3DO Interactive Multiplayer

What, if you think about it, could be more fun than motorbikes in a video game? Perhaps riding bikes while hitting people? (While in a video game naturally!)

Even before I got on a motorbike I was scared of them. The driver told me to hold onto him. What did he think I was? Fruity? No. No I'll be fine I said. I'll hold on to the little grip thing behind my back. Needless to say by the end of the 140Mph spin round the block, I had nearly crushed his rib-cage in terror. Never again.

You can't fall off a car - Unless, as it was once wisely pointed out to me, you're sat on the roof.

Road Rash. A game of riding around on lovely big motor bikes, smashing people around the head with baseball bats and bike chains. Perfect wholesome family entertainment. Certainly one for the kiddies.

Many wrong people look at Road Rash as the Need for Speed with bikes. The graphics are a bit similar I admit but on closer inspection the NFS graphics scale a tiny bit better. Especially with regards the graphics for oncoming cars and lorries.

Both games share cops. But other than this, the two games could be considered as different as chalk and cheese.

Developed by Electronic Arts - the much maligned and much misunderstood developer, a developer that however really embraced the 32Bit era and the 3DO multiplayer.

Road Rash on the 3DO was an uprated conversion of the Sega Megadrive series. And not a sloppy, we don't give a damn conversion either.

It was a big hunky man of a conversion. The 3DO version sports better graphics. Better audio. Better tracks. Some very nice rendered graphics and a collection of appropriate heavy metal music videos. Perhaps even uprated game mechanics too.

The game wreaks of EA spit and polish too. The menu screens themselves are wonderfully realised. The chaps and chapesses you spend much of each race knocking around with chains, are wonderfully represented thanks to highly stylized avatars. If you enter the 'Schmooze' screen and depending on whether you hit them or not, each character will bequeath you some words of wisdom. Dependant on their on personality of cause.

The game itself is split into two modes. The first mode is an arcade pick-up-and-go racer. The second mode is a progress for cash mode. Win races. Earn money. Buy a better bike. Win more races. And so on.

Once you have won enough cash, buying a bike is fun and also essential for progression. Each class gets a nice rendered sequence and again it is all very polished.

The in-game graphics are certainly very pretty. The tracks are based on the usual set of race track cliches: A hilly one, a town one, a seaside one, etc., etc. Nothing really that's going to set the world alight. Still, they are very well done and they move along at very healthy pace. There is a genuine sense of speed, which becomes more apparent the better bike you have.

Winners and losers in Road Rash are dealt with appropriately as in real life. Win, and your are given cash and thrown a blond. Lose and the blond kicks you in the 'neither' regions. Try and quit early and you pay the price.

It's all good stuff.

Rare but not mega-rare. Most people who have 3DO have a copy of Road Rash too.

We all have fond memories of Starwars. We all have fond memories of the Empire Strikes Back. We all have fond memories of Return of the Jedi. If you are over twenty five years old, you may even have fond memories of the Atari arcade games with wire-frame graphics.

Since those heady days George Lucas, along with his various companies have had a very specific job to do each day.

Each day George takes these treasured memories. Our memories of Starwars, Empire strikes back and Return of the Jedi and places them on the ground, in a park. The park is just outside Lucas Arts tower. He then climbs, climbs mind, never takes the lift, to the very top floor. Once there he takes the small ladder that gets him on to the roof. From the roof he goes over to the edge. Where he can see the park. Where he can see our memories. He then lowers his trousers and does a Jabba-the-Hut sized crap over the edge. More recently he has been helped by Christian Haydensen and the creature inventor and voice over for Jar-Jar Binks. Each taking it in turns to laugh like illebrated monkeys while crapping on our memories.

On the day that Starwars Rebel Assault was created for the 3DO, George had two extra-large currys for dinner and hired an olympic runner in wellington boots to kick us in the privates - just before he dumped on our memories.

It's is not as good as the Atari wire-framed tributes to Starwars released some 15 years earlier.

Yes folks. Rebel Assault is everything, everything mind, that made everyone question what the hell was so exciting about games on CD anyway.

You don't even get to play as Luke. Although it is hinted at. And don't even hope to fly the Millennium Falcon. Thankfully no Ewoks. Certainly no Binks. Some Darth. Plenty of Walkers. You get to shoot at the Walkers while on rails. There is a Beggars Canyon sequence that you fly down in a Y-Wing. You also get the canyon run and the Death Star surface run. Yet neither are as good as the Atari wire frame version. That's it.

It's a stream from CD megathon. For the cut scenes it uses that awful compression system that filtered out all but the moving parts in any sequence - So all the film clips look awful. In addition they seem to have been recorded in the lowest resolution ever. (Seriously, 'ever'.) In fact, if you bolted a CD to a Commodore 64, it might even look better than this.

