3DO Interactive Multiplayer

A choir of angels began chanting as I reached for this game. As my finger-tips touched the case, a brilliant shard of light cut through the clouds, through the window and illuminated the room with brilliant white light. Then, as the light began to subside, the legendary Cozy Powell kicked in on drums and a chorus of angels started a crescendo. The camera started switching dramatically between my eager eye and the case. Back - forwards - back - forwards. YES!

Is Star Control II that good? Better. Much Better. An epic of epic proportions. The objective is to build an intergalactic fleet, to make allies, to save a galaxy, to save the earth, to meet aliens and kill the ones that you don't like. What more could a blood thirsty prey-being want? Well, except perhaps for a fully kitted out precursor ship...

Am I exaggerating? An infinitesimally small proportion of video games could survive from 1992, when SC2 first appeared on the PC through to 2006 with these god awful graphics and these slightly camp looking aliens without being good.

In a nut shell Star Control 2 is a role playing game set in space. You take the role of a confused Captain of an alien ship - a ship built be mysterous race of people called the Precusors.

This ship must be modified and enhanced until it is powerful enough to fight the dreaded Ur-Quan. To achieve this rebellion and in addition to enhancing your Precursor space craft, you must also make alliances.

The Star Control universe 'lives' in a very real sense. Upset one group of aliens and reap the effects later. Your influence has effect. Part of the depth of Star Control II is enveloped in the need to explorer the entire universe. A universe that has been so lovingly hand crafted, that, despite the lack of 3D super-graphics it feels like you are part of a real universe. Not a developers model of a universe. It is difficult to fully explain.

To achieve your goals you must sweet talk the multitude of alien races in the universe into joining you. This isn't always quite so easy and you'll find yourself scampering-off on plenty of sub-missions simply to keep them all happy.

These dialogues between yourself and the extraterrestrials are hilarious and brilliant. Which is good - because there are a heck of a lot of them and would they have been quite awful, the game would have suffered.

When your not having difficult conversations with none-humans, you are shooting and trying very hard to kill others. This part of the game is where the amount of thrusters, guns and boosters you have strapped onto your Precursor ship becomes all important.

To get these 'bits' for your craft you must pay for them. To earn the money you must scour the planets in the universe and mine them for rich minerals - once you have done that, you must sell these minerals and so Star Control continues.

This same game is available for free these days from Sourceforge http://sc2.sourceforge.net/ and has a huge fan-base. Seems that a classic story and engrossing game-play do make great games. A crazy concept - who would have thought?

It is brilliant, utterly brilliant. Reportedly voted #17 in the most important video games ever by Gamespot. (Wow! - and I'm betting you ain't played it!)

Obey your Ur-Quan masters Hunams. Play - Play it damn you!

Star Control II for the 3DO still fetches between £20 - £30 on eBay.

3DO Kid.

To quickly sum up Quarantine: ID's Carmageddon meets Sega's Crazy Taxi meets Escape from New York - Resident Evil 3:00am Latte 1" remix. Pretty much sums up the storyline.

Only it is rubbish.

When I started this escapade or rather - this devine mission from god - a mission to catalogue my personal collection of 3DO games - I should have considered more carefully the consequences. You see, for the past 3 months I have been playing not the cream of video games - no, I've been playing the sour scabby encrusted badly dated moth balls of video gaming.

The issue is this. I do all my 3DO playing for this blog on Freedo (the 3DO emulator). I use Freedo to get the wonderful screen shots. The theory being, even if you don't enjoy my waffler-writing, at least you can admire the imagery - and, perhaps, even share in the same nostalgic pangs I do. Sadly, Freedo isn't a 100% accurate emulator. Due to these compatibility issues, my choice of games has been limited. Theme Park - a classic video game from Bullfrog is not compatible. The same for Crash and Burn, Wing Commander III, the Horde - in fact quite a few of my all time 3DO favourites don't work on Freedo. To make matters worse, dross and badly converted PC shovel-ware, like Quarantine, do work - it seems almost guaranteed.

So - With a dogmatic sense of duty and a curious desire to perpetually communicate my opinions - albeit clumsily in some cases - I continue to play and pass comment on 10 year games, that for the most part I have hated.

The odd moment of light and enjoyment, for example Gex, even the Daedalus Encounter, have been spoilt by the likes of Quarantine. It's not that its bad - it's just lazy. Sloppy. Dull. Weak. Flimsy. Badly executed... I'm sure you follow me.

Quarantine the game by GameTek, for reasons that defy logic, can still fetch a pretty penny on eBay and is moderately rare.

3DO Kid. 'Bravely doing what no-one else can be bothered with.'

PS: A new version of Freedo ( http://www.freedo.org ) will be released shortly - apparently. Here's hoping for Wing Commander III!

