Category Archives: Games

X-Squad

One of the PS2 launch titles, try doing this on a Dreamcast

A third person sort of FPS where you shoot stuff. The main plot of the game is set in the year 2037, terrorists have taken over a military base and it’s up to the X-Squad to restore it, following the failure of the previous W-Squad mentioned in the game.

The game is similar in concept to SOCOM and Ghost Recon where you can issue squad commands to your teammates, typically 3 members. These are fairly basic as you can only command them to be oppressive or stealth/defensive.

The game UI, screams early 2000 era design and is where you can manage your inventory. At the end of each level you will earn points depending on the difficulty the level was completed at. You can use these to purchase new weapons, ammunition, shields and gadgets to help complete the next level. You can also find pickups, like leftover ammunition when you kill an enemy to keep your character going.

You can also manage your teammates inventories, and can juggle weapons, health kits between them.

The Squad

John Ash Connors: The main character and the only character you can control. Only 26 years old and has grey/silver hair.

Maya Esteves: One of your teammates who is with you the most, has a tendency to get shot and run out of health, which requires you to constantly transfer health packs to keep her in the game

Judd: A large son of a bitch, standing 6ft 8 and weighing 250 pounds. For his height he appears out of scale since compared to his squad mates, appearing only slightly taller.

Melinda Swanson: Not one for conversation from going by the cutscenes, both her and Judd will occasionally go and do their own thing mid-mission, leaving you stuck with Maya

Colonel Clifford: You encounter this geezer midway through level 4 and he becomes a teammate for the rest of levels 4 and 5. Although his health indicator is set on yellow, he cannot die thankfully, but he ain’t a good shooter.

Dr. Biana: Not a direct squadmate but you encounter her often. Walks around with a briefcase and talks about some Medusa project

As mentioned, Your squadmates can be ordered around to some extent, by giving them commands. You can choose for them to be offensive where they will attack when they come into contact with enemies, or defence/stealth where they will only shoot when attacked.
Each member has a limited amount of weight they can handle, which affects the number of weapons they can carry, with Judd being able to carry the most. It’s best to leave the heavy weapons with him.

The game gives off a very Unreal Tournament / Perfect Dark-like vibe when you look at the level design and the electronic/techno-inspired background music. The main characters also look like UT player models. Considering UT came out one year before this game did (1999), you can see they were influenced by it.

Levels

There are 9 levels in total

Most levels consist of you going from one area to another, in order to get to the end. Many have areas blocked off and require you to find a switch in order to unlock the door/lasers in order to progress through, some of which are located on the exact opposite of the level.

The design of the levels isn’t very diverse, with you running around an underground tunnel/area. There seem to be no areas set outside

Level 1: Set in a waste disposal facility, a pleasant start to the game and an introduction to the game mechanics.
Level 2: Has nice chilled music to listen to as you explore the level which is nice since it starts off in a sewer and ends in a waste disposal unit.
Level 3: This one gets frustrating, since you are stuck in an ugly maze-like environment, it’s easy to get confused due to how similar the corridors look, with the only major difference being the floor colour. It took me half an hour to find all the switches needed to progress. There’s no end boss but you do have to free the prisoners at the end.
Level 4: Set in an abandoned tramway, here you meet the cornel and his side chick for the first time. The objective here is to escort the two of them to the lab using the tram tunnels. The end boss of this level is a horde of guards, so make sure you have plenty of ammo and health kits.
Level 5: We battle our way in a laboratory, this time we are missing Judd, who has been replaced with Clifford
Level 6: More of the same, it’s set in some sort of a recreation area, although it looks just the same as the other areas. Boss level is set again a large tank, of which your teammates will be incapacitated almost immediately.
Level 7: There are a few areas where you will be ambushed and will have enemies firing from all sides, thankfully there are spaces where you can take cover, although try telling your AI teammates that.
Level 8: This one was a bit awkward as some corridors are a bit tight, and some are set near ledges where you can fall to your death. You simply walk around the map flipping switches until you unlock the least door. There is one switch that is placed in an awkward spot, where your character can easily fall through and die. There’s no jump button so you have to run over the gap and hope for the best. The end boss is brutal, you get ambushed by four enemies that will continuously respawn even if you kill them, and Simpson who is equipped with an overpowered weapon.
Level 9: This is where the game shits itself. At the start, you have to contend with enemies that are triple shields, and a good amount of ammo is wasted just having to deal with these. Then you have a boss battle with a large chopper, which will fire heat-seeking missiles repeatedly. At this point the game becomes a glitch fest, in one instance I got landed with a Game Over screen even though my character was still moving and my health bar still have some life it in, Other times my character was alive but the camera had glitched out to an overhead view and was unable to shoot.

I’d say the game was rushed towards the later levels since there are quite a few glitches. Even in the ending cutscene on Youtube they had issues animating the mouth of the characters

Misc Notes

The game only supports 4:3 output, no widescreen here.

From browsing the games disc, Internally the game seems to compress most files into multiple BZP archives, this includes the levels and the opening movies themselves. I have not found a way to decompress these files, and its likely an internal format that EA/Square use.

Links

EA X-Squad Homepage

The Simpsons Wrestling

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It was the blurst of Simpsons games…

A simple wrestling game inspired by the attitude era of WWE (or WWF), although the wrestling mechanic is implemented loosely. Matches are set in the giant ring set in various locations across Springfield, complete with their own theme tune music. background characters can be heard and will react to attacks you and your opponent will make.
Pinning is very basic and is how you win a match, you can pin everywhere and there is no way to block or reverse attacks. As such it’s not as complex as the WWE wrestling games.

