Dark Angel was a great little show on Fox, created by T2’s James Cameron and starred the beautiful Jessica Alba as Max, a genetically enhanced soldier in a post-apocalyptic near future. The first season of the television show was great sci-fi / action. The second season stretched a little and my interest waned, as did others, as a third season never popped up.

The Dark Angel game, available on the PS2 and X-Box appeared on the market months after the series went defunct. It was most likely in development before plans to cancel the series took place and Sierra decided to still release it.

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A lot of my focus and enjoyment from the PS2 thus far has been through sports and driving games (and always will be), but I’ve always had a thing for the iron eagles of the sky and really loved the 80’s flick, Top Gun. While Top Gun: Combat Zones does not have a thing to do with the Top Gun movie, besides the F-14s and dogfighting, it does share the delight of flying the not-so friendly skies.

The game is split into three eras, a Vietnam-era, Desert Storm and a near-present Middle-East skirmish. Each of the eras have a series of training missions that must be completed before tackling the real combat missions. The training missions seemed to fall into one of two categories: ones that could easily completed in one or two tries, and ones that got tedious, taking uncountable attempts to successful accomplish. These training missions do really prepare you for the enemies you’ll face.

Top Gun: Combat Zones is not a straight fighter sim though, it really leans toward being an arcade fighter, but that’s just fine in my book. The controls are pretty simple to master and turning seems pretty realistic to the actual fighters’ movement through the skies. For example, just as real naval aviators do, to really turn the F-14 efficiently, the plane has to be put nearly on its side to execute quick turns. The buttons are laid out nicely for the default control setup and after the first couple training missions, maneuvering the aircraft becomes second nature.

One of the cool facets of the game, which is also one of the reasons the game isn’t considered a true simulation is the fact that points are throughout. While success of your mission ultimately rests on whether you destroy your targets, score is being kept throughout the game for much more than just the number of bogeys you blow out of the sky. Your score is greatly enhanced by dare devil maneuvers, such as low-altitude flying, soaring under obstacles such as bridges, cranes, etc. and having close brushes with obstacles. While we’re not talking, edge-of-your-seat excitement, the bonus scoring is a nice touch and essential to get the highest rankings for missions.

Missions consist of two main types — dog fighting and bombing missions. The dog fighting can be extremely tough and frustrating. Locating enemies in the sky is difficult, as the radar is two dimensional, while the sky is obviously a three dimensional plane. It’s really tough to visually identify the planes, and can become really frustrating. The fighters I’ve encountered thus far tend to keep a fairly high altitude. Often, bogeys can be located a little easier by ascending a few thousand feet.

The bombing runs also are not without their share of frustration, as these are usually the missions that have to be done over and over again. Your aircraft can take a fair amount of damage (honestly a lot more than a jet could handle in real-life conditions), but all the missions are timed. During the first two eras of missions, failures most often come from time expiration, rather than the plane being shot down. The bombing runs consist of multiple targets, meaning you will have to criss-cross your fighter over a section of land countless times to succeed and move on to the next training or wartime skirmish. One hint is to take your first pass or two to destroy anti-aircraft batteries and tanks. This allows you to concentrate on locating and lining up bombing targets on subsequent passes. Quicker missions, withless damage to your aircraft also translates to bigger bonus points upon mission completion.

The graphics are pretty nice overall, and the sense of flying is decently realistic. The land-based graphics, such as the mountains, canyons, bridges and buildings look nice, as do the explosions that take out those structures.

I love the replays, the close-ups and different angles look like they came right out of the Top Gun movie. My only complaint is that a lot of the camera angles are way too shaky. It seems the developers were going for realism with their fighter-mounted camera views, but I’d gladly sacrifice a bit of realism for a steady shot of my F-14 cutting through the air at supersonic speeds. Why shoot for total realism here, when I get extra points for putting my aircraft at risk by soaring under a rock formation?

This game isn’t mind blowing or a must-have for your Playstation 2 library, but it is decent fun and a game that you can sit down and play, without investing major time. The game is definitely a welcome addition to my collection, providing a change of pace from some of my other games that require major time investment to progress.

I have yet to play Ace Combat 4, but it is supposed to be even better than Top Gun: Combat Zones, so you might want to rent that one prior to this. If the store happens to be out of AC4 copies, Top Gun is still worthy of checking out.

The Simpsons Road Rage sounded like a great concept for the die-hard Simpsons freak. The concept is sound, but in practice, it’s amusing and fun initially, but very swiftly becomes monotonous and lacks any real challenge or fun.

The premise of the game is billionaire Montgomery Burns has taken over Springfield’s mass transit system with a fleet of nuclear busses, that have exorbitant fares. The citizens strike back, using their personal vehicles to taxi others around the city to earn enough money to buy the mass transit system back.

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I rented All Star Baseball 2002 by Acclaim as everything I’ve read thus far puts it ahead of the other two baseball sims available on the market, but let’s hope the reviews I’ve read were wrong, because there’s not much here that I liked about the game.

I will note that I’m writing this review after playing it for an hour and a half against my roommate. To be fair (and also to get my money’s worth from renting the game), I’ll dive into the game again tomorrow morning, but initially I was pretty appalled at the product that Acclaim has released here.

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Both the Xbox and the GameCube have been released now. But games like Grand Theft Auto III show that the Playstation 2 is not going to lose the console battle lying down. The PS2 is starting to have game after game of must-haves. Grand Theft Auto III is definitely one of them, with its unique and entertaining play,and its sights and sounds. All are top-notch.