All the Jedi mind tricking in the world won't save this game.

Sadly.

Pretty rare and the Starwars logo keeps the price artificially high!

3DO kid.

2D platformer? A bl**dy 2D platformer? Surely Crystal Dynamics must have been off their rockers to do a, I'll say slowly, 2.D. PLAT...FORMER! Sonic and Mario had worked wonders for 16bit systems like the Mega Drive and SNES but a 2D platformer on a 32Bit system? Insanity.

Well here we sit on the dawn of 2006. Some 12 years since the hey-day of the 3DO multiplayer. What game do you think is always in the 3DO most favourite game top 10 list? It is not Snow Job or Psychic Detective, interactive movies being what they were. How about the rendered scene prima donna's; Burning Soldier perhaps Megarace? No and no, respectively. Yet Gex, a 2D platformer is always in
everyone's 3D0 top ten.

Developers, developers and developers... What can we learn from this? Try this. The kids will always buy good games. Not quirky games. Not novel games. Not uniquely imaginative games. This all helps. But game concepts the kids are familiar with. Games that are designed, written, executed and delivered well. For sure, they will buy them. Shocking isn't it? The kids will buy good games. You see the same kid who thought Wing Commander III was good didn't sit around awaiting another 3D space epic. The kid who bought Need for Speed did not wait around for another 3D super car extravaganza. That kid was actually waiting for the next good game. That game happened to be Gex. A bl**dy 2D platformer.

Shouldn't be long now. I have been prophesising the return of 2D platformers for a while. They are having some success right now on the Nintendo DS. And games like Metal Slug have been leaking on to the Playstation 2 and Xbox. We shall see. We shall see. Wait for the 2D shoot 'em ups to kick in. That's all I'm saying. Just wait.

Why is Gex considered a must have? Good graphics. Nice level design. Imaginative lead character. (a Gekko called Gex) Fun music and sound effects. Good difficulty balance.

Gex himself is something of a charismatic character. He is a generation X, bone-idol, TV-aholic with an abounding selection of genuinely witty remarks. Delivered courtesy of the voice of Dana Gould. (A reasonably yet only in the USA, famous comedian.)

Gex lampoons other 2D platformers by stereotyping, in a naturally funny way, movies and games for each of its six worlds. From the Cemetery to the Jungle to Planet X. (Been a while since I typed that!)

It is all done very well. Each world is broken down into a number of levels and you tackle each one in turn. The objective being to collect a TV remote and progress on. Until finally you meet Rez, Gex's arch nemesis. (No less.)

That's it. This is probably one of the only 2D platformers I ever played. I loved it to death.

Get a copy and play it on Freedo. (The 3DO emulator - http://www.freedo.org )

Rare? Rare? Bl**dy rare? No they made Donkey Kong for the N64. This was made by Crystal Dynamics!

3DO kid.

Hypocrite.

n : a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he does not hold [syn: dissembler, phony, phoney, pretender]

I cannot decide on the best way to describe The Daedalus Encounter. It's like a movie. A 'B' movie but it is reasonably enjoyable to watch 'B' Movie. It stars Tia Carrera of Waynes World and True Lies fame and Christian Bocher of some, err... fame.

The film is set in space. The back ground to the story is something like this: an intergalactic war has very recently ended. Ari and Zack (Carrera and Bocher) have been demobbed and have decided to start up a space salvage operation.

While on route to a retrieval site the salvage ship crashes into an organic alien craft.

The team disembark and start on a quest to find a way to save their damaged ship and/or get home by investigating the mysterious alien craft.

For a film, the acting is occasionally stilted. Carrera and Bocher sometimes seem a little uneasy acting in what must have been a blank room. All the graphics and scenery would have been added later as they are all computer generated. But, as professional (ish) actors they just about hold it together and occasionally some chemistry between the two actors is apparent.

The script is a little stilted to. When it works, it works well. Here is one of the high-lights:

[An Alien corpse is revealed when someone switches on the floodlight]
Zack: Whoa! God, those things are ugly.
Ari: Why Zack, I always thought you found them quite... attractive.
Zack: Hey, I was drunk that night, okay? And you swore to me it was female.

On the other hand when it doesn't work, it does get a little painful to watch.

The other problem is that sometimes it is required for Zach and Ari to interact with the screen, something I guess that is unnatural for a movie actor and because of this, things do feel a little awkward sometimes.

But I'm forgetting, this isn't a movie. It is a video game. So, assumedly, there must be some game-play.

This is where the character you play comes into things. Your avatar is, as Christian Bochers characters puts it, a brain in a box and you make up the 3rd crew member of the ship. From the storyline given you lost your body in an battle. Scientists managed to save your brain and were working on fixing your body. Well, they were fixing your body until an impatient Zach and Ari turned up and stole your boxed brain.