Marge and Apu fight over the price of nutmeg

Main menu

There are a few campaign options that are unlocked sequentially, these are a series of matches that you must play to unlock new characters and to complete the game.

The VS/Exhibition mode is greyed out and needs a second controller to be plugged in to be selectable.

Gameplay

The type of attacks that can be done is determined by the energy/stamina bar, which depletes when you execute a move.

Strike: done by pressing the Square button, deals a basic strike attack. When you have a 4 hit combo you can knock your opponent to the ground
Long Range / Alt Attack: Done by pressing the Triangle button, your character will typically throw or shoot a weapon.
Special: Done using the circle button, this takes a lot of energy but deals a lot of damage, or will unleash a series of uninterruptable attacks on your opponent.

Taunt: Knocking out an opponent gives you one taunt letter, collecting all five allows you to taunt your opponent which will stunt them and gives you temporally invulnerability.

Other/Combo attacks

Grappling is possible by pressing L1 when you are next to an opponent, you can then execute a grapple move.

The Cross button will allow your character to jump, and they can combine an attack using the Square, Triangle, or Circle buttons

Lastly, you can also attack using the ropes, which allows your character to execute unique moves, simply run into the ropes and press the desired attack button.

Charicters

Barney: The town drunk, fights with a glass full of beer and belches toxic gas that will reduce your health
Krustry: Throws creme pies and can summon a huge hammer as an attack.
Willie: Can set traps like a beartrap, a rake or garden scissors,
Apu: Likes to use the jump attack, a lot. Will sometimes throw his trademark squishee. Special attacks seems to be him having some sort of seizure.
Homer: Has a basic attack and can deploy bowling balls that roll throughout the ring, has special attat that will transform into a larger sized Homer who will deal more damage
Marge: Can deploy Maggie who will hold opponents to slow then down, marge can then wack em with her frying pan or headbutt them with her hair
Bart: Special attack is him rolling on a skateboard, can also fire using his
Lisa: Plays a saxophone that when done correctly, will stun the opponent character, must have a full energy bar to do this.
Moe: Has very fast attacks and can throw flaming Moe’s, which resolt in fire for a few seconds
Frink: Pretty strong character, can deploy random objects like a homing rocket, an exploding robot or an exploding mine
Bumblebee Man: Ok but has a fucking annoying pet chuwaw dog that will bite your charicter
Flanders: This is the character that breaks the game, most of his attacks are ok except for one where lighting bolds strike your character, draining your health unless you keep moving. His throw attacks are flying bibles which circle round the ring until they hit your character (I’ve heard of bible bashing but homing bibles takes it to another level). And to top it off he gets an extra life as when you try to pin him, he will resurrect back to life. Really don’t know what they were thinking with Flanders here. The only way to beat him is through luck.
Smithers: Another overpowered character, but is more fair than Flanders. Smithers can only be played in single player and has his own stage. Mr Burns will throw what appears to be radioactive mini-nukes into the ring which only affect your charicter, Smithers does not take any damage. Perhaps prolonged exposure has made him immune to the effects?
Kang & Kodos: The space aliens who have their own stage, these charicters are quite large and occupy a lot of space in the ring

Conclusion

As a wrestling game is a poor title, since it very liberally uses the wrestling genre, there are no ring-outs. Really if you’re looking for a good wrestling game, your not gonna get it with The Simpsons, and why would you expect anything more? Calling it one of the worst games ever is misleading, as there is fun to be had here, and what the game lacks in graphics it makes up with its soundtrack.
But for what it is, a Simpsons game is pretty ok, and worth a play if you’re a fan of The Simpsons. And it’s a lot more fun in Vs mode rather than single player, which can get mundane after a few minutes.

Marge settles to get violent cartoons off the air

Also, why did we only get one Simpsons game on the PlayStation? (Technically two, Simpsons Bowling was an arcade game running on PS1 based hardware) Both were at the prime in the late 90s so you’d think we get a few games on the PlayStation, instead, titles like Virtual Springfield ended up exclusive on PC platforms like Windows and MacOS.

Ridge Racer Revolution

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The follow-up to the PlayStation launch classic

Ridge Raver Revolution builds upon the original Ridge Racer game, set with a new course being added with a few variations. All three tracks are similar in how they start, but branch out into different directions and are named by the difficulty of the track itself (Novice, Advanced, Expert).

As with the first game, there is support for the NeGcon controller, so make sure to enable it in your emulator if you wish to take advantage of analogue steering.

Race Modes

Race: Normal racing mode, race 3 laps around the track and finish in 1st place for each one.
Time Trial: Same as Race mode but you have no opponents, the objective is to get the fastest lap time for each track. I’ve always found these modes boarding and don’t really play these much. Completing these modes will unlock a new car.
Free: You can run as many courses as you like. When you reach 99 laps, the lap counter display will stay fixed at 99 laps.

In terms of gameplay, it’s very similar to the original game, with the same graphics style and mostly the same drifting mechanics. Therefore you could consider this as a standalone expansion pack of sorts.

The soundtrack is the exact same as Ridge Racer 2 was released for the arcade, however, Ridge Racer 2 featured only the original arcade tracks, not the ones featured in Revolution.

