Sony OpenMG Jukebox

Sony’s first digital music player, and the introduction to ATRAC3 on the Windows platform.

The interface appears rather conservative in comparison to other media players, and later versions of SonicStage. Here we have access to the Recorder, which allows you to rip music from audio CD’s. with the Internet button opening a link to Sony’s now defunct online store.
You also have the standard playback controls along with the system volume control.
The portable Player button doesn’t do much since we don’t have an era appropriate Walkman/VAIO device. This would have been used to transfer and check out music – more on that later.
The Edit My Select button let you create a custom playlist of songs, although the software will refer these as ‘Albums’. The program will differentiate between proper albums as ‘Original Albums’ and your custom playlist as ‘My Selections’. Yes, It does appear there is typing error within the application.

Getting the music

Before we can record from a CD, OpenMG needs to check the CD drive. I assume this is to check for possible noise since many CD drives were still using analogue audio for CD audio playback Here we can import our music in ATRAC3, and only ATRAC3. You do get the option of three bitrates, 66k, 105k and 132k.
CDDB lookup was supported, but is no longer functional.

When ripping a CD I encountered issue when attempting this using the VMWare passthrough from my Internal SATA drive, even with the ‘Legacy’ option enabled within VMWare. The workaround was to use an external USB optical drive and have it passthrough the VMWare USB stack, which present the device directly to the VM. From there I was able to import the audio CD.

What is ATRAC3?
This was Sony’s updated codec intended for use with their later revision of Minidisc Players (MDLP – Minidisc Long Play), which is more efficient and offers slightly better compression than compared to MP3 which was the main codec that ATRAC3 competed with.
There is no ATRAC3 is the second revision of ATRAC (That was used in the original Minidisc), although it’s branded as ATRAC3, likely to compete with MP3

Oddly, music imported is saved to the program Files directory, not the Documents or the My Music folders. Within the ‘Packages’ directory there are various different ‘Trx’ folders that contain single track, followed by a procfile.bin which is possible related to the DRM Sony had used. Tracks are saved in the OMG file format.

In regard to how ATRAC 3 compares to MP3 and WMA encoders of the time, at the same bitrate (64k) ATRAC appears to resample drums a lot better, with the WMA versions sound more compressed. If I had to put them in order, it would be ATRAC3, followed by RealAudio cook, WMA and MP3 last.

Checking In & Out

To curb the potential of piracy, Sony employed a checking system where if a song is transferred to one of your supported portable players, It is marked as checked out. You were limited to how many times you could check out a single track, however if a track was checked out you could still continue to listen to he music on the host PC. Songs could be checked back in if you wanted to transfer to another device.
This did tie the track to the Windows install and if you had to reinstall Windows or perform factory reset, it wasn’t possible to restore the song back to your PC as the main encryption key was lost. This was seen as necessary by the music publishers, when digital music piracy was starting to take off.
In comparison to the Fairplay system that iTunes had use, the OpenMG system was seen as more restrictive. Apple did let you have up to five authorized computers, and there was no limit of the amount of iPod’s that you could transfer the songs to, providing the computer that you are transferring from is authorized to do so. One restriction however is that you couldn’t transfer a song from the iPod back to the host PC, even if that PC was authorized.

The digital music landscape of 1999 is defined by uncontrolled copying, unauthorized distribution, and widespread piracy. As a hardware manufacturer with deep relationships across the music industry, Sony must demonstrate that its portable devices cannot become vectors for mass duplication, considering Sony also has a presence in the music publishing industry itself.
The check in/check out system is the most reliable way to enforce these rules. It ensures that ATRAC content is always tied to a specific PC and cannot be freely duplicated across multiple computers or devices.

Digital files can be copied infinitely with no degradation. To prevent uncontrolled proliferation, Sony must ensure that only one active master copy exists at any time. From their previous experience with DAT Cassette, being able to make a near perfect digital copy of a song was seen as a huge problem for piracy. The three device limit will be seen as quite limited, especially if you have a family that has multiple Walkman’s that you intend to share music with.

Sony later allowed you to remove the OpenMG protection from OMG files in later versions of SonicStage and the checking system was abolished.

Lastly you can import and convert MP3 and WAV files for use with the program and to transfer to your portable device.

Sony only released their music software on Microsoft Windows, with no Macintosh version of the software. Reverse engineered third party tools would later follow that allowed for transfer for mac and Linux systems, however standard MP3 players would become more popular, Many that didn’t feature such restrictions.