To be first? Anyone who has every been first, not in a race or competition but in the long haul, will know that being first stinks.

Blazing the trail. To be the founding father. The first guy who discovered the native Americans had bows and arrows, probably seriously wished he had been second. So does the guy who found out jelly fish were poisonous. Trip Hawkins probably wishes 3DO had been second.

In a race. Who is in the best position? Right at the start of the race, who is it? It isn't the guy in first place. It's the guy in second, even third. Why? Hindsight. Watch the guy up-front, see what mistakes he makes. Don't copy them.

3DO made so many mistakes. You see in the 8bit and the 16bit days the winners had all been small fry. Sega and Nintendo had been playing at big company. Around 1990 everything changed. Nintendo had annoyed the sleeping giant - Sony. And the behemoth Sony watched the game playing world with envious eyes and slowly and surely they drew their plans together.

3DO, the American up-starts had been running around, along with the European Philips and their CDi and the wide-eyed naive Sega with their MegaCD and the stalwarts Amiga and Atari. They had all been talking and presenting about the future of Interactive Entertainment.

Sony watched those that were first on the scene. Commodore, FM Towns, Sega, it's sparring partner Nintendo, NeoGeo, 3DO, even the old hands Atari - and they were all unceremoniously slaughtered by Playstation. Sony looked at it's competition and said 'What don't they have?' and then they made it. Performance. Power. Design. Image. Style. Games. You name it, Sony's PS1 had it. Microsoft - Do you think you can beat Sonys PS3? I think Microsoft are in for a shock. Because they making the same mistakes all over again.

Remember the big-bang Final Fantasy VII got? The most talked about game of 1997 here in the U.K. An epic story. Cute characters. Engaging script. Mesmerizing graphics. A Sony Playstation exclusive.

3DO had it first. Luciennes quest. A very good, if not excellent, Japanese Role Playing Game. Similar, in so many ways to the PS1's FFVII it begs belief. Only difference? Lucienne's Quest predates FFVII by 2 years. The mistake? 3DO didn't push Lucienne's Quest hard enough. Micro Cabin, a Japanese developer that had been supplying a steady stream of very Japanese games for the 3DO was essentially ignored. Even though the magazines and the game players had been begging for this sort of niche game. 3DO Inc., seems to have ignored them. Instead they released another FPS game. Doom. Killing Time. Wolfenstein. That's what the people want they thought.

You were wrong Mr Hawkins. Very wrong. And Sony thanks you.

Lucienne's Quest is the rarest game to be released for the 3DO multiplayer and one of the best, most engrossing games on the platform.

3DO Kid.

There are two ways of reading the title of this game. Either it's a Snow-plough simulator or it is a typo. If you guessed either - sorry, you guessed wrong. It's an Interactive Movie about Drugs dealers.

Your mission, should you wish to participate in this Movie of Interactivity, is to protect the District Attorney.

Problem number one for the British. What the hell is a District Attorney?

The District Attorney is the lawyer for the people, a non-partisan official who is elected every four years. The District Attorney’s Office prosecutes felony crimes throughout a County.

I'm like a public service myself eh? Educating the masses. So that's a District Attorney. We all live and learn. So, what's a felony...? Never mind. I guess selling Snow is a felony.

Moving on. This is one of those games written to appeal to the mature gamer. I guess they meant mature as in over 18 years old. Especially since there is some brief nudity and some swearing and some bullet holes in people. The weird thing is I found it kind of shocking. Not because I was offended but because it is kind of shocking seeing that kind of thing in a video game. It's a bit like when they started putting images of real dead people on the News. (If anyone remembers that.) It just felt a bit weird.

Snow Job is a point and click adventure. So - You want to use the phone tap? To use the phone tap you must find the head-phones. To find the head phones, you need to go to the electronics store. To get the store you need to... and so on.

The underlying objectives of the game are simple. You have to avoid running out of time or money. Do either and the game tries to bore you to death with a particularly dull end-sequence.

As your role as detective it is your job to save the D.A. and to achieve this you must find clues. These are either given, discovered or won. Won by playing either the conversation game. I.e., you pick the right 'flow' of the conversation by asking or saying the right things at the right time. Alternatively you can win clues by playing some mediocre mini-games. For example a cross-word puzzle. Clues can be given at other times or discovered by one of the other characters if you interact with them.

The game, in traditional Interactive Movie style, is made up of a collection of strung together movie sequences.

So one thing we have to consider is the acting. It is not too bad. The star of Snow Job and the person who plays the role of District Attorney and the love interest is Tracy Scoggins. No offense Trace but that's a terrible sounding name. Tracy is a steady B-rated actress. Babylon 5, Dynasty and Dallas to highlight a few bits of her career. A career mind you, that spans three decades. A quick shifty (look) at IMDB and low-and-behold Tracey doesn't list Snow Job on 3DO. Shame on you Trace. You should take a leaf out Ms Pizzio's book.