Secrets

Spinning Point: When selecting time trial, hold down the X and Square buttons and select Start (Note: Not the Start button on the controller, the option on the screen), then when playing the track, Spinning Point will appear where you can spin and the game will score you based on how well you spun the car. This only functions in time trial mode and the scores are not saved.

Pocket Racer: A hidden mode that is enabled when you beat the Galaga mini game without wasting a shot. This mode would later spawn into an arcade spinoff that was released in Japan arcades only as Pocket Racer.

Mirror Tracks: to play in mirror mode for every track, at the start of the game accelerate forward slightly but turn around 180 degrees, then drive into the barrier at over 66MPH and the track will be in mirror mode, along with all the road signs.
Zoom In/Out: When in third-person view, pause the game and then press either the L1 or R1 buttons to zoom in or out respectively. You can then resume the game with the new viewpoint.

Title Screen: The spotlight can be manipulated by holding both the L1 & R1 buttons, then using the d-pad to move the spotlight.

Two Player Link

Revolution included a new two-player link that allows for two players to race each other through the use of two consoles, two copies of the game and two displays. This is not the same as the split-screen modes in the later installments of Ridge Racers, with only one player per console.
A link cable is required to connect both consoles together using the serial port located on the original PlayStation models. The smaller Psone branded consoles lack this port and cannot make use of the two-player modes, but can still play the single-player modes.

You can replicate the two-player mode using the NO$PSX emulator, or PCSX. PCSX was troublesome to work within Windows as starting the emulator as a client would just cause it to crash. Under Linux we have some luck but when we are able to re-establish a link, the performance is horrendous with both games running at around 2FPS. Possibly due to both emulators trying to run in sync with each other. I tried running both in a VM, running in a LAN segment but the performance was still the same.

The original Ridge Racer tracks can be played in this mode, as this functionality was missing from the first game.

Conclusion

The game feels like what Ridge Racer should have been when it was ported to the PlayStation. Presumably a lot of content was shifted to Revolution in order to meet the launch deadline since the original Ridge Racer only featured one track with two variations.

One of the main criticism of the original Ridge Race port was its lack of content featuring only 1.5 tracks (the second being an expansion to the original) and around 12 cars, which limited replay value. Here Namco has tried to add as much content whilst still making the game accessible, however I question why certain modes are hidden behind key combinations instead of being directly accessible.

The Sims On Holiday

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Or The Sims Vacation in simplified English

The expansion is very similar to Hot Date in which many game elements were revamped. With a new social interaction system, revised user interface, and a new vacation island area with additional sub lots. Whilst Hot Date introduced the concept of sims leaving their lots to go downtown, here sims can actually stay on these lots for an extended period of time, depending on how much money they have.

New interactions exclusive to On Holiday are released that allow sims to invite each other to play games based on the new objects added, like playing archery, volleyball or fishing. In addition, some of the new interactions from hot dates are added.

Holidays allow for sims to take a break from their schedule, as they are not required to work or go to school and dance sims in the first game have no concept of days off or weekends, this expansion allows sims to go off and do other stuff without having to worry about their jobs as they can stay on holiday indefinitely.

Vacation Island

There are three types of vacation lots available, each with a different environment:

Beach Lots: Set on your typical beach/seaside, sims can sleep in a hotel located on the lot which will each have a bed and a bathroom. Sims can swim in these areas or play volleyball and can rent sandcastle kits.
Forest Lots: Simulates a camping lot, here your sims are set near woodland and have the option to camp in a tent or rent a log cabin. These lots typically feature a campfire
Snow Lots: Set on a Ski/Snow resort, Some lots have an igloo that your sims can sleep in

Each of the three environments has three different resorts that scale to accommodate the budget of the sims traveling there, there is a cheap resort that features only basic amenities, a moderate one that features a mix of both, and a more expensive one that resembles a hotel of sorts.
Sims will need to check in every day at 11:00AM in order to access and use most of the lot facilities. The game will do this automatically unless the sims check out.

Internally, houses 40 – 48 are used or the holiday lots.

NPCs

Whilst On Holiday, sims will encounter NPC sims that will also be on the same resort. These are like townies (Downtown NPCs) of sorts in that the player cannot control but they can be interacted with, and if your sim has a higher enough relationship they can move in. Some families will have an adult but one or more kids, who will also join the family.
This is convenient if you wanted your sim to marry and expand their family quickly without having to go through the baby raising process (Which is horrid in the first Sims)

There are also new NPCs

Vacation Director Kana: Just walk around the lot relentlessly 24/7 with a clipboard, you have to admire her dedication. Your sim can ask her questions to find out more on the different features of the expansion.
Mascots, there are three in total but only one will show up on a lot at a time. The mascot will vary based on the lot environment, beach lots will get the Marky Sharky mascot (If only they got the Marky Mark mascot instead. Berry Yeti is present on the Snow lots and Archie Archer is on the forest lots. They can only be interacted by kids. This makes them annoying since they will constantly try to play with the kid, even if they are busy.
Janitor: Cleans up dirty items on the lot. They’re a bit too keen as they will immediately come and will sometimes block the doorway

Objects

A lot of these are intended for use on holiday lots, but can be used in the home buy mode catalog. As introduced in the Hot Date expansion, subcategories are introduced in buy mode which allows for better organization of custom objects.