Game-play takes the form of puzzles and little interactive sequences. Progress for all characters in the game is halted until your characters, Cassey, solves a particular puzzle which usually involves solving a mathematical sequence problem or colour location puzzle. This type of thing is really the bread and butter for these types of game.

At other times it is necessary for your character to navigate a maze, save another character from a big fall, shoot some aliens and various other minor missions.

These objectives are reasonably well scripted into the plot. So the events don't look at all out of place.

All the puzzles are reasonably enjoyable and the balance of difficulty is achieved well. They do sometimes totter on the brink of annoying but then you solve it and then you feel better about it.

So, it is a movie you interact with. An Interactive Movie. Oh god no. How did this slip through the net? Worse yet, I enjoyed it!

It is an enormously well polished title. The graphics are spectacular and the whole thing is very smooth. The human actor to computer generated scenery is well integrated too. There is no hovering above the floor or any sense of unreality about the alien location.

Daedalus Encounter is spread across 4CD's, which makes it something of an Interactive Movie epic. That's one more CD than Psychic Detective and two more than Creature Shock.

To sum it up; Daedalus Encouter is 7th Guest or 11th Hour set in space with Tia Carrera.

And if liking it makes me a hypocrite (see my other reviews for my unilateral condemnation of Interactive Movies) then I guess so be it.

I have two copies, so it's not rare at all. (In this house!)

3DO Kid.

Where does one begin? If one tries to get into the mind of the developer, one can find ones self jumping to misleading conclusions about a game.

Ah--! What the hell?

Welcome once again to 1994 land. A land where CD games needed rendered graphics and characters in games needed names like Riggs, Carlos, Sasha and Viper.

In 1994 land, it was essential for a games console to have a driving game and a fighting game. On the other hand, Interactive movies, as history will show, were forced upon us.

The crown for the driving game genre is always up for grabs. As soon as one is released the adherents are up for their next fix. One day you'll find crash 'n Burn will be the darling of racing fans, the next day the Need for Speed.

For fighting games however it is different. If you played one it is unlikely you played any other with any vigor. And fans can become entrenched in a particular fanboy stream.

That meant in 1994 that either you played Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat.

The 3DO console had a superb Street Fighter II conversion. Yet 50% of 3DO owners pined for Mortal Kombat.

(At this point I feel it necessary for me to point out I am a dyed-in-the-wool Street Fighter II fanboy.)

Mortal Kombat was never released on the 3DO, although it was developed and made it to almost released gold-disk status.

So. There was a window of opportunity for someone with a cheap-as-chips 3DO development system, a Silicon Graphics workstation and a selection of people willing to be digitized to take the part of game characters. Yes - That was all that was needed to satiate the demand for a game that looked a little like Mortal Kombat and in the absense of Mortal Kombat ...

Enter: Shadow - War of succession.

Some people ranted and raved and really like this game. I didn't. I thought it stunk.

The characters seem not to be digitized actors but digitized friends and family. So in naming them they should have perhaps chosen more descriptive names than Saasha or Carlos. Perhaps names like Chubby Tummy Girl or Chunky Geek Boy. Boiler Suit Man perhaps?

Each character in Shadow has a special move and a 'Finishing Move'. How terribly inspired.

As anyone with a modicum of fighting game experience will tell you. When approaching a fighting game for the first time, one must spend as little time as possible faffing about in the menus. It is highly recommended that you pick the default settings as quickly as possible and get down to fighting.

Well, that's what I did with Shadow. OK. Right. Each character's moves appeared to be limited to punch, kick, crouch and jump. I felt this was probably just enough information to get me through the first couple of fights.

I picked 'Desperately in need of a haircut Kid' (Erika) and faced 'Army and Navy store reject man'! (Anvil)

I tried some Mortal Kombat moves I knew. Forward, Forward, Punch. Nothing happened. Back, back, kick. Nothing happened. Up, left, down, right, kick, punch, left, left, right shift, down, up kick, kick. Nothing. I had lost the first round.

Second round. I immediately assumed the fetal position. I figured I would try the 'Old Masters' way of beating a fighting game. Which was to cower in the corner and jab away at my opponents ankles until I won. This was to be achieved by pulling down on the D-Pad and tapping kick. This ploy didn't work from the beginning. Even though I was crouching, pressing kick forced my character to stand up and kick. My opponent leaped on my brazen attack and thrashed me once again. Game over this time.

I started again and I chose a different character. This time Leotard Girl. A different random opponent was chosen for me: Potting Shed Man. The results however were exactly the same. Leotard Girl eventually laid on the floor assuming something that looked like the missionary position, as Potting Shed Man waved his arms in appalling frame rate victory

This continued for 9 or perhaps 10 attempts. I then gave up.