The other aspect of the movie, is the movie sets. They are inferior, in my opinion, to the Digital Pictures (Night Traps developer) sets of Supreme Warrior or Corpse Killer. The makers, IXL, have just used real locations. Yes they are good but inferior to the extravagant quality of Zito's Pirate Ship or Chinese town.

At the end-of-the-day you have probably spotted I've got a soft spot for Interactive Movies. I do. I don't think it's possible to play on a 3DO here and now in 2006 and not get the occasional nostalgic pang from playing one. Snow Job is a top-draw Interactive Movie and it's rarer than a heat wave in January. (In western Europe!)

3DO Kid.

 

I'm English, so shooting at Germans is something of a family tradition. A tradition I'd rather not have to keep up. Game developers and the people who tell them which games to make however, think the idea of shooting Germans is something that will keep people buying. And apparently it does.

In Germany, Nazi imagery is banned from computer games. This meant when Return to Castle Wolfenstein was released a while back, the German version had you shooting Zombies instead of Nazi's. In my opinion the Germans have as much reason to shoot Nazis as anyone else but there you go.

Wolfenstien 3D. Yet - another - bloody - FPS - on the bloody - 3DO. Castle Wolfenstien is one hell of a place. All the occupants look identical. If you shoot them, they all fall over and lay dead in exactly the same as each other. Weirdly, so do the Nazi attack dogs. All the castle doors are blue. The Nazi inhabitants must have also stolen every suit of armour in Europe and decorated Castle Wolfenstien with them. To top this off, the ceilings of the castle are plain flat grey, as are the floors.

In Castle Wolfenstein the game play goes something like this. You'll walk into a very sparsely decorated room, perhaps a picture of Hilter on the walls, perhaps some eagles. In the room will be these formation dying Nazi's and perhaps a dog. Shoot them all. Quickly.

Move onto the next room and do the same.

Keep in mind at all times that Castle Wolfenstien is an all time classic. If it helps you can record yourself saying this oft said mantra and play it back. "Castle Wolfenstien is a classic, Castle Wolfenstien is a classic, Castle Wolfenstien is a classic, Castle ..."

At some point you'll find a lift. Get inside it.

How can this rubbish be a classic? Just not fun. It's boring. If you think about, Wolfenstein is like 3D Space invaders. Conceptually it is very similar. Shoot everything you see. Invaders had a challenge. Pace kept Invaders going. Wolfenstein 3D ain't got pace. It has got slow moving Nazis.

And because all the rooms look the same, it's easy to get lost. Which makes it doubly boring.

Not all that rare either!

3DO Kid.

Hello everybody. Does everyone remember the 3DO demo disk that came packaged with the 3DO FZ-1? You do. Splendid. Does everyone remember the rather awful 3DO car demo? Yes? Good. How about the photoCD demo? Remember that? O.K., then. What about the Pinball demo? Oh-boy it was crap wasn't it? It sure was.

Guess what - They turned it into a full game. Why they did this is beyond me.

I've played a fair bit of pinball. I loved the Adams Family pinball table, the Starwars pinball table but my all time favourite was the Twilight Zone pinball table. I was pretty good too.

Real Pinball should have been taken to the trading standards commission. As Real Pinball is by no means anything like real pinball. Unless, out there, in the really-real world, there is a pinball table with no features, a ball that has been rolled in syrup and flippers that respond half a second after you pressed the damn button. Real Pinball has five table just like this.

My recommendation is this. If you cannot find a real pinball table, then play a Digital Illusions pinball game on a Commodore Amiga or a PlayStation. Avoid Real Pinball on the 3DO like one might avoid a tramp selling copies of the Big Issue. Basically avoid eye contact, walk faster and focus on an invisible dog walking two feet in front of you.

Proof positive that Japanese developers, in this case Japan Dataworks, can make awful, shameful, manky, sorry games.

Rarer than Shock Wave less rare than Creature Shock.

3DO Kid.

Those in the know, know, that Corpse Killer is reasonably rare for the 3DO platform. Those in the know, know that Corpse Killer is an Interactive Movie from the same people who brought us Supreme Warrior and Night Trap. Yet fewer people know what kind of Interactive Movie Corpse Killer is. Well, let me shed some light for you. It is like Operation Wolf or Mad Dog McCree. It is a light gun game.

Without a light gun, most light gun games aren't much fun. Even the best efforts like Demolition Man and Mad Dog are painful without one.

Corpse Killer is different. It can be played, with a modicum of enjoyment, without the light gun. Which by default makes Corpse Killer the best light gun game available for the 3DO.

Looking back, you can't knock Digital Pictures for effort and even imagination - Although their lack of vision was astonishing. How far did they think they could go?