KampRite Instant Campfire

Volleyball

Redwood Hot Tub

A hot tub that seats two sims, adults only. Very similar to the one introduced in Hot Date

Archery

Sims will earn tokens when they win, whih allows them to redeem prizes

Water Ballon Fort

Group activity where sims can throw water balloons

Snowboard Halfpipe

Sims seem to have problems skating without falling down

At least in heaven I can skate

Polar Bear Rug

Wait until PETA sees this…

Snowman

Not a buyable object but sims can build their own snowmen on snowy lots

Snowball Fort

Same as the ballon fort but with snow

Snowslide

Sims can slide, SSX style

Carnival Games

Like the archery game, your sim can earn tokens with they can redeem into prizes. These then become souvenirs when they move back home, which they can display on a dedicated shelf.

Mac OS Version

The expansion was ported to Mac OS and OS X and install’s in the same fashion.

The Sims Hot Date

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The third expansion pack and one that brought a major change to the mechanics of the game, the main one being the introduction of community lots and the concept of your sims leaving their lots (well they could technically leave to go to work in the base game)

Also included a nice jazzy soundtrack when editing or vising downtown lots.

Installing the game requires the original game CD, or the House Party disc if that expansion pack is installed, as the game will install the original audio files to the hard drive. Previously the game would stream the audio from the CD to save disc space at the expense of performance.
If installing over the Deluxe Edition expansion pack, the user will need to run the deluxe edition installer before they can play the game, this is because the deluxe edition was released after Hot Date.

No new neighborhoods have been included with this expansion, but if you are missing the created neighbourhoods from the House Party expansion (Hoods 5-8) then the installer will create them for you. They will be typical blank neighborhoods without any houses or premade sims.

Upon starting the game, new sims will be generated. These will be your townies that are used for downtown.

Downtown, a new sub-neighborhood. Each hood has its own version of downtown with its own generated set of townies. Sims cannot visit a downtown from another hood.

The user interface has been updated with new features

The house meter and the friend’s meter have been removed and have not been replaced. They were removed in favor of adding the inventory and interests panels.
The inventory panel shows objects that are stored by the sims, these can be gifts that have been received by other sims, or prizes won by various games.

Downtown

A new sub-neighborhood, and the first to be included in the Sims engine. There are lots that your sim can visit with other sims.

You can have different themed downtown lots that cater to a specific
Restaurants typically have a podium, a kitchen with a commercial over, and a dining booth or dining table/seats

Shops generally have till’s and can have clothes racks that sims can browse and buy new clothes, or skins as they are referred to. There are also entertainment lots that have activities like pool tables, pinball machines and slot machines

The default lots for Hot Date make use of objects from the base game and the expansion itself, but not objects from other expansions. With this in mind, you can create new downtown lots using objects or themes from other expansions, like a nightclub using the DJ booth and dance floor from House Party. A spare downtown lot exists (23 Wright Way) for this purpose.

Objects

The buy mode catalog has been updated, and new sub-categories have been added to help classify items better. Downtown lots also have their own categories, depending on what type of lot you wish to build. Here objects are sorted into shops, restaurants, outdoor

Niagra Love Tub

A hot tub that can seat two sims, who can cuddle and ~~woohoo~~ play

Dawnette Hooded Stove

An oven that occupies two titles, can be placed downtown and is required to operate a restaurant

Bachmeier Grand Piano

A more expensive piano, placing this downtown will spawn a dedicated piano player NPC

Boggs Home Canning Center

Allows your sim to make preserves at home to sell, also increases the cooking skill

Laguna Vista Instand Pond

A fish pond where your sim can feed fish and place boats, multiple sims can use this

Bel-Air Dining Booth

Sims will sit after they order a meal at the podium, works as part of a restaurant set otherwise function as a regular table and chairs

Kiosk

Items such as flowers, toys, chocolate, and a copy of the game itself are sold here and can be bought by your sim, A cash till nearby is required to order

Food Counters

Two exist, one for ice cream and another for burgers, bars also exist for drinks

Social Interactions

New social interactions have been added, and the social system has been revamped for each sim to better handle interactions. Many have been grouped into one main social interaction, which then has a few sub-interactions. E.g. Talk has the ‘About Interests’, ‘Gossip’ & ‘Brag’ interactions. Entertain has ‘Joke’ and ‘Juggle’ interactions.

Mac Version

Hot Date was later ported to the Mac OS platform and was a Carbon application from the onset which meant support for older Mac OS versions was dropped. Only Mac OS 8.6 onwards and OS X 10.1 is supported.

Unreal Championship

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A remake/port of Unreal Tournament 2003 for the original Xbox, and one of the first games to use Xbox Live.

A remake of Unreal Tournament 2003 for the original Xbox, and one of the first games to use Xbox Live. It can be considered a console adaption of Unreal Tournament, which it shares a lot of maps with.

Sadly this is one of the games that is trapped on the original Xbox, it was not made backward compatible with the Xbox 360 or the Xbox One, despite its sequel being supported. Perhaps this is deliberate since Unreal Tournament 2003 isn’t available on Steam, but the original and 2004 are, are Epic ashamed of these games?

Game Modes

Deathmatch: Standard deathwatch action, either team-based gameplay (two teams fighting each other, Red Vs Blue) or a free for all
Capture the Flag: Very similar to the PC original, you have to capture the opposing team’s flag three times (more or less, depending on the game settings) and return it back to base. If both teams have the opposing team’s flag, then no teams can score until the opposing team’s flag has been returned, which can be done by killing the flag carrier and picking up the flag.
Double Domination: Similar to capturing the flag, here you and your team have to capture two points for 10 seconds in order to score a point for your team. Kind of like a king-of-the-hill mode. Once either team reaches a predetermined score, the game is over. This is one of the games does that is better played online rather than offline since the bots suck at defending the captured base.
Bombing Run: Basically a reverse capture the flag, but kind of like football. Here you have to take control of the ball (Spawns in the middle of the map) and then fire it into the opponent’s goal. When you take control of the ball, expect to be target #1 by the opponent team. A nice side effect is the ball will replenish your health, slowly.
Survival: 1 vs 1, whoever gets the most kills wins, really deathmatch but with only two players.