Is it rare? In the condition my copy is, it is!

3DO kid.

PS: OH! And before I forget. There is a yellow Statue of Liberty in the ambiquous rendered intro sequence and a hidden secret character to unlock.

It is time to go out on that limb again. I like Immercenary. People either slated, hated or ignored Immercenary. But not me. I played Immercenary from start to finish and I loved every minute. (Stop wobbling the branch!)

Believe it or believe it not, Immercenary is an RPG game published by EA way back in 1994. Pretty brave. By that time as I recall, there were already minor rumblings throughout the gaming world, of; "Why can't we have RPG games like they do in Japan?" but nothing loud enough surely for the mighty EA to sit up and pay attention to?

The storyline, set in the far distant future of 2004 (?!), can best be described as the Matrix meets Tron. The game has you 'jumping' into a virtual world known as 'Garden' via something that looks a lot like a dentists chair.

Once you have entered Garden, which is occupied by various humanoid creatures with wacky names like 'Goners' or 'Picassos' or as you progress 'Fly' or 'Raven', it appears it is your mission to roam around killing the inhabitants and absorbing their souls. By absorbing their energy you are adding a little to either your Defense, Offense or Agility bars. (The green, red and yellow bars at the top screen.) The amount added varies depending on what you kill.

So, that is nice then. A lesson for the kiddies no doubt.

Once you've absorbed enough energy you head-off looking for one of the 12 bosses who spend their time hanging around zones called opSYS or Hive. When eventually you find a boss, you either pummel them or get pummelled.

If you get pummelled and you find either your Defense, Offense or Agility bars hitting zero, you'll quickly find yourself back in the really-real world along with men with beards and geeky looking girls.

These cut scenes are enough to have you diving, albeit a little bit weaker, back into the world of Garden - Where Raven is with her bra outfit and special weapons litter the streets looking like snooker balls.

Technically Immercenary is reasonably accomplished. Things flow along nicely, the world of Garden is reasonably well textured. Occasionally even the weather turns and lightening flashes across the grey sky.

Game play is well balanced and the things that will bring you up are equally balanced with the things that will drag you down.

Like I said at the start and this is a short review, as this branch is wobbly, I enjoyed Immercenary and upon beating it, I was hungry for more.

33% on the rare-o-meter?

3DO Kid.

I think I'm beginning to understand.

The crime that the Pataank developers committed was perhaps that of trying too hard.

One can almost picture the scene. If one holds the Pataank disk up to the sun light, at just the right angle, the resonance of the moments that spewed forth Pataank can be seen.

[Wavey lines, Wavey Line, Waaaaaaavy liiiiineeeees]

The office where Pataank was first talked about has glass walls on two of it sides. We can just about make out that this is a summers day. The sun is streaming through the trees in the artificial park next to the office. The artificial park, with an artificial pond and some artificial log furniture, which has some artificial looking people who are playing with their shiny new portable CD players. It is summer 1994 and everyone is smiling like a moron.

As we focus in on the modern looking office, we see in the center a large shiny pine desk with steel coloured legs and around it are chairs in similar design.

Things like 'We achieve because we are the best' are in bold letters on brightly coloured posters around the remaining walls and there is a PC on a stand and a large green plant next to it.

Sat around the desk are five pony-tailed guys. There are two scruffy ones and three suited ones. Our man is one of the scruffy ones. He is the one with the vision and the technical ability. His clothes are scruffy and his t-shirt is black and looks like it has never been ironed. It has a big smiley yellow face on it. He stands, slightly unsure of himself, next to the white board with a marker pen in his hand.

One of the other smartly suited pony-tailed guys is asking about whether rendered full motion video can be included in the game. The standing scruffy man opens his mouth to answer but is immediately interrupted by his eager but nervous looking straggly blond haired assistant sat nearest to him.

"Unprecedented demand" he blurts out.

Apparently their long awaited Silicon Graphics Indigo workstation will be delayed for at least another two more months because of unprecedented demand. The knock on effect of this delay will be no rendered graphics.

The three smart suited men look at the scruffy ones for the answer to this question that hasn't really been asked. They are aware that if there is no Silicon Graphics machine, then there will not be any rendered graphics on the back of the CD case. If this is the case they wondered, what are they going to use to sell the game? "Can we use nudity?" one of them asks.

The scruffy pony-tails ignore this last question, yet still sense the pressure to speak. "It is a revolutionary game!" they say almost in unison. Not quite in unison and the message comes out jumbled. The standing pony-tail is forced to repeat the statement. "Revolutionary game." He looks around the room quickly.

The suits look unsure.

