor is ok for a little while, but with the annoying control, gets very old after a very short time. Lasting appeal is disgusting with boring missions, and extremely annoying gameplay. Ugh! If you want a Army Men game, get Sarge's Heroes for the N64, or maybe check out Toys in Space, but DO NOT GET THIS GAME!!! AHHH!!! ERASE IT FROM MY COMPUTER!!! STOP WASTING MY HARD DRIVE SPACE!!! GROSS!!! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO, 3DO???

Cossacks: European Wars
4/27/01
By: GSC Game World, Strategy First
Graphics-9.0, Sound-7.0, Fun Factor-8.0, Lasting Appeal-8.0
Overall Score (weighted average)-8.2
Objectionable Content-Constant non-graphic violence.

Cossacks is a quite new game, and I checked it out because having owned Age Of Empires 2 and the expansion for quite a while, I was interested to see what kind of improvements this other company (which I had never heard of until now) made over the now almost two year old medieval RTS. Well, it's not perfect, and it doesn't show the polish of most recent Microsoft games (AOE2, MM2, etc.), but it is quite good. The graphics are the best part about it. They are still 2-D, which quite frankly is still my favorite look for RTS, but the animations are very smooth compared to the somewhat choppy animations of other recent 2-D RTSs, namely AOE2 and Red Alert 2. So I was quite impressed by that. The terrain is good looking, but not quite as varied as in AOE2. The unit detail shows the time gap between this and AOE2, because the units, especially the boats, have much better animation. I really liked seeing the oars move smoothly as they propelled my fleet. The water looks great too, and I like how the shroud slowly and smoothly recedes as you approach it. The graphics are better than in AOE2, but they'd better be considering it is almost 2 years newer. Sound isn't anything to write home about, and lasting appeal is pretty normal for this genre. It has a good multiplayer, and the ever popular random map skirmish mode. As for fun factor, Cossacks has a very good and efficient AI. However, this means it also has a very hard AI. It took me forever just to beat the computer player on easy skirmish. And the single player levels get extremely hard. So, this game is fun, but it's a bit too hard to stay fun if you're planning to beat it. As for the game itself, it has brought some new features that AOE2 missed out on, but has also left some things out that AOE2 had. Such as, in the Conquerors espansion of AOE2, the villagers begin working on stuff after building. The Cossacks ones don't. However, Cossacks does have new things like much more realism than AOE2 in many aspects. For one thing, your people continue to require food to live, whereas they only needed some at first in AOE2. The mercenary soldiers will turn against you if you run out of gold to pay them with. Ther are other minor things that make this game more realistic such as your bigger boats will sink your smaller ones if they hit them, etc. One last beef, though. Some buildings and units take no time at all to build/train, whereas some take rediculously long amounts of time to do so. And half the time there doesn't really seem to be a "realistic" reason for it. Anyway, I did like this game. It's really cool and I love the animations and how the units look. However, it isn't as polished as AOE2, and unless you'll be playing over LAN or internet, you'll probably get annoyed by the rediculous AI. Check out the demo, but I'd wait to get the game until we see what Microsoft's next RTS is like, or if you want to save money, get AOE2.

Grim Fandango
By: Lucasarts
Graphics-9.5, Sound-9.75, Fun Factor-9.5, Lasting Appeal-9.0
Overall Score (weighted average)-9.4
Objectionable Content-Mild violence and suggestive themes..

Wow. The masters of adventure games has to be Lucasarts. With funny characters, over-the-top speech, incredible and awesome CG environments, easy interface, tons of challenging puzzles, etc., Grim Fandango hits a home run in the adventure game department. The characters walk around in their environments, are 3D, and notice manipulatable objects instead of your mouse changing shape. The character graphics is a bit outdated, but not bad at all and the backgrounds/environments more than make up for it. This game would have gotten a gold if it weren't for the suggestive themes, which are mild, but unnecessary (certain cutscenes and remarks are about the main character, Manuel, and his girlfriend. Some are a bit too sensual, giving this a Teen rating), and the story (not a big deal, but this is about dead people trying to get certain places in the different echelons of the dead world, all for laughs though and not serious). Otherwise, this is an awesome game. If you are a teen, I'd recommend this game highly. The bad stuff isn't all that bad, and what is there doesn't play a big role in the gameplay. The demo is perfectly harmless, so at least check it out!

Mech Warrior: Vengeance
By: Microsoft
Graphics-8.0, Sound-8.5, Fun Factor-7.5, Lasting Appeal-8.0
Overall Score (weighted average)-8.0
Objectionable Content-Constant robot fighting.

MWV is a cool game where you are a robot pilot trying to destroy other enemy robots. There are lots of robot bodies that you can put all kinds of weapons on, such as missles, guns, lazers, etc. Once you have made a custom robot, you go out onto the battle field. There you bascially follow enemies around shooting them with all you've got 'till they (or you) eventually blow (the mechs are tough, so it could take quite a while for them or you to be destroyed). The graphics of the battlefields are really good. Actually, all of the game's graphics are really good, except for the robots themselves. They're not bad looking, but they are pretty pixelated. The explosions are really cool. This game is really fun for a while, but it get's pretty old after the 25th time you've followed an enemy around and eventually managed to blow it up. I can see this being great fun on multiplayer, but basically it's just a game that you play for a while and then it collects dust 'till the next time you're in a destructive mood. Lasting appeal is helped by the fact that multiplayer would be really fun, and there are lots of cool missions. However, the basic game probably will get old after a while. If you are a big fan of action and/or robots and like to see explosions and destruction, you'd probably like this game. I'd recommend that you try to demo first, though.

Pharaoh
By: Sierra
Graphics-7.75, Sound-9.25, Fun Factor-8.5, Lasting Appeal-8.0
Overall Score (weighted average)-8.25
Objectionable Content-Egyptian religion, and occasional battles.

If you have ever played Caesar III, you have played Pharoah. The are practically identical, except for they are obviously different kingdoms, and Pharaoh has worse graphics. The gameplay is the same, the objectives are very similar, etc. I personally like Caesar III better because it has better graphics, and I like the Roman theme better. I would download both demos before buying one, because they are so alike, but you will have to judge whether you like the Egyptian or Roman theme better. The graphics aren't very good for a game that came out in 1999, but the animations are pretty good. The sound is very high quality and egyptian, but not very upbeat. The fun factor is slightly worse than Caesar because I don't like the missions as much on Pharaoh, and the interface is a little less user-friendly. Lasting appeal could be helped a lot by multiplayer mode, but since it is a strategy game, it's lasting appeal is still pretty good. Check it out, but of the two, I personally like Caesar III better.

Starlancer
By: Microsoft
Graphics-9.5, Sound-9.0, Fun Factor-7.5, Lasting Appeal-8.5
Overall Score (weighted average)-8.5
Objectionable Content-Constant Shooting and blowing up enemy ships.

Starlancer is a lot (and I mean A LOT!) like X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter in it's gameplay. It is not, of course, in the Star Wars universe, but you are doing the same thing. Trying to keep behind an enemy ship so that you can get a few of your shots to strike home. However, it is quite a bit harder than X-W vs. TF because your enemies are faster and seem to be better pilots. It can get so annoyingly hard, that it can get old after a while and cause you to lose interest. However, it does have internet and network multiplayer, which would be very, very fun. The graphics are gorgeous, with awesome explosions, reflections, and a great framerate if your computer can handle it. Sound is good too with lots of speech, and good sound effects. If you are a fan of outer space ship-to-ship combat, you definetly want to check this one out.

= Platinum, = Gold, = Silver, = Bronze.

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