The original Grand Theft Auto was an addicting and original game when it was launched on the original PSX. The carjacking, criminal-thriving game played like no other video game title. The mission-based game play also had the ability to drive around the city, wreaking havoc in a free-for-all around Liberty City, USA. The only thing lacking was the game’s graphics. The game featured a top-down view, high from above Liberty City.

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I pre-ordered SSX Tricky, the sequel to the awesome PS2 launch title, SSX knowing very little about it, other than that it was a new SSX game and that it was on DVD, meaning more storage space for enhancements, characters, etc.

If you liked SSX, you’ll like SSX Tricky. The game isn’t a huge departure from the original released last year. Basically, SSX Tricky is a tricked-out version that pushes realism further away and embraces some mind-blowing new tricks and a few new features that enhance game play.

With the media move from CD-ROM to DVD, EA Sports Big were given more room for music, sound, commentary and most importantly the tracks. While none of these were slouches in the original title they all have been tweaked and enhanced in Tricky. A few of SSX’s characters have returned, but many new faces are now present, all with different characteristics and riding styles. Another character-related enhancement is the fact that you now have relationships with the other players. A shove during a race can translate into making a once-neutral rider in to an aggressive enemy who will take shots at you as you descend the slopes.

A lot of the original courses are back for Tricky, but in all honestly, most are almost unrecognizable. Tricky also adjusts the course based on the mode. Obstacles not present in the race mode pop up in the freestyle, offering more chances for big points.

The biggest enhancement in Tricky are the new uber tricks. The boost meter along the right-hand side of the screen fills as tricks are performed, the bigger the trick, the more boost you earn. When the meter fills up, the uber tricks become available. You are alerted to these events by samples of Run DMC’s “Trick to Rock a Rhyme.” I was thrilled initially, when I heard the samples, but in all honesty, the frequency of the samples now grates on my nerves. The uber tricks are quite amazing, but purposely outlandish. One in Mac’s arsenal of uber tricks consists of him doing a mid-air handstand on his snowboard, before spinning it. A word to the wise though, make sure you have some major air before attempting one, as they take a lot more time than any of the standard tricks.

Other than the samples of Run DMC getting tired, my only other complaint is also uber trick related. Uber tricks are initiated by holding a shoulder button (or sometimes several shoulder buttons) and then hitting the square button. The square button, is also used to tweak out holds to earn more points. But because of this overlap in controls, I find myself often accidentally initiating uber tricks when there is not room, nor time to successfully complete them.

While the control overlap is definitely a major annoyance, the rest of the game is pretty much flawless. The frame rate is smooth throughout the game while at the same time, the courses are extravagantly large and impressive both graphically and architecturally.

The character renderings are a bit more cartoon-like this go-around, but it fits Tricky perfectly, as the new trick capabilities are exact real-world themselves.

Snowboarding games never did much for me, but both SSX and now SSX Tricky are not the normal snowboarding title. They’re loads of fun and seem to be enjoyable by the avid and the casual alike gamer alike. EA Sports Big did a wonderful job of creating an enhanced SSX game that isn’t just a simple rehash of the original. SSX Tricky is not a complete overhaul, but tons of fun regardless.

Either SSX or SSX Tricky are crucial titles for any gamers’ PS2 library. Personally I have both and think both are worth every penny spent on them.

My rule of thumb with console games is to rent them before they become permanent parts of my collection. I’ve been burned too many times on crap games, so I’ve been really anal about playing before buying.

When I bought my PS2 back in February, I couldn’t just buy the system. I obviously wanted to have something to play in it, besides DVDs. So I broke my fundamental rule of console gaming. I bought two games that day. I got burned slightly on one, but I just couldn’t go wrong with Madden 2001. Everything, I’d seen, heard and read was all positive.

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Boot-up of SquareSoft’s The Bouncer shows that even a few short months after the Playstation 2 has become available, developers are making games that look great, meaning that even more great looking games are yet to come. Unfortunately, The
Bouncer looks amazing, but that’s mainly what you do in this "game" — look.

The graphics, both foreground and background are completely amazing. The character designs are first-rate, with details adding to the realism, like the wisps of hair that bounce around on Sion’s head, to the spiked horns sprouting from Volt’s head. The emotions revealed through facial expression are great, but I really felt that I was watching a movie, rather than a PS2 game.

Intros ranged from a few seconds to several minutes. They were great to watch, but as the game progressed, they became longer while the parts where having a controller in-hand became shorter.

When the controller was in-hand, fighting enemies, the fighting isn’t much ahead of Final Fight, or even as far back as the Double Dragon series. While you did have the incentive of beating them to see some more breath-taking scenes, the more you play, the less you want to watch, or even play.

Additionally, the camera angles often were pretty bad, with you running toward the camera, making it impossible to see where the enemies were up ahead. There were also times in the subway scene, where you’re running aimlessly to keep ahead of the closing doors and out of the times I did, it never got caught once. There was little challenge here. I think they were included so they could add more time to what was actually interactive on this title.

Had I bought this one, I’d be sorely disappointed, because a DVD action movie has a cheaper price tag. SquareSoft incorporated Dolby Digital 5.1 sound during the cinematic scenes and it sounds wonderful, but again, the Matrix is cheaper and more entertaining.

The game isn’t even that challenging. I’ve beat the game with one character within a couple hours of booting it up and am working through with another, but the storyline really doesn’t change enough (there are parts, but it’s just not enough) for this one to be worth much more than a couple hours of play. The local used game store had several copies of it, and now I see why. There’s little replay value in this one.

The Bouncer really makes a good showoff piece for the PS2, but SquareSoft forgot about putting some game in there. If the cut scenes had ended up having more actual game play in between, it’d be a must-have for the PS2 collection, but as it is, it’s a maybe-rent.