"It'll sell itself!" he emphasises in an almost pleading manner, “It really will". He opens his eyes wide and stares at each one of the suits in turn. "It is ..." he pauses for effect, he is going to enjoy delivering his little sales pitch again, "...the future of Interactive entertainment. In 1970’s and 1980’s we had real pinball and it was successful. In the late 1980’s we had 2D virtual pinball and it was successful. We will bring the world in the 1990’s full 3D interactive pinball” the standing techie is trying to reassure the smart suits, he is unsure on whether to add the phrase – "and it will be successful" to the end of his speech. He eventually chooses not to, hoping that it was implied. The sitting techie nods and smiles and makes grunting sounds of agreement during the standing techies little speech.

"So, just run us through the whole idea again", the eldest of the smart suits speaks for the first time. He is the most unsure and since it is his company and his money, he wants to be sure.

"It’s Pinball!"

"We understand that." The elder suit looks a little exasperated, "What I don't get is the 3D bit, explain it to me again". One of the suits turns around sharply as if about to start paying detailed attention to what ever is going to be said.

“OK” says the standing man, there is a hint of impatience in his voice but everyone ignores it and he tries to bury that emotion deep down as he starts to explain his ground breaking idea for the 3rd time in an hour.

“In my vision of Interactive pinball, the player will be the ball in a 3D pinball world…”

...

Utter piffle in more ways than one. Avoid PaTaank like doggy do-do on the pavement.

Rare - unlike doggy do-do on the pavement.

3DO kid.

PS: In the end the box had the words 'Steamy' on the back and what might be a slighty out of focus topless woman.

Ambitious, everything about Virtual House - The Life Stage can be summed up with that one word, "Ambitious".

It is not really a game, more a simulator but it is fun. Doesn't that make it a game? I'm not sure. Maybe it does. What ever the case 'Virtual House - The life stage' is quite fun.

If I'm to be honest, I slipped into super critical mode when I first saw this game. I simply did not believe the humble 3DO had the power to pull it off.

I do not mind admitting I was wrong. It did have the power and in my honest opinion it did pull it off very successfully

'Virtual House' is just that. The ability to create, decorate, wall paper, furnish and then walk around a virtual house.

The game was developed by Micro Cabin. These were the same people who brought us the technically impressive 'Guardian War' which was also known as 'Powers Kingdom' in the UK.

I found 'Virtual House' pretty easy to get into. That is not an entirely true statement. I could not, with no amount of button pressing, figure out how to open the damned doors. Which meant my exploration of some of the demo houses was limited to a single room.

This was the first and only problem I found with Virtual House. The menu's aren't always that straight forward and can be a quagmire to navigate. However, once you have mastered the quirks of the menu system, I found I had a room up and running so to speak, in no time at all.

You as the designer are allowed to pick the size and shape of the room from a number of predefined shapes; cubes, spheres, etc. You can also decide where windows go, where the furniture goes, the colour of the carpets, the ceiling, everything up to and including the shades for the wall paper.

Considering the 3DO doesn't have a keyboard and is limited to a minimalist D-Pad, the implementation of this game is actually great.

Once you've built your dream abode, you can then walk around it, admiring it from a number of angles and then save it to memory.

Below are a number of screen shots from my own lovingly crafted room. You'll notice that the problem with opening doors was never satisfactorily ironed out!

My room started off in a barrel shape.

Naturally, the first thing I added to my wire frame room was my beloved Panasonic 3DO. By that point in my very first creation, I hadn't entirely figured out how to raise and lower and rotate objects, so, as can be seen from the pictures, the console remains smack-bang in the middle of the room.

I then added a desk, a plant, a drawing board. Naturally followed by a Tatami mat (Japanese grass mat) and a Kitchen unit - After all, what room is complete without them?

I then lovingly placed a nice big window in front of the desk and gave the place some wall paper and some flooring. I think, even with my humble fumbling with the game, the results look pretty good.

One final thing is that 'Virtual House' includes a 3 or 4 minute rendered introduction. The subject of which is a cutesy rendition of a Panasonic Multi-player, complete with arms, building a house and befriending a little girl. It is all very cute. Quite, quite pointless but worth at least a glance.

So, if you are ever wandering around Akihabara (Electric City) in Tokyo, Japan, grab a copy. 'Cos that's the only place I have ever seen it!

3DO Kid.

'Silmarils' the creators of 'Robinsons Requiem' is apparently a French Developer, so 'Vive la France!' However in retrospect and having played this game we should save our 'Vive'ing for another French game, perhaps 'Another World' by Delphine?

Sigh...

My opinions of this game are probably best covered by my first hand experiences of playing it.

So, O.K., it went a little like this.

After watching a rendered introduction with spaceships and little whizzy robots and things, the game started with me stood staring at some computer generated tree's.