One man was responsible for this vision. One man thought that by stringing together sequences of (albeit well made) movie footage, you could create the ultimate Interactive Movie. And that, in his opinion, was the future of Interactive entertainment. That man was Tom Zito.

You can't talk about Corpse Killer, Tom Zito or Digital Pictures without setting the scene.

Tom entered, so we are told, the video game industry when teaming up with Nolan Bushnell in 1987 on a project to create a games console for Hasbro-Atari.

Zito's original idea was to produced Night Trap (originally called 'Scene of the Crime' ) as a sort of Interactive Nightmare on Elm street. This game was to appear on the aborted Hasbro/Atari branded games console NEMO but the console never emerged and so Night Trap gathered dust on a shelf.

Around 1992 when Tom founded Digital Pictures and set about upsetting American Senators with his games.

To achieve this goal he dug-out Night Trap and its lead star, ex-Different Strokes lead actress Dana Plato. Night Trap had had the dust blown off and it saw the light-of-day on the burgeoning CD format machines. Namely: Sega CD and 3DO.

On release one Senator Lieberman, a Democrat, spat-his-dummy over Night Trap. Despite the fact Night Trap had no nudity, no sex, no violence and no bad language.

Night Trap was condemned.

The obvious thing happened: Night Trap immediately became a best seller.

Many people say that the 'odd thing' about this whole farce is that if Senator Lieberman hadn't got his panties in such a bind over Night Trap, in all likely hood few people would have seen it.

However, there is nothing 'odd' at all about it. It's painfully obvious. A statement akin to "This game is filth and depravity" from a US Senator, is better than all the magazine adverts in the world and all the reviews in the world giving the game 10/10.

For the most part 15 to 60 year old humans largely thrive on filth and depravity. If some filth and depravity is so good a politician feels obliged to comment on it - well hell, that's the kind of filth and depravity they want to see. Money becomes no object.

Digitl Pictures no doubt financially enjoyed this grandiose endorsement that 'Night Trap' had received. And so, probably incited by the desire to cash-in on the infamy the mediocre-game Night Trap had attained for itself, they went on to make Corpse Killer - as a sort of follow-up.

Corspe Killer was produced by Ken Melville, a chap with a special place in my heart. Why? "It came from the desert" - the best game ever to grace the Commodore Amiga. only in my humble opinion of cause. And it was directed by John Lafia - writer of Childs Play. Chuckie? Yes the demonic doll. ...I'm beginning to see why I liked this game.

However, Corpse Killer has all the same objections thrown at it - No nudity, no sex, no violence and no swearing. Sadly for Digital Pictures bank balance, it never managed to achieve the same notoriety - ironically, probably the lack of filth and depravity in Night Trap had tainted peoples mind to any follow-up. Perhaps they felt cheated?

The production values for Corpse Killer were high. It has been estimated that it probably cost between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000 to produce. Personally I'd say that was a bit high. However, it is astounding to consider that there are some game development companies that can't be bothered to draw or photo a back-ground for a game, while Digital Pictures created a myriad of sets and locations for real. It would be fascinating to get inside the mind of someone who actually worked on the project to find out why the production values were so high! Wouldn't it? It would!

Corpse Killer has the best Interactive Movie-sets of any game of its generation. There is a Grave Yard, a Pirate Ship, a Jungle, a Swamp - all exotically created. Ruined sadly by the grain-o-vision recording system but the sets and locations are very professional. As are the actors.

The lead baddy in Corpse Killer, Dr Hellman, is Vincent Schiavelli. You'll instantly recognise him and wonder where you've seen him before. I'll put you out of your misery: "One flew over the Cuckoo's nest".

In my opinion Corpse Killer is a classic. Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with it, for what it set out to be -Which is a B-grade Zombie horror movie with interactivity. It is bang on the money.

Pretty rare.

3DO Kid.

PS: Sadly as it turns out Vincent Schiavelli died on December the 26th last year (2005) and a quick look at IMDB shows he appeared in around 100 films. Some of which I list as personal favourites.

During the early 1990's certain types of words were used, that, if you were a male in your late teens or early twenties mis-sold the entire concept of CD based Interactive Entertainment.

The 'gits' kept using the phrase '...and this game will appeal to the more mature gamer!'

Which to me says just one thing. Naked women. Naked women in video games. Two things that, despite the obvious sales angle, have never really been combined or fully exploited for that matter. And no, Sam Fox strip poker doesn't count. Well, not on the Sinclair Spectrum it doesn't with its 8 bit - "Oh? Is-that-a-women-I-can't-quite-make-it- out-colour-system-too-blurry graphics.

Psychic Detective had Marcia Pizzio in a tight dress - briefly. Snow Job (despite the almost lurid title) had a grainy pixelated striper and Night Trap had young American women in night-shirts but ... ah ... you know... sigh... For me? Well, interactive motion-captured real-live action gaming had been disappointing.