Sony would continue to develop their OpenMG Music management software, which would be rebranded to SonicStage, which would support hard disk and flash memory based Walkman’s.

MusicMatch v5

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MusicMatch was one of the many media player applications that was geared towards the emerging Mp3 revolution. As Windows 98, one of the common operating systems of the era lacked built in MP3 support, it was necessary to install a third party application to facilitate MP3 playback and recording. MP3 players were also coming on the market, which required the use of a dedicated software package to manage them.

The MusicMatch installer, which later prompts you to register your email address

After the install, we are treated to a skeuomorphic-like interface that resemble a vintage hifi. Here we can see the software divide into several sections. The player section where we can control the music playback and the current playlist. The Music Library which shows the MP3 tracks we ‘recorded’ from our audio cd (or acquired online somehow). Towards the bottom there is the Recorder that lets you import music from an audio CD.

The interface isn’t your standard Windows design, and you cannot maximize the window which makes the program appear cluttered, especially when you have songs with long strings. There is a compact mode which is intended to show song information whilst you are multitasking with another program like a web browser.

The Recoding section is where we can import our audio CD’s into either the MP3/WAV or WMA format. This is also known as ‘Ripping’ as later applications referred to it. Recording could also refer to how they had to actually record the CD audio stream, as many early PC CD-ROM implementations didn’t send the CD audio over the IDE interface, instead using the analogue Cd audio that was connected to the sound card directly. Recording audio in this method was slow because it had to actually capture the audio in real-time, so an 80 minute CD took that long to record onto the hard disk. In contrast, MusicMatch supports digital audio where the audio data can be sent through the ide (And later SATA bus) for faster importing.

Musicmatch supported the used of a CDDB database to locate CD song titles. There are projects to help revive this functionality, however I was able to get MusicMatch to obtain the track listings. Possibly this is using a non-standard format or is hardcoded to use Musicmatch’s own servers. So for now we have to manually type this in. Conveniently you can set the artist and the album which will be applied to the songs in the album, but song titles will need to be added manually one by one.

Formats supported are MP3 and WMA, the latter being Windows media Audio. Audio quality is grouped by how relative it is to either FM and CD audio. Oddly it defined a 64k MP3 as the same as WMA, whilst the latter is supposed to be more efficient at lower bitrates. You can also manually set the bitrate, going as low as 8k for MP3 which sounds horrific. Unlike Windows Media Player and RealJukebox, Musicmatch does not have its own format, instead MP3 is the default supported codec.

Some of the quality options seem too low, but as many entry level MP3 players had shipped with only 32Mb of memory, having the option to encode files at a lower quality was useful for those concerned with disk space. You can also convert existing files, however reencoding and compressing MP3 files adds additional compression artifacts and is really intended for converting WAV audio.

There are also links and a built in browser to download and purchase MP3 files. This was during the emergence of piracy that was becoming widespread through out the media, so it was imperative for Musicmatch to focus and promote legal MP3 stores. But. DRM(Digital Rights Management) was compulsory for copyrighted Mp3 files, which affected how you could transfer and playback music to other portable devices. It was a dark era where record companies were trying to figure out how to distribute music online and is thankfully no longer the case.

Musicmatch also has a professional edition that you could purchase, this upgrade allows you to record music CD’s faster, jewel case printing and support for high quality bitrate.

Portable devices supported include the RCA Lyra, Creative Nomad and the Diamond Rio. You can sync individual track or an entire playlist. If you were lucky enough to have an CD-R drive you can also create traditional music CD or a Data CD using MP3 or WMA.

Lastly a preview of the included themes, Digital Age, Midnight Swin, Reverb and Titanium. Additional themes could be downloaded from the Internet.

RealJukebox

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RealJukebox was Real Players (Networks) entry into the digital music market. RealJukebox supports MP3 and WAV playback, Cd audio ripping and also operated a limited online music store.

The software here is running on a Windows ME VM running in 86Box which is emulating an original Pentium PC. This VM is sort of underpowered for what the originals software required (A Pentium MMX running at 200Mhz) so I’m curious on what the performance of audio playback will be like. The interface is somewhat cluttered compared to other programs of the era, along with the adverts to long defunct website like 800.com or checkout.com Sadly these did not survive the dot.com bubble crash.