Having immediately took the controls, that incidentally make lace making appear straight forward, I started wandering around, what at the time I guessed was the play area. There were some hills and trees littered around a large grassy open plain.

After wandering around for an age, I stumbled across this other chap, who via a short video sequence physically threatened me. Not knowing how to fight, I decided to let him be and I wandered about some more.

After a great deal more wandering amongst the hills and trees and a great while later I bumped into the same chap again. Despite the fact I appeared to be the only other person on the plains, he was distinctly not pleased to see me and therefore proceeded in carrying out his previous threat of killing me.

I attempted to start fighting back by first starting a battle with the overly complex menu system but I failed miserably. So rather than being killed by this chap, I started walking away from my attacker and eventually, much to my relief, he gave up.

After a great deal more wandering around the same grassy plains and looking at the polgon hills and lovely looking varied trees, it started to rain.

And then suddenly, with no warning at all, something that might have been an eagle pecked my left eye out and then my other eye. Shortly after this I died.

So, from landing to being attacked by that worlds more aggressive isolationist, to being pecked to death by an angry eagle, all-in-all it probably took 30 minutes.

Tch! RPG's eh? Not what they used to be. Or in the case of 'Robinsons Requiem' not what they will be. Considering it was released in 1994. It was not exactly Final Fantasy 7. Apparently, the aim of the game is to escape back to Earth with the help of a telepathic woman. I never met this women telepathically or otherwise, so I can't really comment.

Despite the violent inhabitants and despite the violent wild life and the long, long periods of wandering, the menu systems are what really kills this game. They are clunky and very badly designed. Not unreasonably in my opinon, I have no intention of playing it again to find out more...

For imagination and uniqueness, Robinson Requiem scores a 10/10, on the execution side it scores 0/10.

I have never seen a copy before for the 3DO.

3DO Kid.

Oh god please save us from yet another First Person shooter.

American consoles always seem to get more than their fair share of First Person Shooters, while Japanese consoles always seem heavily burdened with RPG's.

This observation perhaps makes you wonder what games would weigh down a European games console? Well, the closest we ever got I guess was the Sinclair Spectrum. The Speccy as it was known to its fans, has amongst its greatest titles; the adventures of an Egg. About a billion quirky text based adventure games. And a legend of a game called only 'Lawn Mower Simulator'. Hmmm? Perhaps we should leave it to the Americans and Japanese?

PO'ed is a first person shooter for the 3DO. What, I guess you are dying to know, differentiates it from the many other FPS games on the 3DO multiplayer?

Well let me tell you.

The single thing I enjoyed most is the dry wit not often seen in games. The name of the game itself is a brush with profanity. Additionally, the game includes walking bums, that fires trumps at you. And to top-off all this Monty Python style humour, it mentions 'Quiche Eaters', which is something old British hacks like me love to see.

The storyline is unique. I should mention and without giving too much away, the storyline is classic Steven Seagal set to the background of a space ship.

What else is different? Well, you can whack the bums with a frying pan and a meat clever and the usual selection of First Person Shooter weapons.

Now moving on to discuss look and feel. I don't think it is unreasonable to say the game looks technically brilliant, certainly considering the platform it runs on. In terms of 'feel', it is a bit, and I should point out I cannot justify this in anyway, a bit like a very cutting edge Amiga game. O.K. I've said it. That, probably, upset someone.

The game does sport a proper 3D environment too. For example you can look up and down. A basic ability that very few of the literally thousands of first person shooters had on the 3DO.

This simple neck motion really helps in the rooms where you are fighting. This is because the rooms are cavernous and are made up of many floors, with the enemies being capable of shooting there farts at you from above and below. And nobody likes being hit by fart from above, especially if you can't crank your neck up a few degrees to see it coming. Well you can see that fart coming in PO'ed!

As the game levels progress you eventually gain access to a 'Jump pack'. This device which gives you full freedom of movement, nicely shows off the technical beauty of the proper 3D environment.

To be honest, the inertia routines that come with the Jump Pack probably needed a little tweaking, as piloting yourself about can be tricky but once you've got to grips with it, maneuvering around can be, with effort, something quite elegant.

The overall physics engine is not reserved to the flying parts either, as walking up and down ramps will prove.

All of this 'freedom' is achieved in a game without borders. A game with a steady frame rate. And a game which is smooth. All this makes you wonder what the people who converted Doom to 3DO were arsing about at doesn't it?

I'm not much of a FPS fan but this is worth a play. In a room crammed to the ceiling with First Person shooters, as any 3DO collectors room will be, PO'ed stands out.

It is better than 3DO Doom, it is perhaps better than Iron Angel 2 but is it better than Killing Time? The Jury's is still out on that but PO'ed is pretty good.