Characters

There is a distinct story between the different characters, but this is only referenced in the characters biography’s, there is very few cut scenes in the game involving characters, aside from the opening with Brock and Lauren. Characters here have their own statistics, although many share the same voice lines, i.e human males use the same voice as each other, but the Aliens have their own, each with male/female versions. It’s not like fighting games like Tekken where each character has their own fighting style, more so they have unique statistics for their team.

Gen Mo’Kai: Alien looking species who take part in the tournaments, seem to be very agile but have weak strength
Automatons: A bunch of robots built by the Liandri corporation
Mercenaries: Regular humans, fairly typical stats for each character, ideal for newcomers to the game
Juggernauts: Big muvvafuckers, the strongest race that can take the most damage but are slow and the least agile characters in the game
Anubans: Look like humans but dress like they’re from Egypt, bit more agile than humans but are very high jumpers and acquire adrenaline more quickly
Nightmare: A bunch of weird and scary looking but have generally good stats. Supposedly their appearance is a result of the different experiments that have been done to them

Many characters would appear in Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004.

Multiplayer – Online Play

As one of the first Xbox Live titles, Unreal Championship was a popular title that was played online and the game made full use of the Xbox Live features. Until Microsoft shut down the original Xbox Live in mid 2010.
On the flip side you can sill play the game online using the system link features, which was Microsoft terms for LAN play where multiple Xbox’s are connected to the same network. This can be done either by connecting a crossover ethernet cable from one Xbox to another or by connecting both Xbox’s to a router using a standard ethernet cable
xLink Kai can be used to play online by using the system link features to play games over the internet, this requires the xbox to be connected to a PC which will emulate an Xbox LAN network

Left: Score display screen, Right: Hidden third person view, avaliable by using a custom save file

DLC

Additional maps were released on Xbox Live that could be purchased and downloaded from around May 2003. These maps could then be played online or in instant action mode. These maps include:

AquaMortis: This area features a open ocean area that contains a shark, who will kill once a player falls in
Inferno: Hell themed map
Leviathan B: SciFi arena themed map
Otaros Run: Capture the Flag map, A large-ish map set in the forest, similar to Tokara forest in UT2003

Installed DLC, which uses a different format

These maps are installed in the TDATA directory and can be used for all profiles on the Xbox. I’m not sure if custom maps can be installed and played this way since they are in a different format, would be good if custom maps could be played like the PC version. As far as I know, you cannot use UT2003 maps on Unreal Championship.

More information on Xbox DLC

Weapons

Left: View from the translocator camera, and your typical Xbox Live Gamertag, Right: The lightning gun

Shield Gun: The weapon you will only use when you are out of ammo and have no pickups in sight, alt-fire fires a shield that can protect you from limited damage but can only take so much damage.
Assault Rifle: One of the weapons you start with, does basic damage and is really the gun you only use until you can pick up another. Alt-fire shoots out a grenade that explodes shortly after being shit.
Mini-gun: A chain gun or sorts, ideal for spraying bullets at multiple enemies. Has a slight charge time of around a second.
Flak Cannon: The GOAT, fires a bunch of small projectiles which disperse quickly. Best used in close combat as it almost functions as a shotgun
Lighting Gun: A sniper rifle of sorts, shoots out a lightning bolt. Alt fire can be used to zoom into an opponent.
Rocket Launcher: Fires a rocket, alt-fire will lock onto a target
Translocator: Not really a weapon but more of a utility, allows you to fire a beacon which you can use to teleport to where the beacon had landed, useful for teleporting to hard to reach areas but you cannot translocate when carrying a flog. Attempting to do so will cause the flag to be dropped, but it can still be picked up by a teammate or returned back to base.

Adrenaline

Throughout playing the game and killing opponents or by picking up adrenaline pills, you will acquire adrenaline which can be used to apply power ups by quickly entering a button combination whilst playing:

Regeneration – Press down four times quickly – Regenerates health to twice the staring health, and gives up to 150 shield points
Berserk: Press up three times quickly – Increases damage inflicted to opponents, and reduced the damage taken by the player
Invisibility: Press Right twice, then Left twice – Makes your character invisible to other players, not much use on instant action / campaign as bots have been reported to still attack the player
Agility: Press Down twice, then Up – Increases your characters running and jumping ability

Early Alpha

A build of Unreal Championship was leaked in 2011 which was an early alpha version but was compiled and running on PC (Windows). There are quite a few changes compared to the actual release, with many maps being completely different.

The menu interface is different, with it using a planet-like interface for the character selection screen, here you can see the actual3D models, complete with animations compared to the 2D portraits in the final release.

Some geometry errors when playing on more modern systems, this game would have been developed and tested on DirectX 8 compatible hardware, and would have used Nvidia based hardware like the original Xbox used.

In the menu, Up/Down is used to select the map, whilst left/right is used to select the game mode.

There is no settings section to customize the game, but the ini file can be edited to change the game rules, such as the amount of kills needed to win (1000 by default)

Some sound effects come from the original Unreal Tournament, notably the respawn sound.