The music library will show the music that has either been downloaded or imported to the library. You can view by artist, album or genre. There is also support for playlists in the RMP file format.

RealJukebox supports ripping to the MP3 or WAV format, and to RealAudio’s own format which was based on the cook codec. The RealAudio format has seen a few iterations over its release with earlier formats using GSM based audio. Importing to the MP3 format is limited to a bitrate of 96Kbps. In contrast, the WAV format has to such restriction but will generate large files, whilst the RealAudio option is limited in its support for portable audio players and RealPlayer software. The RealAudio codes that was used in this version was using the ‘cook’ codec which has similar performance to MP3 but focused on bitrate efficiency, which was essential when most would have been connecting to the internet at 28.8K dial up internet at the time.

You have the option to ‘protect’ your recording from unauthorized use which is really a way for them to implement DRM on your imported music. This was to limit sharing music to other computers, and over the internet but was also a way to stop any possible problems with the music industry.

Thankfully you can disable this from the start, but I’m unsure if you can unprotect existing files. Still the software will let you backup your playback key if you need to transfer your library to another computer.

At one time the software could obtain song information from the internet, but this is long since defunct. You can manually add these to the songs themselves but it only supports adding one at a time, making it tedious. The best method is to add the data before you ‘Record’ the songs, as RealJukebox allows you to type this in manually. It will then apply that to all the tracks in the current album.

I’m kind curious how this custom codec compared to MP3, especially at a low bitrate. I did rip a few albums using RealAudio at 64Kbps, there is noticeable distortion and degradation when playing song that feature heavy drums, guitar riffs appear to sample better. Vocals don’t seem to be affected much. Playback itself is fine on a Pentium 90Mhz, just don’t attempt to multitask 😀

Portable devices were an emerging market for this era, and this was before the iPod and the digital Walkman players were a thing. Here RealJukebox has support for different brands of players, and can automatically convert files that were suited for the player. Examples of supported players were the Diamond Rio, the RCA Lyra, Create Labs Nomad and the Sony Memory Stick (not Walkman) players. I don’t’ have any of these devices and there isn’t any way to interact these with 86Box for the time being (USB ports are not exposed to the host as of version 5.3)

Like other media players, this one features a mini mode that allows you to quickly change the track whilst running another application like an internet browser. A few skins are included like Claymation, Pager (remember those?)

The installer for RealJukebox, which requires you to provide an email address.

Does it work on Windows 11? Why of course it does. Not much point unless you wanted to specifically create RealAudio encoded files.

RealJukebox faced completion from Microsoft’s own Windows Media Player 7, that added CD ripping and digital music player support, and MusicMatch Jukebox. RealNetworks would later merge RealJukebox into the main RealPlayer branch, which would be temporally rebranded to Real1 player, signifying one application needed for music and internet video. Modern versions of RealPlayer can still Import CD audio and can manage MP3 and FLAC files and it’s a nice alternative to the depreciated Windows Media Player (And the crippled Microsoft UWP player)

Tokyo Wars

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Namco’s first person tank shooter game, here you are split into two teams with the goal being to wipe out your enemy’s tanks. Running in beautiful 60fps in 640×480 resolution tanks to the powerful System 22 hardware, something that PC 3D accelerator software the era had difficulty achieving.

You join either the Green Force or White Force and battle opposing tanks in large 3D arenas. Matches last up to 15 minutes or until one team is wiped out – depending on the arcade operator settings. Destroying enemy tanks will give you a small shield boost that you have to pick up, which gives you more health.

You’re limited to just two stages, the Downtown street level and the docks stage. Certain elements of the level are destructible like cars, rails and even the on-ramps for the parking lot. The Bay Area (Bayside Dock), This is the training ground of the game. It is a massive, relatively flat shipping yard and dockside area. Because there aren’t many places to hide, the enemy teams usually meet in the middle for a massive battle. Despite the amount of tanks on screen, the frame rate never seems to dip.

The Downtown Tokyo, This is the more famous of the two levels and is significantly more complex. It represents a dense city center filled with narrow streets and intersections. A maze-like grid of streets that provide a quick hiding place from other tanks. It features elevated expressways (overpasses) that you can drive under or around, and tight alleys that allow for flanking maneuvers.
There is no overall story or plot to the game, just seems like Tokyo crashed out and decided to have a tank battle.