Neuro Dancer is, as far as I can figure, the only game that attempts to combine the grubby-little desires of post-pubescent twenty something perverts, with a video-game.

There is a Playboy game on PS2 - which I can't be bothered with and a so-called Volley-ball game. Oh please? Animated women? Bloody 3D animated and rendered women? Are you kidding me? Resurrect the Interactive Movie you morons (and make it download-able so we don't have to buy it in the shops!)Say no more. Just drag the Interactive Movie back from the grave and put some naked women in it.

Oh where was I? Oh yes. Neuro Dancer. It's actually awful. The game goes like this. You must drive around some tunnels, steal some energy from the energy ATM machines and then spend the energy on strippers. It is actually really very bad.

The women you cry, what about the women? Well, they used the grainy-vision conversion technique again. So maybe they are naked. Maybe they are not. I can't be absolutely sure. I stared quite hard - but I was going blind at the time and my palms were getting hairy.

Virtual Cameraman did it better. Plumbers don't wear ties did it worse.

Rare? Neuro Dancer rare? Yes actually it is.

3DO Kid.

You know... Where do you start with a game like Slayer - Advanced Dungeons and Dragons? Me? I'm undecided. Half of me wants to giggle like a school-girl and make hundreds of jokes about role-playing games. For sure - people who play role-playing games are really a geeky-persons geek. Anyone who spends an evening playing with dice and pretending to be Gherkin the happy Goblin was surely put on this planet for the sole purpose of making us humble video game-players feel superior. Towards someone. Anyone.

Of cause we are still geeks. I don't care how controversial a game is, or how game culture went underground into the night-clubs. Truth is thosegamers are the soft core. The whelps. The quiche munchers. The Fifa players. The cold hard truth of matter is this: the people who put Wipeout into the Dance Clubs would normally chew through their own arms to get away from a true hardcore video-game geek. Like you... and me.

You know it is true. (You do. Stop denying!)

If you're here because you searched on Google and saw the link, sorry Dude (or Dudette - but we all know that's wishful thinking!) you are a Geek. It's a fact Jack.

Preferred FFVI right? Know the price of Castlevania SOTN Ltd ed.? Know which version of Daytona to buy on the Saturn? Hmmm? looking forward to Okami on the PS2 are we Mr Otaku? Answer yes to any of those questions buddy, you're in the Geek Gold Card Club. With me.

But that's OK! Because we have the followers of Gherkin the happy Goblin to mock.

Except their stories of games they have played kind of sound cool ... er .... sometimes - so maybe I shouldn't be too hard?

Slayers a bit naff. The graphics are pretty cool: full screen, proper 3D engine, nice frame rate with animated goblins to die for. Literally.

Some of the game mechanics are cool too. The dungeons are random, generated by a key-word you enter. This means you can share the key-word with a friend and recount your experiences in a particular dungeon over a glass of Jolt Cola, while at Chess club perhaps?

On top of that you can define your own character with an almost endless selection of options. Half-elf, brown haired, neutral mage, with this and that hit-points.

The difficulty I had with Slayer was that I couldn't narrow down the objectives or to be more precise - The point. The game never quite arrives at one.

The mazes, the characters, the enemies, the magic, everything IS really smashing. Just I question why? I'm an old-school solitary video gamer - I just want a mission and to kill stuff. Slayer lets me kill stuff but for no real reason.

I struggle to wander around a 3D maze in first person shooter format at the best of times but when there appears to be no point, well, I kind of give up. And then I became all listless and disappointed.

You know maybe that's it. It's a game designed for the infinitely more geeky, yet slightly more sociable role playing game crowd. So they can sit around and yarn a tale about how they chopped-up Mingy the Mage with a level 2 wombat-whisker. (Or something?)

And that's where I am with Slayer. If my opinion changes before tomorrow, I'll append some comments but right now... oh hold on, there goes Gherkin!

Slayer ain't rare and neither is shampoo geek-boy!

3DO Kid.

PS: Yeah! I managed to get through that without a single reference to middle-aged men who run around in babies nappies being spanked by dwarf-women smeared in hog-fat - another form of role play. (Apparently!)

50th game. I'd like to say I was improving. But I can't. Still haven't got the whole - a sentence must have a point malarkey sorted out in my head yet. My punctuation is still shot to high heaven. And grammar? Well she's still a sweet old lady who sends me a birthday card two months before my birthday.

I've been thinking. How do I celebrate my 50th game? You see I have a bunch of classics I'm sat on. Metaphorically speaking. Games like: Wing Commander 3, Theme Park, Syndicate, Lucienne's quest - some real 3DO classics. But (don't start a sentence with 'but') I couldn't be bothered. Not today. (Well, if that's how you feel about it, use 'but' then...!)