To exit the game, bring up the console by pressing tab and then type ‘exit’
There is no pause menu, but pressing F1 will bring up the score/players.

The game can be played using a keyboard, but the controls are centered around a console control. Weapons can be selected using the number keys (1-9), the mouse wheel can’t be used to select a weapon
F9 – Take a bitmap screenshot
F10 – Adjust Gamma
F11 – Adjust Brightness
F12 – Adjust Contrast
The Numpad number keys will spawn a weapon, and the regular number keys can be used to directly select a weapon.

A vehicle can be spawned by pressing H, which can be used to travel through the map quickly, very similar to the hoverboard in Unreal Tournament 3.

A third-person view mode can be activated by pressing F4, however it’s very buggy, and the weapon aiming is buggy.

SimCity 3000

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The next installment of the popular SimCity series of games, where the goal is to build and maintain your own city. All aspects of city-building have to be managed, from the power stations to building roads and zoning for different houses/buildings, all whilst being prepared for any disaster that might strike.

Playing SimCity

Residential:
Where sims will live, the density relates to how large the buildings are, with low density being used for small houses, and higher density for apartments.

Commercial:
Shops and businesses, where sims go to work and spend their money

Industrial:
Another place where sims can work, but also where materials are manufactured and produced, and also helps with jobs for your sims.
Farms are one of the types of industry available, but they are difficult to actually have them be built. Every time I zone for farmland, it does start to build a farm but eventually, it will lose out to dirty industry with farm lots being replaced with a bunch of smog-o-matics. I can’t see why they would not just give farms their own industry zone?
Supposedly the key is to not give them any water, just power and roads. But then the news ticker will keep bugging about sims being too far from any water.

Versions / Ports

SimCity was ported to most of the popular PC platforms, even a port for Linux operating systems. Sadly a port for OS/2 was not released, as IBM had phased the operating system out by then.

SimCity 3000 was not released on any consoles of the era.

Windows (Original Release)

The Windows release only supports Windows 95 or 98 onwards, it does not support NT 4 unless service pack 3 or higher is installed. DirectX does not seem to be used, running solely through the Win32 API.

Windows (Unlimited/Edition)

Released a year later and features a few changes compared to the original release.

The user interface was changed slightly, with the query button being moved to a more prominent place on the UI
The music was changed with some tracks being added and others being removed
This version of the game is available on gog.com and will run effortlessly on modern Windows versions.
New city templates have been added which are based off real-world locations, like Liverpool, London, Berlin, Madrid, etc
Some existing cities have been renamed, Metropolis has become Europolis but remains the same
Some existing cities have been removed in favor of the new cities: Littleburg, Big Mountain City, Sim Isle
New scenarios mode has been added, which are small cities that have objectives to complete
Outside of the game, new tools have been made like the scenario creator tool which uses the Microsoft Access engine to create and customize customs scenarios

MacOS

Simcity 3000 was released for the PowerPC Mac OS platform and was targeted for the classic Mac OS. The Mac platform only had a port of the original Windows version, it did not receive the updated unlimited edition that was released for Windows and Linux.

Compared to the Windows version, there are a few differences, the opening FMV seems to have less compression compared to the Windows version and appears to be of higher quality, the animations on the menu buttons are much more fluid on the mac (Is this due to the graphics card?), lastly the close button on the menu box is on the left side for the mac, and on the right side for the PC.

Playing this on modern Macs is a challenge as modern MacOS does not have native support for PowerPC or applications using the older mac libraries. You must use emulation software like QEMU (screenshots above) or Sheepsaver. The last version of OS X to support PowerPC applications was OS X Leopard (10.5)

Linux

Corel Linux

The installer worked, but the game would not run.

Ubuntu

A Linux port of the game was released by Loki games in 2000, and is a port of the Windows PC version. It’s mostly accurate to the Windows version but is more difficult to install and get working, depending on the distro and the libraries/packages installed. I’ve tested it on a few distros of the era, and some more modern distros.

Installing and running the game on Ubuntu

Install the game as normal, remember to note the install directory – you will need it later
Download the official Loki Simcity 3000 patch
Run the patch installer, preferably as root. Easy way is to open a root terminal session (Should be an option in your Linux application launcher) Easy way is to copy the patch file to your home directory/folder, open the terminal and run the command: sudo sh sc3u-2.0a-x86.run -keep (Why you can’t just double-click to run the installer in Linux I do not know)
Once this is finished, you should see a success message
Now you need to run the game in a specific way, in the terminal you have to run the below command: LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.26 /usr/local/bin/sc3u

Hopefully, it should now start the game and you should see the intro movie play. This worked well on Ubuntu 4.04 running inside a VirtualBox VM, although there were a few issues. The sound was rather high-pitched and played too fast, and would stutter at high resolutions or when having a busy/large city map. Also running in a windowed mode wasn’t perfect, since it would display in the upper left part of the screen whilst the Ubuntu desktop remained in the background. The fullscreen mode works fine though. This could be due to the lack of drivers in my Ubuntu VM, it’s likely using stock/fail-safe drivers which provide little to no acceleration.

You could just use the Windows version running through Wine, although where is the fun in that? Plus it’s nice to play a native Linux game and in early 2000 there was a push for certain developers to embrace Linux as an alternative to Windows, That said, I can see why this didn’t take off…

Mandrake 7

Worked but had issues but these could be due to the emulation in 86box. The game installs and runs mostly Ok but some of the colors are messed up, the game also runs very slowly. Interestingly this uses a graphical installer which is missing when running in either Ubuntu or Corel Linux.