Tokyo Wars comes close to a 3D arena shooter for the arcades in concept, but the tank controls limits your movement somewhat compared to the nimble movement that Unreal and Quake offer. The decision to use tanks as players was possibly done to avoid any controversy with the game. Arcades in the mid-90s were often in malls and family venues, so avoiding realistic human blood/gore (like in Mortal Kombat or Doom) was smart business in general. The game is still very much a high-octane, competitive war game but avoids having any serviced violence like gore or blood being sprayed around.
Still the game provided an impressive amount of detail for an 90s arcade game thanks to the capabilities of Namco’s System 22 hardware, offering detailed buildings and animated billboards, many of which feature references to Namco’s other games of the era, especially when you compare it to other games that feature an urban city setting like the original Driver.

Now it’s easier to play Tokyo Wars, you can emulate it on MAME on a reasonable capable hardware. And as of 2026 it has been released as part of the Arcade Archive series that I recommend and is available to the PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Switch 2. These versions are accurate to the arcade original.

Microsoft Encarta 2006

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Microsoft Encarta 2006 was a version of Microsoft’s popular multimedia encyclopaedia software, released around mid-2005. Encarta started in 1993 as one of the first major CD-ROM encyclopaedias and evolved into a major educational product through the 1990s and early 2000s, featuring thousands of articles, photos, videos, interactive maps, and more, all from your CD-ROM drive (or DVD in this case)

Over time Encarta split into different editions, with the Premium edition adding further content, dictionary tools and translation features. A more basic version known as ‘Standard’ was integrated with Microsoft Works that was typically bundled with Home PC’s of the era.

The Encarta interface, which looks like child-friendly browser with its navigation buttons. Clicking Home will take you to the Encarta start page, where you can choose the topic you wish to browse like History, Geography, Science, etc. Whilst intended to be used on Windows XP, it works quite well on modern versions of Windows. It’s just the information contained in it might be out of date.

Article updates were a thing and you could download new or amended articles from Microsoft. This have long since been discontinued, though I wonder if its possible to reverse engineer Wikipedia articles into Encarta.

The search bar can be selected to search in specific subjects like the dictionary or maps. This is useful as the Encarta search can be fragmented,. Simply searching for Spain can yield results in relation to map/location and articles that relate to Spain itself.

The Discovery Channel video clips in Microsoft Encarta 2006 (particularly the Premium edition) consist of around 30 high-quality educational segments sourced from Discovery Channel, integrated directly into relevant encyclopedia articles to enhance multimedia learning. IT’s a nice change from just reading text in relation to reading the articles.

Encarta included a few educational games designed to make learning interactive and fun, primarily aimed at reinforcing encyclopedia content. These were not full-fledged video games but rather simple, knowledge-based activities integrated into the software. They are mostly powered by Flash and run within the Encarta program. Many of these consist of quizzes and puzzle’s.

Microsoft Encarta 2006 featured 3D virtual tours as part of its multimedia enhancements, allowing users to explore reconstructed models of historical sites in an interactive, three-dimensional environment. This feature, introduced in Encarta 2002 and carried forward with minimal changes through later editions (including 2006), focused on ancient and historical landmarks to provide immersive educational experiences. You can navigate these tours using mouse controls to rotate views, zoom in on details, and access linked articles or hotspots for more information, albeit with the quality of early PlayStation graphics.

The visual browser feature that will show you relate topics with the use of icons. It’s intended to be a navigation tool to quickly locate related subjects, though it seems a bit gimmicky in its execution, and it scrolls too fast to be usable. It presented search results or article connections as a visual map of floating icons or clusters, allowing you to click through to refine queries by topic, relevancy, or media type (e.g., articles, images, videos).

It seems like something they would use to show off Encarta’s graphic engine, but has little practical use.

The dictionary of Encarta, which will show the definitions of words, along with a sound clip that you can play to hear the pronunciation of. A Thesaurus is also offered. Word definitions can be printed, and parental controls can be used to filter out slurs or swear words which are included.

Another nice feature is the timeline which will show significant events in chronological order.

Encarta was followed up by its 2007 successor not long after its release as part of the annual cycle, however it would be discontinued altogether by 2009 in favor of Wikpedia and other online encyclopedia’s. Microsoft would later host Encarta online before that itself got discontinued.

