Shrek 2
Rated: E for Everyone
Reviewed by Walter Chaw

Modeled after 2004's blockbuster animated sequel, you play Shrek, giant green ogre on his way across the world to Far Far Away and a meeting with the in-laws. A third-person, squad-based game of minor exploration and gentle fisticuffs, the title mirrors the plot of the film (insofar as there's a plot to the film), allowing the player to switch between four team members on the fly. To its credit, it's impossible to finish the game using only one character (Shrek is strong, Gingerbread Man has projectiles, Lil' Red is fast, and so on). The battle engine is well-constructed with an eye towards crafting unique moves for each of the characters and a well-calibrated hit-point system that keeps the combat well within the realm of the respectable. Each level is based on a different nursery rhyme or fairy tale making for a few genuinely innovative sequences (the best involving shepherding the three blind mice) while an appearance of Donkey's Dragon girlfriend from the first film (she doesn't make an appearance in the sequel), is, graphically-speaking, sort of stunning. Smooth controls, nice gameplay, a diverting 6-9 hours of gaming for the grown-up, endless fun for the squirt.

GAMEPLAY - A
GRAPHICS - A
SOUND - A
OVERALL - A


Sid Meier’s Pirates!
Rated: E for Everyone
Content: Violence, Suggestive Themes, Alcohol Reference
Systems: Xbox PC
Reviewed by Sebastian Wolfe
Description: Raid the Caribbean as a 17th- century pirate captain in this epic, open- ended seafaring adventure. Based on Sid Meier’s original masterpiece, Pirates! as you face countless dogged enemies, wooing fair maidens and raising the Jolly Rodger on the high seas in pursuits of riches.
Opinion: I give this game Five Stars. Personally I think this game is a little violent for younger children and is a little hard to comprehend. There is obviously a lot of violence in the game because the whole object is to sink ships and plunder villages. Alcohol reference is slim. The only alcohol is the fact that you see unopened kegs in taverns. Suggestive themes are that you can marry a governor daughter and marry more than once. This game is long and has no apparent end other than age, as the game progresses you get older and things become harder and slower and you always can retire. This is the only way I’ve found to end the game. However I do enjoy playing over and over.
Tips: When starting a game choose the English for the first time, they are easy to play. I would suggest that you try to obtain a brigantine a mid size ship because they are fast and have many cannons. The bigger ships are good for long voyages but are slow and easily outrun. Move ahead in the ranks slowly by gaining treasure and winning over women, going after the top pirates can be dangerous and could result in defeat. Finally if you rescue your sister and get the chance to face Montallbon be sure you have plenty of crew and upgrades
Personal: I play on the PC I find that there are more extras to the game. I like to use the navigator class because it helps in many areas. I prefer to marry English daughters they are easier to dance with resulting in better items. I prefer to side with the French because it is a real challenge.


Silent Hunter III
Rated: T for teen, mild violence

Platform: PC
Genre: Simulation / Strategy

2 years in production, Silent Hunter III is another smash hit from Ubisoft Entertainment. Players can command 3 different types of U-boats and many variations historically recreated in amazing 3D detail in a stunning virtual maritime environment. The water, sky, clouds, and even sea gulls immerse the player in this heart throbbing "Das Boot" style submarine combat simulator.

Player controls are simple to learn for advanced and casual gamers using either the 3D environment, or quick tool bar. Various difficulty setting allow for arcade action, or historical simulation.

Violence is minimized to naval combat, ship damage, and sinking ships in great detail; Smoke, fire, and floating debris. 3D characters are used for game interface and do show signs of stress during combat, but no injuries or death. I suspect this was done intentionally to maintain the Teen rating. Ubisoft Entertainment is a European software publisher and there for has eliminated the Nazi swastika from the U-boats and replaced them with Kriegsmarine (German Navy) emblems to conform to European law.

U-boat fans and strategy fans young and old alike will love SH3. Pre teens will get a kick out of the virtual 3D environment but may have a hard time with the games learning curve. Teens with a knack for strategy and WWII history will eat this game up.

Parents may find SH3 marginally academic


Simpson's Hit and Run
Rated: T for Teen, for comic mischief, mild language, violence

This games takes the Simpson family into a intergalactic TV reality show. It has 56 different missions and your job is to find out why all of the weird things are happening in Springfield. You have the option of playing the game as one of the Simpson family or as other secret characters. Basically, if you allow your children to watch the Simpson’s on TV, this game will be appropriate and fun for them to play.