Tekken 2

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The sequel to the first Tekken game, released for arcades and was ported to the Sony PlayStation and eventually the Zeebo console

A lot of improvements have been made, with the graphics for the character models being improved and refinements to the character move-sets. The stage background have also been redesigned, featuring more detailed backdrops. Unlike the first Tekken, the stages don’t seem to be based off a specific location and the stage name no longer appears in the bottom right corner, rather they are inspired by a series of locations, e.g Jun’s stage is inspired by a European countryside, Lei is based off being at the top of a city skyscraper (Similar to Joe’s stage in Last Bronx) and King’s stage being set in a Church.

A removed feature is the view change option, In the first Tekken game you could change the viewing angle in the first 10 seconds of the match, now only one view is available in Tekken 2.

Characters

Lei: Jackie-Chan inspired cop, Namco forgot to give him a Time Crisis game
Jun: Greenpeace activist, and the only mainstream game she appears in (Also appears in the Tag Tournament spin offs)
Jack-2: Jack with with a upgraded processor
Baek: Tae Kwon Do fighter, similar to Hworang
Bruce: Muay Thai kickboxer
Roger: / Alex: Genetically altered animals who are capable of fighting
Angel: A literal Angel sent to save Kazuya’s soul

Most of the previous characters return from the previous game, except for the mysterious WildCard

Heiachi finding out he’s no longer the final boss

Arcade Version

Released in 1995 for the arcade and running on the same System 11 arcade platform as the previous game which allowed for operators to upgrade their machines by swapping out the ROM board.

There are a few versions of the arcade version, the original released and a Ver.B update that has a few game-play changes in regards to the AI behaviour. The title screen has also been amended indicating the new release.

MAME is able to run both versions of the game without any issues, although it has the imperfect graphics flag set. Zinc, a high level System 11 emulator is also capable of emulating Tekken 2, but was last updated in 2005 and its plugins are very outdated but they do enable bilinear filtering and upscaling.

Namco would later port this version to the PS2 with the release of Tekken 5, along with Tekken 1 & 3. This is not a direct port as some changes have been made. The audio from the PSone versions have been used since Namco System 11 uses its own custom sound hardware that the PS2 does not emulate. I’m also not sure if these games run on the PS2 I/O CPU, tapping into its native backwards compatibility or if Namco ported these games onto the PS2 Emotion Engine.

Zinc emulator

The Zinc emulator can be configured to apply texture filtering to reduce the blocky artifacts and enhance the overall image quality, resolution can also be increased too.

Unfortunatly where the Zinc emulator falls short is the emulation itself, suffering from various sound issues due to lack of mature Namco sound emulation. As such the music sounds out of tune and many sound elements are missing.

PlayStation

The game was ported to the PlayStation with some additional features added. The soundtrack was also revised with an arranged remix making used of the PlayStations CD audio, the arcade original music also exists and can be selected by the user.

Like the first Tekken home port, FMV endings have been added for each characters that details their backstory. Namco expanded these to have their own soundtrack, compared tot he first game where every characters would have the same music playing over the FMV.

Additional game modes have been added such as survival, training and team battle mode. Also, when pausing the game you can view the character move and command sets. These would also be carried over to future home releases of Tekken games.

Most emulators wont encounter any issues playing Tekken 2, but there are a few issues with PXGP being added. Polygons have a tendency to warp with this enabled, and the character portraits can go off model.

Zeebo

The game was ported to the Zeebo console in 2008 and was similar to the PlayStation version but with slightly improved graphics. The textures appear to be cleaned up from the PlayStation version with some filtering enabled. The music however was butchered beyond repair due to the limited ROM sizes of the game. Zeebo games were distributed over the mobile network using UMTS, which meant games had to be of a certain size in order for them to be downloaded quickly which limited the music of these game to polyphonic like sounds.

I’m also not aware of any emulators or known dumps of this version, so the only footage exists that was uploaded on Youtube.

Nicktoons Racing

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Cart base racing game featuring popular Nicktoons of the time, complete with powerups

The opening FMV, and a look at the games menu and track selection screen

The character selection screen, You can choose from:

Rugrats: Tommy & Angelica

Hey Arnold: Arnold & Helga

Wild Thornberry’s: Eliza and Darwin

Spongebob Squarepants: Sprongebob and Patrick

Other playable characters include Ickis from Ahhh Real Monsters, Ren from Ren & Stimpy, Catdog The Angry Beavers, and a Mystery Rider that is unlocked by beating the game.

Tracks

Many tracks are based upon each Nicktoon show and follow the respective art style of that show.

Many of the tracks have shortcuts, which the NPC drivers will use more on a higher difficulty level. There are also many pickups and speed boost pads spread across the track. Some tracks will branch and split into two different section which can vary in speed and difficulty, one path might be shorted but with less pickups, or might have a few tricky bends which have to be navigated.

I’m disappointed they didn’t expand on the Rugrats themed tracks, considering they already released Rugrats games previously, why not have tracks that were based off Search for Reptar? like Toy Palace, or the Mini Golf levels.

Windows

Game can be installed to the hard drive and offers a minimal or a full install, with the full install including the opening FMV and music. At the end the user is given a choice to register their copy of the game.

The PC version benefits from a higher framerate, resolution and texture quality compared to the PlayStation version.