I'd give it a 35 out of 100 on the rare-o-meter.

3DO Kid.

There is not a lot you can say about American Laser games. I have this one, The Last Bounty Hunter and Mad Dog McCree, Mad Dog McCree 2, Space Pirates and Crime Patrol 1 and 2.

They are all pretty much the same. Essentially you as the player are armed with a virtual Light Gun, you watch the screen and when someone mean and nasty pops up, you have to shoot him or her or it, before they can shoot you.

All American laser games were converted from the arcade machines of the same name and lost nothing translation.

I like these games in any form. Virtua Cop springs to mind, as does Namcos' Time Crisis. I have enjoyed them all.

Why, and it is a subject that is dealt with in other reviews, were these games never banned? They do after all simulate killing and dealing death. They also teach anyone tall enough to see the screen the basic rudamentry skills for handling a fire arm. The world is weird place isn't it? Any sign of nudity, a topic that touches all our hearts, and immediatetly it gets banned. Show someone being shot and falling off a building, well that's life isn't it?

Take a look at the screen shots below. Would you rather the brunette was shot or naked? If she had been naked, the game would have been banned. But if you can shoot her...?

Eh--? Wha...? Never mind, I digress.

The movie elements of these games and I'm talking of The Last Bounty Hunter and its counter-parts again, are top notch. The sets, the props, the costumes and even the scripts and actors, that while not perfect, certainly wouldn't look out place stood next to an episode of the A-Team or Air Wolf.

Sadly, and this is true of all the games that require a gun, the following statement is true:

'With a gun they are fun, with a 3DO D-Pad they are not'.

The gun sights moves too slowly when using the D-Pad, making the game almost unplayable without the official American laser games Light Gun. To make matters worse, I heard a rumour that US sourced NTSC light guns, won't work on PAL TV's. Which is a great shame.

These games are available two for a penny but for me the nostalgia value is very high. Even if it is only memories of playing these games at the local arcade.

3DO Kid.

Does anyone remember Mary Whitehouse? No? Yes? She was an old dear, who, if isn't very nearly dead, may well be very actually dead. Her role in the world was to watch and listen to filthy, violent, smutty, and horrific, music, games and videos.

Why she watched them has never actually been made clear. But having witnessed these forms of entertainment, she then insisted on being offended by them. What happened then was, she then worked on getting what ever it was that had offended her, banned.

Surely this the same as going into the Smoking room and complaining about all the smoke, then petitioning to get smoking banned in the Smoking room... Am I wrong? I don't think so.

The sights she must have seen though? She insisted that these sights and sounds would corrupt the minds of young people and no doubt she was in her own way trying to save the children.

What happened in reality was she left a healthy trail of must-see films and videos for anyone aged 14 to 17 years old at the time.

But I've veered off the subject again! It does seem however that the good lady Whitehouse was misfiring when it came to getting Night Trap banned. (Please do try to imagine my disappointment.)

Night Trap is a co-ed filled, B-rated, interactive horror movie.

I live in England. So until very recently I had no idea what a Co-ed was. It is after some 30 years, I am happy to conclude my investigation into this subject however. A Coed appears to be creature whick usually looks like a cute American girl, who normally only wear night attire and appears almost exclusively in second rate horror movies. They seem to spend their days in College and their nights screaming and running around. Usually chased by a psycho or a mutant or a psycho-mutant.

I'm wandering from the point again aren't I? The important fact about Night Trap is this - There is no nudity. Well none that I saw, and believe me when I say I looked.

It pales to the significance of the lack of nudity but I should also point out there is also not much horror either. The bad-guys are creepy but there is no blood and gore and no worse than what you might see in an episode of Doctor Who or Battle Star Galactica.

Ergo, and I've really looked hard, no reason in my mind to ban it.

The game amounts to switching between cameras in a house and trapping the evil doers in varied ways by pressing the right button at just the right time. Meanwhile through out all the game, the creatures known only as co-eds have fun. Sadly with their clothes on. All the while under your watchful, yet remote, gaze.

This lack of offensive sights and sounds in Night Trap leads me to just one conclusion however.

The knock-on effect of banning a game usually means it stays in the video game charts at the number one position almost indefinitly.

Thanks to this, the makers then become rich beyond their wildest (Co-ed filled) dreams. My only conclusion can therefore be this: that Mary Whitehouse was on the pay-roll.

- That bitch -

Which also means she owes me £45.00 for false advertising.

Night Trap has nothing in it to make it offensive. It's not a good game and it's not a bad game. It is however a famous game - Which keeps the prices, even today, up.

Enjoy at your leisure.

3DO Kid.

No. Oh god please no. Nooo. Make it stop. Please, just make it stop. Oh god please. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Please? Why won't you make it stop? Oh it hurts. No. Stop it! Stop it please.