The Sims: Busting Out
Rated: T for Teen, mature sexual themes, mild violence and crude humor

This is a whole new Sims game. The whole idea is to get out of the house. You get to make your own character and choose from new careers. You also have new locations such as, Club Rubb, the Love Shack, Shiny Things Lab, Toanes Gym and Goth Manor. You have over a dozen new levels and 100 new objects and new moves. Great New Sims Game!!!


SOCOM: US Navy Seals
Rated: M for Mature, for blood and violence

A game of intrigue!! You are a navy seal commander who must take his men on 17 missions. They occur day and night and in the air, on the sea and on land. One of the best features of this game is that it allows up to 16 players to play at the same time. You need a Playstation 2 network adapter and a broadband connection. The best part: you get to rescue hostages and hunt down terrorists.


SOCOM II: US Navy Seals
Rated: M for Mature, for blood and violence

A return of Socom with the same general idea. One difference is that all the missions are now international missions and take place in rural, urban and wilderness settings. You team up with special ops forces and again can play up to 16 players at the same time. Great detailed graphics.


Sonic Heroes
R: E for Everybody, mild fantasy violence

This is a great family game. You play as on of 4 different 3-man teams that you select from 12 cloassic Sonic characters. There are fun 3-d courses at fantastic speeds. You can try out different team formations, winning strategies and try to solve team-based puzzles. The goal of Sonic Heroes it to overthrow the ultimate evil ones.


Space Channel 5
Rated: T for Teen

You are Uala, Channel 5 news reporter. You engage in dance battles with alien invaders including the Morolians. There are great sci-fi music games with 100's of levels. The Rhythm Battles Challenge lets you play instuments. You also have a 2-player co=operating mode. A great 2 disc Special Edition that features the original Dreamcast game and Splace Channel 5 Part 2, that was released in Japan but never in the United States.


Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
Rated: T for Teen
Reviewed by Walter Chaw

Simply extrordinary, where the original Splinter Cell stands as a landmark in gaming, it's sequel, Pandora Tomorrow improves it in every possible way while providing an online playing option that is, in plain language, the best that the feature has to offer. The enemy AI is devilishly human with different alert levels causing them to don different levels of armor which also has the side effect of forcing you to use your brains instead of your arsenal. As good as the single -player is, though, it's the online gameplay that astonishes as you go two-on-two in an environment where there appear to be an endless number of possible solutions to every situation. It's the best game so far this year.

GAMEPLAY - A+
GRAPHICS - A+
SOUND - A+
OVERALL - A+


SSX 3 Out Of Bounds
Rated: E for Everybody

A great snowboarding game for anyone interested in snowboarding! It has a variety of options; uber tricks and Hand plants. It has 3 large Mountains with 4 main goals each. It has the original 6 Characters and 4 new riders. It lets you decide


Star Trek: Shattered Universe
Rated: E for Everybody, for mild violence

In Shattered Universe you get to play a fighter pilot aboard Captain Sulu's ship, the USS Excelsior. The USS Excelsior gets pulled into a wicked Mirror Universe and everything becomes treacherous. Even the Federation has become an evil empire. You have to fight your way home. There are some of the original objects from the Star Trek series such as the Guardian Forever and the Planet Killer.


Star Wars Battlefront
Rated: T (teen)

Platform: PlayStation / X-box / PC
Genre: Shooter/Strategy
Rated: T (teen) Violence
Overview:
Star Wars Battlefront (link) is a challenging multiplayer 1st person shooter based upon the Star Wars saga. Similar to Battlefeild1942 (link), and Battlefield Vietnam (link), Players must capture and defend check points to gain an advantage in a battle of attrition.
Players compete in 3D battles from the films recreated in great detail. Players can chose from a variety of Star Wars characters each with different abilities and duties on the battle field and change character mid battle to suit their strategic needs.
Star Wars Battlefront uses a very nice image rendering engine giving the game a smooth look, high resolution textures, and dynamic light. Audio is right out of the movies including background music.
Star Wars Battlefront was designed and published by Lucas Arts, Pandemic studios, PlayStation2, and X-box. The complete product is grade "A" quality.
Violence is ranged weapon and close melee combat, demolition impact, and vehicular collisions. There is little or no blood.
Summary:
Star Wars Battlefront is a "Must Have" for Star Wars fans. Online multiplay supports up to 64 players making for a very interactive gaming experience. Pre teens may not have the eye hand coordination or the problem solving skills to fully enjoy the game. Teens will enjoy the fast past battles and verity of weapons and vehicles to choose from.


Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic
Rated: T for Teen
Reviewed by Walter Chaw

An exemplary turn-based RPG, developed by Bioware for LucasArts, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (hereafter KotOR) is set four-thousand years before the events of Episode I and packs enough detail and authenticity into its presentation to satisfy both the gamer and geek contingents. The potential inventory is huge, the weapons all upgradeable, and though I would have liked the option of hopping into the stray landspeeder on Tatooine or Mandalorian troop transport on Kashyyk, the ability to develop force powers and wield lightsabers with both hands (or one double-sided lightsaber) while tweaking their effectiveness with crystals you discover in various caves around the hyperspace route, more than makes up for the stray complaint.
In truth, KotOR is the best game of its kind for a platform system since Final Fantasy VII, with the added benefit of a marvelous storyline (superior to anything George Lucas has written since 1977) set in a Star Wars universe that's been faithfully recreated. Every alien speaks their own language (no more of the insulting ethnic patois of Lucas&Mac226; late production), and in conversation the player is given the opportunity to direct the discourse towards a peaceful resolution (Light Side points earned) or violent one (Dark Side points earned). The replay-factor is high for KotOR, besides the requisite difficulty level settings, it's a blast going through the game once as a "good" character, trying to enforce justice throughout the universe - and then once as an "evil" character attempting to assume the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith.
Characters "level up" by collecting experience points, earned the traditional way through completing quests (and several side-quests allow for extended gameplay), forwarding plot, and, of course, killing the enemy. Implants, equipment, and all manner of other modifiers (including adrenal hypos) enhance character attributes, leading to an experience that, if it doesn't quite go as far as I wanted it to, probably falls short just because of how much fun I was having.
Solving the main quest on a medium difficulty will probably take around fifteen hours - with all the additional side quests factored in, play time easily pushes up into twenty hours. The temptation is high to further explore the universe, but after a certain point, unfortunately, the game doesn't allow you to backtrack (among other things, a couple of locations are obliterated by the Sith navy). Worse, the game only seems to allow your character to progress to level 20, cutting off the possibility to train a character that's truly a Jedi Master rather than an advanced apprentice. More, I would have liked the option to pick a fight with any of the thousands of wandering NPC's (non-player character) instead of just the few that may have a beef with you, but that might just be the Vice City in me talking.
KotOR has a lot of bloodless, Star Wars-related violence making the playing experience pretty chaste. There are lightsaber duels, of course, and a few storylines that lead into some mild suggestion of Sith cruelty (lightning bolt torture, lifeforce-draining), so the really little ones should probably refrain -
but if you feel comfortable with your child watching The Empire Strikes Back, there's really nothing in the game more objectionable than anything in that film. Language is clean, no sexuality.
Technical
A little stuttering in the frame rate now and again, and a pretty major bug following a sacrifice by Jedi Bastila, which is a surprise for a game on the XBox platform, and there's a certain repetitiveness in the interior locations, but color me impressed with the vividness of the colors (particularly in a late-unlocking tropical planet), with the character animations in particular impressive for their detail. The sound, available with in DD 5.1, is showcase material. It's amazing. The control system, likewise, is amazingly fluid once you pick it up (give it about ten minutes) - I would have liked more pick-up options a'la Max Payne or Morrowind, but there's still the sequel to think about.


The Suffering
Rated M for Mature, 17+ only for extreme violence, language, and themes
Reviewed by Walter Chaw

Never much of a fan of the Resident Evil series, Midway’s The Suffering, with its smooth game controls, fantastic graphics, and creature design by movie F/X master Stan Winston, offers an adult-themed supernatural prison story married to a nice >third-person shooter in the Max Payne tradition. Indeed, except for the lack of a "bullet time" option, the ability to use dual-revolvers and painkillers to restore health suggests that the same engine was used on both games. Though game-play gets repetitive and the puzzles embedded in the game are pretty easy to figure out, what separates this game from something like Manhunt is that it allows the player to make moral choices as opposed to merely homicidal ones, changing the outcome (there are three possible endings) of the tale. You play Torque, a man convicted of the murder of his ex-wife and two young children, and throughout the fact of your guilt is in doubt as you wander around in an old prison that appears to have been taken over by phantoms and demons. Beautifully storyboarded and come complete with a first-person perspective option, the game plays out like an interactive horror film: by turns terrifying and twisted, and not for the young or the squeamish. The game can be solved on the medium difficulty setting after about 12 hours of gameplay.

GAMEPLAY – A
GRAPHICS – A
SOUND – A+
OVERALL – A


Super Mario Galaxy
Platform: Wii
ESRB: E for Everyone

Super Trucks Racing
Rated: E for Everyone

Your super truck is a 5-ton beauty that can get up to speeds of 150mph. You get your choice of 15 different tracks and 6 different race modes including Championship, Time Trial and Survival Mode. You get to watch the crowds with your multiple drving views. But be careful to watch out for those big time wrecks and big time crashes. Fun game, good graphics, fast and fun.