I wanted to start my comments on Battle Chess by going off-on-one about taking some game, some well established game and just whacking it on computer. Then I thought about it. Writing a Chess game must be a real son-of-a-bitch.

We all know the basic rules to Chess. And if we don't this blog is attracting all the wrong clientele. Yet sticking Chess on a computer is a bit more difficult than just teaching the 'thing' a bunch of rules. And this is where, from a developers point of view, things get really hard.

You see for each and every move it makes in the game, based on these rules you've taught it, the computer has to calculate every possible outcome and then it waits for your move and then calculates all over again. Once you've programmed the computer to do this, you've got to teach the computer what to do with all this information. Then, once the computer knows how to win, you have tell it how to throw the game. Because no-one wants to play Chess against a machine that plays like Garry Kasparov. It wouldn't be fun. Really, really, (no really!) not fun.

Then once you have achieved this mammoth programming task, you have to bolt on some mildly amusing animations and convert it to every computer platform ever. Just like they did with Battle Chess.

Fun - If playing Chess is your definition of fun. Not mine. I find it dull. And it's not a 'Rook' it's a bloody Castle. A 'Rook' is a bird.

Battle Chess is pretty rare on the 3DO.

3DO Kid.

This could have worked. Kingdom, in my opinion, was 90% of the way to being an all time great. The hard work had been done. The graphics are very pretty and all hand drawn and must have taken hours and hours. But as with most 3DO games, for every diamond, there is always a bit of dog pooh. And in almost sickening predictability it is in the game play department of Kingdom - the far reaches.

O.K., it's another interactive 'cartoon' movie. And it is not a good interactive 'cartoon' movie. It did however try something that every other interactive movie - ever - had never even tried. Freedom of choice. Rather than the traditional Interactive Movie approach of wait for the right moment and then press UP (or 'A' or 'Down', etc.,) you were presented with a map and allowed to click freely.

That's right: within Kingdom you could choose a location at random, and this is where Kingdoms developers got it wrong. Once you have chosen a site to visit you are presented with a little hand animated Full Motion Video of your character entering the forest, going to the waterfall or going into town and so-on. But the freedom is too broad. In the really-real world when I want to go to town, I need to go outside, get in my car, drive through several villages and arrive eventually at town. In Kingdom you click on the town you are there immediately. You could then click on the car and then the waterfall and then the mountains across the other side of map. The journeying has little or no cause and effect. No logic. Add to that the opportunity for sudden death by simply clicking on the wrong location and it is all a bit tedious.

The graphics are well drawn and have the look and feel of Phileas Fog's 80 days around the world cartoon from the 1980's or perhaps Cities of Gold from the same era. The graphics make the game.

If they, the developers, had considered the games structure a little more, and after-all an Interactive Movie only has its structure as game-play, then Kingdom -the far reaches could have been an all time classic. As it is, it's an utter failure.

Not rare at all.

3DO Kid.

Shock Wave caused me a problem back in 1994 and 1995. Its name. Type 'Shock Wave' into a search engine back in 1995. It was Altavista back in those crazy pre-Google era days by the way. All that it came up with was Macromedia Shock Wave. Incidentally, type in 'NFS' and something significantly less exciting came up than the seminal Need For Speed on the 3DO.

Don't get me wrong. I played all the Shock Wave games from the H.G.Wells inspired Shock Wave 1, to the add-on disk, to Shock Wave 2. All from beginning to end. Every game. When I finished playing one game, did I feel the need or the burning desire to play another? I'll be honest. No. No I did not. But I did play them.

It's not that they are bad. But they aren't that good either. And so of a mediocre lot, Shock Wave 2 is the best. Without a doubt. With more craft to pilot, more weapons, more locations - Go on then, even better graphics.

What is shocking is that even by the time Shock Wave 2 emerged at nearly the end of the 3DO Multiplayers life, no-one had had the decency to tell Electronic Arts that inter-level full-motion video wasn't an essential. It is amazing to think that no-one in Electronic Arts, even in senior management, played one of these games and thought to themselves - "You know what, it would be the same stupid game without all these cheesy actors."

The story takes off where the add-on disk left off. Some relic is stolen by some sneaky aliens posing as humans (humans with red eyes mind you) and then its cavalier space scavengers and star gates ahoy me hearties. For another gallivant around space. Shooting aliens.

The game-play difficulty is well balanced. Shock Wave 2 is tough but not that tough. Also, for your £40.00 you also got variety; for example the opportunity to be a cannoneer rather than just piloting a space-ready stealth fighter is one of the enhancements that makes, yet another why-did-they-bother-to-make-this-? Shock Wave less of a chore.

Plus also there is a menu system which offers some freedom of choice as to which mission you are to under take.

Other than that its more of the same. Yes it is Shock Wave Jim, just as we know it.