PlayStation

The game was ported to the PlayStation in 2001 and is a straight port of the PC version, with lower resolution graphics. However this version has issues when the CD drive is played at a higher speed and can lead to the opening FMV video skipping, which can also happen with the music. When being played on Duckstation, it is recommended to use the default CD drive speeds (2X/ 300K)

The PlayStation was the only console the game was released on, and did not see a release on any sixth generation console, despite the game being released from 2000-2003

Arcade

An arcade version was released in 2003 and was an adaption of the PC version and was distributed by Chicago Gaming Company

Last Bronx

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Another Sega fighting game, but with weapons

Set in Japan (But from the title you would assume Brooklyn, new York) the game features actual real life locations set in Japan. It was the first Sega fighting game to use motion capture footage giving the character detailed and accurate move sets compared to Virtua Fighter.

The fights typically take place in the evening or night, and most of the stages have a dark urban tone to them in contract to Virtual Fighter 2 where most stages take place in the daytime since its meant to be based on a worldwide tournament, Last Bronx has a more underground fight club like feel to it.

Stages

All characters have their own stage, but when you select their characters their personal stage is skipped until the end, where you will face Red Eye on that characters stage

Cross Street: which is complete with advertising billboards and may be based off the Tokyo/Shibuya crossing. This is the first stage for all characters, unless you choose Tommy then Tears Bridge will be the first

Tears Bridge: is set near a warehouse / cargo park near a large bridge, hence the name. At this point the game is set in the evening, and most stages thereafter have a night time ambiance to them.

Dark Rooftop: reminds me a lot of Lei Wulong’s stage in Tekken 2, as its set on top of a skyscraper helicopter pad, with many building in the background. From the sky it looks like its set in the evening sunset, but Tears bridge gives the impression it is already night time, assuming the game is intended to simulate nightfall.

Saturn Version of the brilliant room stage

Moonlight Garden: A nice stage which is a departure from the industrial urban settings, this appears to be set on a garden or a large park and is a nice departure form the other stages

Lust Subway: Which is your typical Japanese underground subway, complete with display monitors. Thankfully this isn’t set at rush hour. This will be Yoko’s stage

Nightmare Island: Set on a construction or a building site, despite the name insisting its an island, you will fight Zaimoku on this stage.

Naked Airport: Set on an airport runway and reminds me of the Shooting Hoops track from Ridge Racer Type 4 This is Yusaku’s stage

Radical Parking Lot: Kurosawa’s stage, not much to say here except its set on a moderately used parking lot.

Brilliant Room: Hidden and only available if you beat Red Eye with the lowest time

Modes

Arcade: The main game mode, you choose a character and progress through 8 stages, with a bonus 9^th stage if you complete the game with a new time record.

Saturn/PC mode: Similar to arcade player but features a story mode complete with cut scenes, and opponents are chosen at random

Team Battle: Pick multiple fighters who will battle

Survival Mode: You only have one life, and the health bar carries over to the next round. Objective here is to last the longest

Training Mode: A basic training mode that show the different fighting moves across the roster

Network Play: On the PC version, allows two players to play over a LAN

There is also an extra mode in the Saturn/PC version that allows you to view unlocked FMVs

Versions

Arcade

The game was released on the Sega Model 2 arcade board, and was designed to be an upgrade for Virtua Fighter 2. This version has the best graphics, and it makes full use of the Model 2 graphics hardware which was more powerful than the Sega Saturn or common Windows PC’s of the time, in terms of 3D performance. However this version lacks FMV endings. It should be noted that the AI in this version is difficult to beat, since it was intended for the player to use multiple credits within a single play-through, you’d be surprised at how hard it is to beat on a single credit, despite using the easy settings in the games config.

This version of the game is fully playable in the Nebula Model 2 emulator, but is still unplayable in MAME as of 2021.

Most of the other screenshots captured are from the arcade version, except where noted.

Sega Saturn

Introduced a Saturn Mode which is similar to arcade mode but the opponents are randomized. This has a few changes compared to the arcade version, with the 3D background options being exchanged for sprite based background which are handled flawlessly by the Saturn’s VDP2. You will mostly notice the effect when the charicters move to an extent where the camera has to pan to follow the player. FMV videos are also present in the Saturn mode. Although they are in Japaneese, English subtitles are provided.

Most Saturn emulators will play this game, being a 3D titles it will play slowly on less powerful hardware. The Nvidia Shield struggles to play at full speed using the Yaba SanShiro emulator, and the FMV videos pixilate whilst playing. Mednafen Saturn will work the best

Microsoft Windows

A Windows PC port was released in 1998 and is very similar to the Sega Saturn version, and makes use of DirectX. Saturn game mode is renamed to PC Mode but remains the same with random opponents. The PC version supports higher resolutions then the Saturn version, and retains most graphical effects but lacks the texture quality and geometry of the arcade version.

Like most PC titles that were released in the 90s, the game is reliant on using analogue CD audio, which can cause problems on modern systems that use SATA or IDE CD drives without the CD audio line being connected. The reason is that from Windows 2000/ME on wards, Microsoft introduced digital audio for CD decoding, where audio is sent via the IDE cable itself rather then than the CD audio line. There’s no easy workaround unless you play the game in Pcem or 86box, otherwise the game will play but with no background audio or music.

I’ve not tested the game on modern Windows NT based release, but can confirm the game to be playablle using PCem or 86Box using any Windows 9x based operating system with a 3DFX or S3 based accellerator.