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Release Date: November 6, 1997 Crash is back! put is this a genuine attempt to further the character’s career, or just a cash-in quick exercise before has-been-dom beckons for the bandicoot? The PlayStation would appear to be in the middle of a severe bout of sequelitis, = = with a host of updates, revisions and follow-ups to the format'’s most popular titles. And in the midst of all this name-dropping and cashing-in its no surprise to see that peculiar marsupial, Crash Bandi

Release Date: October 1, 2009 GRAN TURISMO The Ultimate Racing Game? Heavens to Betsy. You should see the replay mode on SCE Japan’s latest racer. Squint your eyes just a little bit and you'd swear it was video footage of real cars. Eschewing their usual cartoony style, the Japanese are working on what could be the PlayStation’s most visually spectacular title... Describe the game in 100 words Gran Turismo is a realistic car racing sim, Ther

Release Date: December 10, 1998 Jeremy Clarkson would call it “A throbbing Apollo rocket or a game harnessed to the chassis of a shopping trolley". We prefer to call it, Max Power Racing... There's something about driving family saloons and hatchbacks stupidly fast around precipitous clifftops that beats caning it down a test track in a Ferrari any day of the week. Well, very nearly. It's that feeling of almost reality — that it could really happen - and of genuine danger wha

Back story Not only has Disney’s favourite duck been starring in cartoons for 60 years, since the early Eighties, Donald has appeared In games on the Master System, MegaDrive, Game Gear, SNES, and Game Boy. If this had been classified as a ‘retro gaming experience’, perhaps things would have turned out differently. Perhaps the content of this review would have been more lenient, but as it stands, Quack Attack deserves to be covered in plum sauce and strung up in a Chinese res

Release Year: 1998 Developer: Traveller's Tales Publisher: Disney Interactive / Sony Computer Entertainment Genre: 3D platformer Players: 1 player Release Year: 2000 (EU) / 2001 (NA) Developer: Argonaut Games Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment / Disney Interactive Genre: 3D platformer Players: 1 player Release Year: 2001 Developer: Eurocom Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Genre: Action-adventure / platformer Release Year: 2001 Developer: Konami Computer Entertainmen

James Bond may still triumph at the flicks, but he clearly needs to improve his game on PS2. Will this be the game to do it or will he die another day? Read on... Release Date: February 11, 2004 There are few more recognisable characters in the world than James Bond. Which makes tucking him away behind the camera seem rather a strange decision - EA’s two previous PlayStation2 efforts, James Bond 007 in... Agent Under Fire and Nightfire, both trod the first-person shooter path

Release Date: October 16, 1999 Back Story Tecmo, the company best known for bringing us Monster Rancher, first assaulted our senses with Dead Or Alive on the PSone and proved the game was more than a stopgap until the arrival of Tekken 3 with its phenomenal speed. This was then followed up on Dreamcast where it was received just as well. Then the PS2 got in on the act and what you see before you is the review of a enhanced conversion of the NTCS version (Dead Or Alive 2 Hardc

Release Date: November 2, 1999 "It’s great eye candy without any semblance of content" Should parents need a good reason to get their offspring out for a bit of fresh air, all they need do is cram Toonenstein into the house PlayStation. While Terra Glyph’s game can be forgiven some of its limitations - after all, it’s targeted at the youngest gamers - it can’t be forgiven for insulting the intelligence of four to five-year-olds with virtually non-existent gameplay. Based on t

Release Date: September 9, 1998 "It feels different to earlier incarnations, with four co-stars to control and a hefty bucket of mini-games" Get your hankies ready because Spyro Year Of The Dragon is the little lizards PlayStation swansong. It’s only three years since Spyro first unfurled his wings and gave all those wannabe 3D platformers a royal roasting, but it seems like a lifetime ago. These days, 3D comes as standard and his work here is done... Well, almost. Don't blub

Release Date: November 24, 2000 "A suspense-laden stealth ’em up, a head-pounding puzzler and an all-action thriller" Remember that bit in the first Tomb Raider where our freshfaced heroine slides down the side of a gigantic Sphinx and begins trotting across the cavern floor? The camera suddenly zoomed right back into the ceiling, leaving little Lara a tiny figure in the sand, completely dwarfed by her surroundings and simultaneously leaving gamers awestruck by the sheer scal

