"Have you ever walked into a movie theatre expecting a unique and interesting experience only to come out disappointed because the film didn't live up to it's potential? Evolva oozes with creativity and imagination but, like so many unique concepts before it, it fails to deliver or sustain a level of consistency and intrigue. The storyline is worthy of a science fiction film in itself, yet Evolva seems to settle for the old shoot 'em up formula. That's not to say that Evolva isn't a convincing gaming experience though, I mean heck, when I finished watching the science fiction thriller Pitch Black I was fairly satisfied, but I certainly wasn't itching to watch the movie a second time."

Be sure to check out the rest of our fantastic Evolva review including an beaker full of visuals. Enjoy!

Set during the First World War, you take control of a variety of Allied bi-planes in an effort to halt the German war machine and defeat the infamous Red Baron. Strong gameplay and intuitive controls combine to create a sense of arcade-style immediacy in a dazzling 3D environment.

The Horse & Musket Scenario Pack will allow you to continue your exploration of the Dawn of Modern Warfare. From the 1670s to the American Revolution, the Horse & Musket Scenario Pack spans over a century of conflict, featuring such historical military luminaries as Turenne, Luxembourg, Saxe, Frederick and Arnold in the battles that made them famous. Battles include Saratoga (1777), Landen (1693), and Hochkirch (1758).

Testers should send an email to Jacobs at mike.jacob@sierra.com with the following information:

Subject line (exactly): PGA 2000 On-Line
Body of the message should include:
Your full name
Mailing address
Phone number
Fax number (if you have one)

Testers will be sent NDA agreements to sign, after which they will be mailed a beta build of the program.

As in the original, The Edge of Chaos will focus on the logistics and physics of a space simulator while incorporating an action/adventure element. Independence War II: The Edge of Chaos will soar into stores this winter. For more information, visit the official Independence War website.

Orcs appear in almost all fantasy RPGs, so fans are used to tolerating their brutal style of vulgar interference. In Gothic, there are three different castes of orcs: warriors, scouts and shamans. Warriors will be the biggest threat as they expend indiscriminate brute force in almost all of their interactions. An intelligent prisoner can outsmart them as they are the biggest, meanest and dumbest orcs. Scouts are smaller and less aggressive than warriors, but are smarter than all other orcs. Shamans are the spiritual leaders of the orcs and rule them in the Orc Caverns, mountainous hideouts in subterranean cities.

In addition to orcs, goblins have been woven into the complex social web of Gothic?s monsters. Goblins are a small, primitive race of deceptive, malicious monsters that cooperate with trolls and other monsters to defeat members of the prison world. Goblins live a simple life of thievery and consumption: they steal weapons and other valuable possessions and eat as much as possible.

Goblins are separated into two camps. One camp rambles throughout what is referred to as the upper world alone in search of loot or food; the other is intelligent enough to live in communities and live in secluded, protective caves. The second group travels and fights together, giving them a much greater chance of robbing and defeating their opponent. Both classes of goblins cooperate with larger, more threatening trolls and will sometimes even allow themselves to be used as weapons in altercations in exchange for small protections and favors. Because goblins are small, they need trolls to assist them in travel and conquest operations and are therefore subservient.

Gromada is a fast-paced, top-down action game pits players against planet-invading aliens in a non-linear campaign. The player has at their disposal a customizable tank complete with a variety of weaponry. Thanks to its skill settings and customized mission difficulty, Gromada will appeal to gamers of all ages and skill levels. The game will adjust the difficulty of each mission based on the player's performance in the previous mission(s).

Gromada also features high-resolution graphics that bring the planet's surface to life. The game comes alive with flora and fauna that can be destroyed by weapon fire and vehicle movement. Also included are spectacular special graphic effects, such as dynamic light sourcing, dramatic weapons fire, day and night lighting changes, and realistic explosions, smoke, and fire.

"To top things off, I was able to sign Roberto Alomar, Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams with absolutely no difficulty. Why any or all of those players would jump at the opportunity to play for my Montreal Expos is beyond me, let alone the reason why they didn't re-sign with their respective clubs. It just wouldn't happen in real life, which puts an end to that realistic aspect of MS Baseball 2001. The computer doesn't manage opposing teams well at all. The icing on the cake comes when you realize that simulated games don't produce box scores. That's right, you have no way of knowing how well your players do on auto-played games. As if that wasn't enough, there's also no way of knowing what other teams do in terms of transactions, any kind of news page is absent altogether."

Be sure to check out the rest of our Microsoft Baseball 2001 review including an on-deck circle full of screenshots. Enjoy!

"Alright, so we've got a large assortment of courses and a new design utility, what else can we look forward too? How about a new computer? One of the biggest surprises coming out of this year's edition is the fact that Tiger Woods 2000 requires a massive system in order to run properly. If you don't own a Pentium II-450 or higher, you'll find yourself lowering the resolution to 640x480 just so you don't suffer from incredible lag. You can turn off all the bells and whistles in order to increase frame-rate, but I couldn't find a combination that allowed me to play at a reasonable pace. I was forced to lower the resolution to 800x600 despite the fact the game supports resolutions up to 1280x1064. I certainly hope this isn't a new trend for EA Sports titles because if there was one thing they excelled at previously, it was the fact that lower-end machines could always run their titles with reasonable success."

Be sure to check out the rest of our Tiger Woods 2000 review including a golf cart full of screenshots. Enjoy!