Rarer than its predecessor.

3DO Kid.

I cannot be sure but I have the slightly embarrassing feeling that Soccer Kid is an English game. Certainly there are plenty of idiosyncratic English symbolism and iconography. That's to say that the introduction, while mildly entertaining, looks like a Cosgrove Hall creation. (The makers and writers of Danger Mouse and Count Duckula here in the UK.) The only hint that Soccer Kid had even the slightest intention of being popular outside of Britain is the use of the word 'soccer' rather than 'football'. I'm embarrassed by association - because in my opinion and despite the love apparently lavished on it, Soccer Kid is rubbish.

Before I start - I don't want people thinking that I believe that graphics equates to game-play. As obviously it doesn't. However, if I tell yout Soccer Kid looks like an Amiga game. Sounds like an Amiga. Plays like an Amiga game. Yes, Soccer Kid is a sloppy port of an Amiga game. Visually, looks every bit what it is: A 16bit game on a 32bit console. Then its not unfair to call it rubbish. The makers, way back in 1994 made no real attempt to update the game, it looks like they re-compiled it and sent it back out the door. They had the opportunity to enhance it. They didn't take it. Rubbish game.

Even back in 1994 Soccer Kid didn't put up much of a fight against it's counterparts. The reason being was that the 3DO Multiplayer arrived at the tail of end of the biggest platformer-game storm since Atari had gone digging in the desert. So Gex was good, as was Another World, Flashback, Jonny Bazookatone and so on. Each of these games of course had been enhanced or written specifically for the 3DO Multiplayer. Sadly, Soccer Kid had not been tarted-up or written specifically and while it was considered mediocre with a few inspiring moments on the Amiga, it was considered far less on the 3DO.

The other point of issue is that the game is aggressive. OK you say, all games are aggressive and you'd be right. But Soccer Kid is unusual because you are aggressive towards enemies within the game that have not shown much, if any, aggression towards your character. And once you've noticed it, the game starts to feel a bit weird. Asking yourself questions like - 'Why am I kicking this ball at this builder?'. These questions haunt you throughout the game. How kicking a football at a kid on a skateboard is supposed to assist you in finding parts of the shattered World Cup is not fully explained. O.K. games are fantasy. O.K., again, you'd be right. But it needs a frame-work and Soccer Kid doesn't have that frame work.

The game itself is , if I'm to be fair, reasonably solid. The mechanics are sound, the feel is good and Soccer Kid, along with his football have enough special abilities to make the game interesting and varied.

But the downs out weight the ups and Soccer Kid was 'old school' even in '94. And if you want 'old school' platforming fun then or now, then I'd recommend you play the far superior Gex on the 3DO or dig out a SNES and play a Mario game.

3DO Kid.

AWESOME - JUST AWESOME!!!111!! TEH GREATEST GAME EVAR!

No, hold on. Just a moment. No. No it wasn't. Way of the Warrior was another 2D Fighter in the same mould as Mortal Kombat.

I must be just bad at fighting games. Or I can't extract the nuances from them. I used to enjoy Virtua Fighter. In stark contrast, I didn't enjoy this.

I played every character in Way of the Warrior twice for two rounds - which was pretty good for a man with my patience. And I won once using the character Nobunaga. And this glorious victory was only achieved with a furious act of button bashing - the likes of which have never been seen before.

Is Way of the Warrior that bad? Is it? Well for me it was. I guess to be fair it's not as bad as Shadow but certainly no where near Samurai Showdown.

It has finishing moves a la Mortal Kombat. It has digitized characters a la Mortal Kombat. It has animated back drops, rendered introduction sequences and badly acting characters a la every game on the 3DO.

The charcters in WOTW deserve scorn being poured upon them. Again, like with Shadow, we have the friends and family actors digitized as game characters. So, characters just like those in Shadow are present. We have "Just reached Puberty boy" and "My mates girlfriend girl" and other such timeless fighting game characters.

Cynicism aside - I think perhaps given time and patience there is more likely to be a game buried deep inside Way of the Warrior than its nearest rival Shadow - War of succession. After all I can crouch and kick. (Unlike Shadow!)

The developers had some moments of inspiration. For example some levels are at different heights. Whether this adds anything to game is probably the real question but its there and shows a faint attempt to innovate.

And while most of the characters are of the most chronic cliches imaginable, some of them do manage to lurch uncomfortably into the realm of almost inspired. Including the super secret hidden dragon character which can be unlocked.

The game suffers from the developers (Naughty Dog) thinking what people wanted from a 2D Fighting game rather than knowing. The fight mechanics are pretty dreadful. They lack the finesse and elegance of the Japanese fighting games. The punches and kicks never feel like they connect. It feels like you are shadow boxing. This isn't necessarily a fault of the graphics and has probably more to do with the audio, which fails to have the bite and snap of, again, games like Street Fighter II.