G.A.S.P Fighters’ NEXTream

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A 3D fighting game by Konami (the Osaka division) released exclusively for the Nintendo 64, back when games console shad their own exclusive fighting game franchises. PlayStation had Tekken, Sega Saturn had Fighting Vipers and Virtua Fighter and the Nintendo 64 had Killer Instinct, and G.A.S.P. Released in 1998 when Tekken 2 and Virtua Fighter 2 had already established themselves within the home console market.

Gameplay revolves around arena-based 3D fights inspired by titles like Virtua Fighter, with scoring based on move quality and combos rather than just depleting health. Although this only appears to matter when the round time has expired, instead of awarding the match point to the player that’s the most health remaining, the game calculated the score based on remaining health (which weights heavily) along with technique.

You select from 8-9 playable fighters (plus unlockable like a cat-masked wrestler Gouriki and boss Reiji Ogami, who transforms into forms like Hikari and Yami), each with unique moves, punches, kicks, throws, and evades. Modes include single-player tournament/duel, versus (1v1 or tag-team), training, and a notable create-a-fighter system where you customize appearance (hairstyles, body types, faces) and steal moves from defeated opponents. This is one of the few fighting games that does let you create and customize your own fighter, something that is more commonly seen win the wresting game genre.

Unfortunately the game failed to capture the audience that Tekken and Virtua Fighter had, and the game itself wasn’t very well received both in Japan and Internationally. One of the main criticism’s was the overall pacing and speed of the game, giving a fell that the characters were fighting underwater. I’m not sure if this was a design consideration from Konami, as they possibly wanted to implement a more strategic fighting system that gives the player opportunity to counter and plan their next fighting move, or it this was more so of the technical limitations of the Nintendo 64. Many of the stages have destroyable objects that break as your chapter slams into them, but the physics processing could have an impact of the games overall speed as a result. Running on an actual N64, expect to get a frame rate of 20-30FPS.

The moves of the characters is also rather limited, with many moves just being a various of the same punch/kick. This might be due to the ability to create custom fights, which affects how the character’s moveset would flow, and how the animations execute across different character models and meshes without clipping or looking unnatural. This is often difficult to pull off and is why we often don’t see customisation in fighting games.

Still, the game reward you give a nice Techno-inspired soundtrack that has dark elements to it. If you have already admired Tekken for it’s soundtrack, you won’t be disappointed considering sound isn’t one of the N64’s strong points.

Destruction Derby 64

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The Nintendo 64 instalment of the Destruction Derby series of games that were popular on the PlayStation, PC and Sega Saturn. The N64 version isn’t a straight port, but rather a spin off title which you would see often with racing games, with the N64 getting specialized ports of Ridge Racer and Wipeout.

Destruction Derby 64 is played as a vehicular combat racer where you pilot one of 24 cars (stock cars, hot rods, ambulances, taxis, etc.—12 start unlocked, others via progression/Time Trials) across 8 tracks and 4 circular bowls (arenas). The core loop is to race to checkpoints/finish while ramming opponents to rack up destruction points, wreck them (explode/disable), and survive as damage affects your handling/speed, so balance aggression with caution.

Single-player in Destruction Derby 64 (World Championship mode, plus Arcade and Time Trial) revolves around scoring the highest points via destruction + racing progression, not just pure placement. Races end when all opponents are wrecked, your damage meter fills (you explode), or you miss a timed checkpoint. Up to 12 AI cars split into 2-3 groups for head-on chaos from the start (opposing groups reverse direction), no lapping system.

The multiplayer takes advantage of the four controller ports the N64 provided. You have access to 4 player split screen with has the game modes Deathmatch, Destruction Race, Tomb Tag and Capture The Flag, Unlike the console versions you don’t need to have two consoles linked up via the serial cable, all of this can run on one N64 console.

There is a nice variety of track in the game, Seascape Sprint has a costal/beachside appearance to its and make me thinks it takes some inspiration from the costal track from Rage Racer. Metro Challenge is a more urban environment set in a more built up area, whilst Terminal Impact is set on a Airport terminal with plenty of obstacles that you will need to avoid. Destruction Junction is a figure-8 designed track that can be tricky to navigate as it’s easy to make a wrong turn.

Destruction Derby 64 follows the same soundtrack theme as the PlayStation original with a techno/electronica inspired soundtrack that keeps pace with the games racing theme. However I feel a more industrial/grunge inspired theme would suit the destruction part of the game better.