The latest version of the program (1.0.0.114) adds new drivers for 3dfx Voodoo 2, 3dfx Voodoo 3 3500TV, 3dlabs Permedia 3 on Win98, Intel i810 and S3 Savage 2000 graphics cards. The new version also fixes a few small bugs including the program misdetecting some hardware (ie: i810e chipset) and a problem where installing the program would overwrite important system DLLs.

"The camera interface is simply horrendous. The default view is what you might call a ground view. You see your units at eye level, which would be perfect if it wasn't for the fact this is a strategy game. The whole battlefield needs to be viewed, so why this is the default view is beyond me. The good news, you can view one-on-one confrontations up close and personal. The bad news, you'll lose the game if you do so. You can't watch a battle and partake in a war at the same time, and moving the camera in and out is a tedious task. What you'll probably end up doing is pulling the camera as far back as you possible can in order to view the entire battlefield, at which point you lose all detail whatsoever in the units themselves. There's no in-between in Force Commander and this is arguably the game's downfall."

Be sure to check out the rest of our Force Commander review including a Tie Fighter full of screenshots. Enjoy!

"If this game excels in one thing, it's fun. I literally spent hours a day playing on practice mode cruising along the wave busting out all kinds of airs. There is a decent list of tricks to perform on the waves including: cutback, el rollo, barrel rolls, ARS, reverse air, forward air, back flip, front flip, and a few other variants. The tricks are very simplistic and anyone can learn how to pull them off after a few tries. Unfortunately, the main modes of play really aren't that fun at all. Competition is horrible, you sit around until a swell comes up and paddle into the wave and then do tricks for points (trust me, its much more worse than it sounds). Arcade isn't interesting either if you're a real bodyboarder because it focuses more on point accumulation and avoiding obstacles."

Be sure to check out the rest of our Mike Stewart's Bodyboarding review, including an ocean full of screenshots. Enjoy!

In Airfix Dogfighter, you choose the kind of powerful, destructive model plane you could only dream of when you were young - making the flying noises and blowing stuff up. You take your heavily armed, well-armored plane to combat with enemy planes and tanks and destroy anything in your path - and some things that aren't. As you battle tanks, planes and enemy convoys, you must complete a plethora of difficult missions without bursting into flames and plummeting to the earth.

In a world that appears larger than life, your model plane comes to life to challenge enemies and carry out daring missions and lethal air battles throughout your own home. Unlike super-realistic flight sims, Airfix Dogfighter is heavily focused on recreating the world of hand-held dogfights - skewed unit designations and fixed landing gears. Mission objectives are based on achieving victory in WWII using one of a vast number of authentic WWII fighters. The game also includes a house editor feature whereby players can create their own multiplayer maps and logos for their airforces when they challenge others in multiplayer battles.

Airfix Dogfighter contains 20 levels for single-player combat plus ten multiplayer Death match arena maps. Up to 16 players can battle on a LAN or the Internet. Scheduled for release later this year, Airfix Dogfighter promises to take you back to the childhood we all miss - when you can destroy everything around you and someone must remind you to use your indoor voices.

Where:
Server: irc.vaultnetwork.com Port: 6667 Channel: #vault

When:
Tuesday, April 18th, 2000, 6:00pm Pacific Time

The Rogue Spear add-on pack is a counter-terrorist team's worst nightmare: an urban setting. In Rogue Spear: Urban Operations, team Rainbow now faces its most dangerous missions yet with every stray bullet putting innocent lives at risk. Due to the public nature of these missions, the secrecy of the Rainbow organization is also at stake as the team fights against the most deadly terrorists the world has ever seen. Urban Operations includes new spaces with new game types for each one, all set in famous cities around the world.

In LucasArt's strategy offering, Force Commander, gamers take command of either the Empire or the Rebellion and field armies of the vehicles they know and love. Players can order TIE Bomber runs against Rebel bases, sortie snowspeeders against advancing Imperial armor, or lead a platoon of formidable AT-AT walkers to crush the Rebel resistance. Gamers must keep a level head and command their troops carefully, or they'll find their once-powerful forces left strewn and smoldering on a planet far, far away.

Motorsims also announced that they will sponsor Jeff Harrison in the upcoming SCCA F2000 season. The sponsorship includes top positioning on Jeff's car, trailer, driver's uniform, crew uniforms and all marketing collateral. During off times, Jeff will spend time in the Motorsims offices assisting them with the development of SCCA Trans-Am.

Both trackballs feature USB connections, five customizable buttons, a scrolling wheel and IntelliEye optical technology. The technology eliminates the need for a mouse ball. The new devices require Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, the Windows NT operating system version 4.0 with Service Pack 3 or later, or Windows 2000. PC users also need 29 MB of available hard disk space, a round mouse port (PS/2 compatible) or USB port, and a CD-ROM drive.

Mac users will need the Macintosh OS 8.5.1 or later; iMac users will need iMac update 1.1. Macintosh users also need 15 MB of hard disk space, a USB port and a CD-ROM drive.

Trackball Optical and Trackball Explorer are scheduled for release in October 2000. Trackball Optical will have an estimated retail price of around $45 and will be backed by a three-year warranty. Trackball Explorer will have an estimated retail price of $65 and will be backed by a five-year warranty.

"Controls are very good, too - though I'm a bit disappointed with the thrust controls - I find the momentum effects are sort of messed up: as soon as you set the thrust to zero, the ship stops almost instantly, almost braking."

"Adventure games, once the heart of computer gaming, as a genre, have died. The puzzle-solving simplistic interface of the past has been replaced by the 3D rendered, fast paced, twitchy games of the present. It is only fitting that we remember the heroes of our past, contrasting adventure gaming a decade ago, with that of today."