You see it may well be good marketing to have White Zombie (who ever they are or were) headlining the sound track, yet if a double-head-punch combo sounds like someone dropping a potato on sand. You're screwed.

The characters in Way of the Warrior suffer the crucial shortcoming of not being terribly engaging either. You can't bond with them at any level. One of the main problems with using real people, is that the player will make up their mind whether they like that character or not within the first 2 or 3 seconds of seeing them. With a cartoon face, as in Samurai Showdown, it's possible to play with the mechanics of that face until you have a universally appealing hero, a heroin, a villain and so on. With real human faces this is harder. Silly cliched outfits do not help either.

Only for real collectors. Pretty rare too!

3DO Kid.

You know what? I simply couldn't be bothered with this game. It simply didn't appeal to me one bit.

It's made by Cryo. Yes - The same people who brought us Lost Eden and Megarace. And you know what the means? 20 bloody minutes of streaming pre-rendered media. Oh brother it was boring! It dragged on and on and on ...

This was one of those games that I got on the cheap. So no box and no manual. Just the CD's crammed in a CD case with not even an insert. Which means the only way I can figure what the game is about, is by sticking it in my 3DO multiplayer and seeing what happens.

So there I am watching the rendered introduction. I see a castle, with a man with very red hair. I then see another man on a dragon. I'm guessing he is bad man. He certainly looks like a bad man. He's covered in spikes and has red glowing eyes. A sure fire sign of badness I'd say. Then I see a baby. I get the feeling while I watch that the baby will grow up to be my character in the game. Just a feeling mind. I see the baby being taken to an old wooden house by an old farmer and then that's it. The game presents you with a menu and you get to start playing.

Reading between the lines: I reckon that spikey man killed the red haired man. I'd even bet that red haired man was the baby's father. And, if I were to hedge my bets, I'd say once that baby grows into manhood, he'll have to avenge his fathers death.

Not before getting a bowl and saving a cow. Yes, they are the first two missions.

The characters have red hair - including the main character. They also have tartan trousers, mullets and strained accents. They'll be Scottish then.

What have the Scottish got to do with Dragons? It was St.George, the patron Saint of England that slayed a bloody Dragon. Not Scotland. They got St. Andrew. Tch! Well, I suppose they had to put up with William Wallace being Australian. Having said that Robin Hood wasn't American either.

Dragons Lore is the usual Cryo style game. Rendered graphics. 3 CDs worth of them.

Does anyone remember the 'Choose your own adventure' books? Or 'Fighting Fantasy' books? They were good. You'd read a section of the book, then
you threw a dice or made a decision and then you moved on and read another
section of book. It was fun. Each story would be different. It was the
illusion of freedom. Unlike this game. It tries to kid you into thinking
your free. But you're not - and it's so obvious.

Linear. It's so fashionable to slate games for being 'Linear' these days. Me? I'm not a big fan of open ended games as it happens. Grand Theft Auto S.A., left me cold. I like to be told a story. Paper Mario 2 was good and I loved Beyond Good and Evil and if you haven't played it, you should. I really adored Resident Evil 4 too. I like being lead by the nose through a game as the plot progresses.

Not in the case of Dragons Lore. Oh heavens - it is boring.

Very rare.

3DO kid.

It's not a bad game. You drive around. You shoot things. It's set in space. It doesn't take itself too seriously. It lampoons itself. There are a couple of silhouette's that make fun of all the badly acted full motion video - they're not funny though.

It's a forgotten game. A mediocre game. You earn money. You spend it. Like in life. But on upgrades. Weapons, engines, wheels, jump jets - that sort of thing. Not like life.

Each level is set on a world - you make it to the end of the world - you fight an end-of-world boss.

It's pretty simple. Nothing to get worked up about. The graphics are even mediocre to look at. No borders. Yes - Off-World Interceptor presents a world without borders. Finish lines. It has finish lines. Is that a border? I'm takin' about screen borders. No on-screen borders. It plays in full screen.

The graphics look like they are the left-overs over Total Eclipse. In fact - you could go as far to say that Off World is Total Eclipse. 'cept it's in cars. Well, Dune-buggies. Dune buggies with guns and rocket launchers.

Same developer, same graphics engine, same graphics libraries used to make the laser fire. Things exploded differently. It's not quite the same. Pretty similar though.

It's unpretentious. That would make it pretty cool. Like I said, it doesn't take itself too seriously. But it's not cool. It's pretty lame.

You get the option to battle another person with a D-Pad. I'm talkin' about 2-player split screen. The screen is split vertically, instead of horizontally. Still - That's not much fun either.

It's not even rare. Nobody wants it. No big surprise. No-one cared when it was released. Off World Interceptor - Forgotten game of the 3DO.

Hey - forget about it.

3DO Kid.