...

Just stop it. Please? Please? Please make it stop. It's really hurting now. Please stop it. STOP IT. STOP! Please won't it stop? No. No. No! NO! Stop. Please.

[Weeping]

... Jurassic Park Interactive available on 3DO multiplayer is the worst movie tie-in ever. ...

3DO Kid.

PS: Merry Christmas!

I always lumped Sylvester Stallone in the same bag as Arnold Schwarzenegger and avoided his films like the plague, as he always seemed to be second fiddle to the real muscle man, namely Arnie.

It wasn't until I saw Sly in the film 'Cop Land' I realised he wasn't a bad actor. I then went back and watched the old Rambo movies and thoroughly enjoyed them.

This revelation on my part doesn't change the fact that this game, "Demolition Man" sucks though.

What's that? An interactive movie, of a movie, on the 3DO Multiplayer? No. Surely not? Is it possible?

Why yes. Yes, it is.

There have been few games that made the transition from movie to game successfully. The developers of Demolition Man decided to go with the flow and make Demolition man the game, a bit rubbish.

The game, in-so-far-as-I-could-get, was broken into four parts loosely modelled around the action sequences found in the film 'Demolition Man'.

Firstly there is shooting part. This is in the style of Operation Wolf. This part could have been good but sadly, without the elusive 3DO Mouse, it isn't. In fact it can be described as painful. Although technically this first sequence is quite an achievement. With it there are plenty of different types of enemies to kill, the back-grounds are interactive, which means you can blow-up crates and other bits and bobs and it looks nice too. It's just let down by that slow moving cursor, made even worse by the clunky 3DO D-Pad. It is painful and slow. To make matters worse reloading the gun takes an age. This delay means your machine-gun toting enemies never miss and if you start to get it wrong, you are dead before you can get it right.

Following that, there is a fighting sequence in the style of Pit-fighter. This contains digitized versions of Mr Stallone and Mr Snipes. Funnily enough this part is better than 'Rise of Robots' but still fails to float above 'below average'. It feels heavy and lacks the response and elegance of Street Fighter or Samurai Showdown.

After completing the fighting sequence there is a Doom style sequence.

This is the best sequence in the game in my opinion. It features a fully textured environment which includes ceiling, walls and floors and you don't need a passport to get past the on-screen borders. Add into that a frame-rate that seems to be nice and healthy and this section amounts to a reasonable collage of fun. It's also worth noting, since it happens so infrequently on the 3DO, all the characters are digitized real actors and scale really quite well. To plop a Sly sized cherry on top of this, the pace of action is really quite good. It is just a shame you have wade past the gallery shooting section and the embarresing 2D fighting section to get there.

And finally, there is a driving sequence. That's not so great. Actually pretty bad in all fairness but I didn't get far enough to really get to grips with this part.

I started off by saying Demolition Man on the 3DO is rubbish, by todays gaming standards it is rubbish but when compared to a lot of other games on the 3DO platform, it probably is just about average.

Worth it for the Stallone and Snipes endorsement alone.

I'd say it was 25% rare.

3DO Kid.

More Interactive movie goodness. Way back in time, back in 1642, England was awash with witch hunts. Great teams of angry Christians, armed with pitchforks and flaming torches, scoured the countryside looking for witches. Having cornered and captured a witch, they would be tried and then burnt.

Around 1995 the same thing happened to the Interactive Movie game genre. Hordes of angry video game industry pundits and journalists, scoured this land for the dark evil that was Interactive Movies. And interactive movies, like witches, were purged from this green and pleasant land. Seems a little harsh but in retrospect was fair, as most Interactive movies were awful.

Psychic Detective was amongst the best of a bad lot and stands out for two dubious reasons.

Firstly: Marcia Pizzo in a slinky tight dress. Marcia had been the pretty military commander in Shockwave 1 and 2 on the 3DO and had been seen dressed in a pseudo military costume. This meant for male 3DO owners at least, there were questions regarding Marcia. Psychic Detective and that dress answers a few of those questions.

Secondly: Ohh! Come-on! It is kind of fun. Three disks worth of disk swapping fun but fun none the less. Let us not forget, while playing this game you witness: a young girl turning into an old hag during sex. You can be thrown into jail and let us not forget that magical moment when you possess the mind of a tramp. If you are a professional footballer, it's unlikely this will be anything new but for the rest of us, it's a world of discovery and adventure.

You know what? I've rambled on again and missed the point of what I was talking about. And no, it's not the fact that Marcia doesn't appear naked in the game, despite the Adult rating. I have in fact forgot to tell people what the game is about.

It's called 'Psychic Detective' have a wild guess.

3DO kid.