Perfect Dark Zero

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The sequel to the original Perfect Dark game, released as a launch title for the Xbox 360 in 2005.

First off, Perfect Dark Zero is trying to tell the origin story of Joanna Dark, our badass spy chick, in this futuristic 2020 where corporations are running the show (similar to your typical futuristic SciFI story, like Unreal and Deus Ex). You’re out here doing bounty hunter gigs with your father, Jack, before things turn bad with dataDyne and some alien artifact. The story is a lot more hard to follow compared to the N64 original, even with the HD cut scenes. The original had this tight, mysterious vibe with Area 51 and Skedar aliens—felt like X-Files meets GoldenEye. This one’s got a convoluted plot. The N64 game’s story wasn’t perfect, but it had charm and focus. Zero feels like it’s trying too hard to be epic and just trips over itself, which is usually a sign a game was rushed to reach a console launch deadline.

PDZ’s 2020 setting depicts a world where corporations like dataDyne dominate global affairs, overshadowing governments. This theme critiques unchecked corporate greed and the ethical dangers of profit-driven science, as dataDyne’s pursuit of the Graal prioritizes power over humanity’s safety. It reflects fears of real-world corporate overreach, a staple of cyberpunk stories. Sound Familiar? Corporations in 2020, like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, arguably hold significant economic and cultural influence but didn’t supplant governments – well not as we know of yet.

At least Aliens are still fictional

Windows Media Player Visualizations in the Nightclub level

Another key element is Betrayal, that drives much of the plot. Chandra’s double-cross, Mai Hem’s ruthlessness, and dataDyne’s manipulation of allies like Killian. Joanna’s journey tests her trust in others, contrasted by her growing loyalty to the Carrington Institute, which represents a moral counterpoint to dataDyne’s amorality. This theme explores personal and ideological conflicts in a world of shifting allegiances.

Gameplay-wise, it’s got that FPS core, but it’s leaning into tactical stuff—cover system, dodge rolls, stealth objectives. You can hack terminals with a Datathief gadget or sneak past guards, which is cool but it isn’t as smooth as the original. The N64 Perfect Dark had those tight controls, even on that wonky controller, and missions felt varied with objectives that changed per difficulty. Zero’s campaign is alright—14 missions, playable solo or co-op. The co-op’s is dynamic, like one guy hacks while the other covers which an interesting way to implement multiplayer into a single player campaign.

The multiplayer is where Perfect Dark built its throne. The N64 version had us glued to four-way split-screen with bots, proxy mines, and Laptop Guns—pure chaos in the best way. Zero steps it up with 32-player Xbox Live matches, which was mind-blowing in ’05. You got DeathMatch, Capture the Flag, and this DarkOps mode where you’re buying weapons with credits like it’s Counter-Strike. The bots are still varied, with personalities like “Judge” who hunts the top player. Problem is, the maps feel less inspired than the N64’s tight arenas like Facility or Complex.

This game was a showcase for what the 360 could do. We’re talking 720p, widescreen, HDR lighting that makes neon-lit Hong Kong levels pop like a music video. The parallax mapping gives textures this 3D depth, and ambient occlusion makes shadows look real as hell—stuff we weren’t seeing on PS2 or Xbox. Joanna’s character model, with her red hair and tactical gear, looks slick, even if her anime-inspired design feels less iconic than the N64’s gritty vibe. Environments like dataDyne’s skyscraper or the Peruvian ruins are massive and detailed, a huge leap from the N64’s blocky polygons. But sometimes the framerate chugs, especially in big multiplayer matches, and animations feel stiff, like Rare was rushing to hit that launch deadline. Compared to Halo or later 360 games, it’s not quite top-tier, but for 2005, it was showing off what next-gen could be.

Compared to the N64 Perfect Dark, which wove its conspiracy with tighter pacing and a more cohesive blend of sci-fi and spy thriller, Zero’s story feels fragmented due to its rushed development. The themes are ambitious but often superficially explored, with weak dialogue and voice acting diluting their impact. Still, the corporate dystopia and tech-driven paranoia align with cyberpunk classics, while the personal revenge angle adds relatability. Overall, Perfect Dark Zero is a solid launch title, but it’s living in the shadow of a giant.

Nearly 20 years alter and Microsoft has yet to follow up with a sequel, and it’s unlikely they will at this point. A reboot was greenlit in 2020 but has since been cancelled with very little to show for, and that’s the last we will probably see of Perfect Dark.

The Sims 2 – Open for Business

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The third expansion released for The Sims 2, that added the ability to create and run business from their own home, or from a community lot. This expansion also included the concept of badges, business perks. OFB gives sims more options on how to make money, instead of having to have a career.

Business can vary from selling goods purchased from buy mode to their own produce like cakes/robots/flowers/etc that the sim has produced. Items from other expansion packs can be sold or monetized into a service. By default, the shipped Shopping district (Bluewater Village) comes with a few premade business like a florist, a cake shop and a Toy shop, A few ideas are:

Fish: With the Seasons expansion, You can have your sim catch fish from a nearby lake and then sell it other sims, since the types of fish is dependent on their talent badge and access to a lake, this could be a useful way for sims to buy and cook fish if they have no access to a lake on their own lot. Also remember that sims cannot increase their skills and badges on a community lot, so it’s impossible to catch more expensive fish without cheats unless they have a lake on their own lot

Cakes/Food: Sims with a high cooking skill can produce food that can be sold for other sims. Things like pizza and Chinese food still cannot be produced which I think was a missed opportunity with this expansion, you could have had sims create their own fast food place.

Beauty Salon: Freetime introduced a hair salon chair which allows sims to give makeovers to other sims, also serves as a nice opportunity to change the appearance of NPC’s and townies

Boxing Gym: The punching bag normally cannot be purchased as its an career reward for the military, however a sim that has unlocked this can use it to set up their own gym. It’s a bit tricky to set up as sims wont autonomously use it, instead you have to have your sim offer lessons to them.

Art Studio: Sims can produce their own paintings and sell them to other sims. Having them to do portraits for other sims can be tricky as they will reject this if the relationship is low. Also the painting’s the sims produce are done at random.

Farm: Sims that can grow crops can also sell their produce, useful for sims that do not have enough land to grow their own. This best way to do this is to grow their own produce at home, then sell it off at a community lot they own.

Robot/Electronics: With the Robot station, sims can product electronic items like drones and full on Servo’s than can be brought and activated. Dones can be for security or food (The munchies bot brings either Pizza or Chinese Food). These tend to malfunction often and are more trouble than they are worth.

Textiles: With the Freetime expansion, sims can craft and sell their own fabrics. With a high enough talent badge, you can create your own clothing.

Pottery Shop: Also included with the Freetime expansion, Sims can sell a range of pottery.

Car Showroom: You can purchase the craftable car, have your sim fix and complete it and sell it. This one is best suited for a home lot, as I ran into a few issues trying to attempt this on a community lot. First is vehicles cannot be purchased in Buy mode whilst on a community lot, and storing them in the inventory caused issues when placing them on the driveway.

Fighting in a pottery shop, You break it you pay it

There is a bit of micromanagement needed when running a business, as you are expected to manually assign your employees roles to ensure the business remains functional. Over time, they will need to be assigned on break, otherwise they will quit.

Craftables are a new concept introduced in the game, and are made by purchasing the correct workbench. This is where the skill badges comes in, as the type of items the sim can make Is dependent on how good their badge is for that talent.

Robots are one of the new objects that can be crafted. You start of by making simple toy’s, then onto sentry drones (which are quite useful, like the Munchie bot that will deliver food every so often) to eventually a Servo. Some of the robots have a tendency to break down often, like the hoover bot. When this happens it will just spew trash all over the lot, and it will happen quite frequently regardless of the sims talent or mechanical skill. Personally I would avoid these and just stick with the gardener or maid, or install a mod to reduce the chance of breakage.

The Servos, when powered up become their own sims. They can be controlled, get a job and do most tasks a sim would normally do. They have and have a different set of motives comparted to a human sim, relying on sunlight for power. Servos will always have a desire to clean up, and will often do chores automatically. This is in contrast to the Servo that was introduced in Livin Large, where they had to be manually activated by the sim,

Shopping districts are introduced in the game, these are subhood’s that had can be added to an existing neighborhood. They can also be used if you run out of space on your current neighborhood. There is no hard limit on the amount of sub hoods that can be added, and sims can travel between different subhoods.

Bluewater village ships with the game and adds a few families to the game, these serve as examples of the different buisness that can be used with Open For buisness.

Tinker: Stephen, Wanda and their daughter Melody, they are currently in the toy making business and are operating it from home.
Delarosa: Florence operates a flower shop from her lot
Jacquet: Denise, with her son Gilbert who are owners of a local bakery.
Landgrabb: Malcom Landgrabb lives here, who is no stranger to The Sims having previously appeard in the console games (Bustin Out). Dudley and Mimi do not appear and there is no mention of them in the family tree.
Ramirez: Checo, Lisa and their daughter Tessa, live on a fairly typical household lot. There is a lemonade stand outside which Tessa can use to sell lemonade. Both parents are unemployed, so Tessa must be shitfing some Lemonade to pay the bills
Gieke: Family bin sim, can be moved onto any lot he can afford.
Larson: Twins Jason and Jodie, who currently do not have a business (or a lot) of their own.

Conclusion

Open For Business adds a lot of new features to the game, but the implementation is not without flaws. NPC/Townie sims will constantly try to interact with your employees which can cause then to be unassigned from their tasks, leaning into the micromanagement element of the game. NPC sims also tend to hang around on lots even after they have finished shopping, often getting into fights with other sims which can affect the business ranking (which is unfair). Often you will have to manually dismiss these sims off the lot to prevent your rating from tanking, or so the game will actually spawn sims that will buy items. A quirk of The Sims 2 is that the game will only spawn so many sims on a lot according to your systems capabilities and after a while, will stop spawning sims because the existing sims are wandering around the lot or are playing outside.

The employee system could have been implemented better as its not always easy to tell when they need to go on a break, and they often quit for no reason even whilst on break. Thankfully there are mods that can fix this.

South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play!

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A tower defense game with a South park flavor, released in 2009 exclusively on the Xbox 360.

With these sort of games you would expect them to be a simple cash grab by reskinning an existing tower survival engine and apply the South Park theme over it. Trey Parker and Matt Stone were hands-on, making sure this thing feels like you’re playing an episode straight out of Comedy Central. The story’s a glorious middle finger to Japanese game tropes—South Park’s glitched into a video game world, and the boys are stuck fighting waves of enemies to save the town. The big bad? A Japanese announcer dude who’s like the lovechild of a Street Fighter narrator and Mr. Garrison on a bender. It’s absurd, it’s meta, and it’s peak South Park roasting gaming clichés.

There are a lot of reference to event sand charicters from ther TV show. You’re fighting classic enemies pulled straight from the series: hippies from “Die Hippie, Die,” crab people from that one episode where they’re plotting under the town, Jakovasaurs from those annoying dino-things nobody liked, and even the Christmas Critters from the “Woodland Critter Christmas” blood orgy episode. Every level’s a love letter to fans—locations like the school or downtown South Park are ripped from the show’s paper-cutout aesthetic, complete with that janky, sloppy charm Trey and Matt insisted on. You’ll hear iconic lines, like Cartman screaming “Respect my authoritah!” when you trigger his slam move, or Kenny’s muffled grunts when he bites it (spoiler: he dies a lot). There’s even unlockable show clips as rewards, which is like finding Randy’s secret stash of Tegridy Weed—pure fan service.

You build towers like snow forts, fiery Christmas trees (called Fiery-Works, because of course), or fridges to slow enemies down. Each has upgrades, but you gotta hustle to collect coins from dead enemies to afford ‘em. The twist is the action element: you’re not a passive god; you’re in the trenches, switching between kids to sling snowballs or use special moves. Cartman’s Fatass slam is like dropping a nuke, Kyle’s got a Jew-jitsu kick, and Timmy’s wheelchair charge is comedy gold. It’s tower defence with ADHD, and I’m here for it.

Levels get nuts fast. Early stages ease you in, but by the end, you’re fending off waves of enemies coming from multiple paths, with bosses like the Japanese announcer who shrug off your towers like Randy ignoring Sharon’s complaints. Single-player’s a grind—you’re constantly swapping characters, building, and throwing snowballs. But co-op? Up to four players can each control a kid, and it’s a blast coordinating who’s building and who’s sniping enemies. It’s the kind of chaos where you’re yelling at your buddy to “stop sucking, Kyle!” while laughing your ass off. If you have four controller’s to hand, it’s pure splitscreen fun.

South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play was only ever released for the Xbox 360, no PS3 or Wii ports were ever developed. It wasn’t even released or made compatible with the Xbox One, and since was only ever released digitally on Xbox Live it could now be considered abandoned media.