Release Date: November 1, 2000 "More dance fun to offer than Britney Spears in school uniform" Regular visitors to the arcades 4 will be familiar with the I practice of using feet, rather than fingers, to play games. Although this might sound bizarre, it's actually very easy to do. All the symbols you’d normally find on your joypad are displayed on a specially designed mat. You stand in the middle and step forward for up, back for down, left for left and, yes, you guessed it,

FACTFILE Publisher: SCEE Developer: Argonaut Software Release Date: November, 2000 Age Restriction: None No of Players: One MAGIC-CARPET CAPERS AND, MERCIFULLY, NO ROBIN WILLIAMS The Disney Corporations attempt to saturate kiddie consumer culture continues with a follow-up to passable slider-swinger Tarzan ( OPMS1 7/10). Disney’s Aladdin sees you take charge of the baggy-trousered one for 28 levels of Arabian antics. Armed only with a scimitar, ballet skills and some useful f

Release Date: September 29, 2000 FACTFILE Publisher: Ubisoft Developer: Doki Denki Studios Release Date: September 29,2000 Age Restriction: None No of Players: One The first of a new wave of titles aimed at three to sixyear-olds, Tiggers Honey Hunt is proof positive that children's games needn’t be patronising, nor scaled-down versions of ‘real’ titles. Instead, Honey Hunt is a beautifully judged platform game which marries Disney’s high production values with excellent level

Release Date: November 21, 1997 Tomb Raider 2? And about time too, eh? We don't know about the rest of you out there in magazine-reading land, but for those of us with full-time jobs and a social life it was about the end of last month that we finally finished Tomb Raider - a scant 11 months after its release. Since then we've been sitting around twiddling our thumbs, sighing and wishing that Core Design would get their act together, Well, the wait is over. We've been playing

Release Date: October 23, 1997 Like platform games? Like jester with magic wands? Like bouncing around a 3D world crammed with mutant fish, electric bridges and giant lava lamps? Believe us, you will... First thing's first, our Nikki looks a bit different this time out Gone is the boyish crop and prepubescent upper torso. Now our heroine sports a flowing main plus a set of lady bumps that could have your eye out at 15 paces. Sounds familiar? Of course it bloody does, but fret

Release Date: November 24, 2000 "A military outpost has taken over Dr Kirk’s experiments to breed the killers" Dino Crisis 2 is a mass of contradictions akin to one of those 'good news, bad news* jokes you used to hear as a kid. The good news, for example, is that it fulfils the main criteria of a sequel of having more of everything - especially dinosaurs. The bad news, however, is that Dino Crisis 2 no Longer falls under Capconrs survival horror mantle. Instead, its creator

Release Date: November 14, 2000 MIRROR, SIGNAL, MANOEUVRE GOES OUT OF THE WINDOW AS TANNER AND CO ONCE AGAIN BURY THEMSELVES IN THE MURKY WORLD OF ORGANISED CRIME Your bumper has just collapsed, the boot’s caved in and the rear left wheel is bouncing off down the freeway. Your damage gauge Ts flashing red, blaring impending disintegration, and you've only got 33.89 seconds to meet your contact. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO? Panic? Never. Die? Of course not Answer: You get o

Release Date: January 28, 1999 "All my Digimon are hard... I fight first and ask questions later" The wait is over. PlayStation owners clamouring to have their own brand of little monsters to collect and train will soon be able to get their hands on 113 of the critters. Bandai is releasing Digimon World* based on its successful cartoon series, currently being screened by ITV. You are given a randomly chosen Digimon, who you name, to begin your quest to rally the inhabitants o

Release Date: November 7, 2000 BEAUTIFUL WOMEN, HIGH-TECH GADGETS, AND MEGALOMANIACS. NO, NOT THE PSM OFFICE ; THE RETURN OF MR BOND TO PS1 IN THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH There’s nothing better than James Bond. And anyone who disagrees is wrong. No argument. And the rule holds for videogames too. For example, it's no coincidence that one of the best games ever made, Goldeneye, is better than its sequel, Perfect Dark. Why? It's got Bond in it. Deep down, you see, everyone wants to

Release Date: October 20, 2000 WHEN THE MUPPETS GET TRANSFORMED INTO EVIL VERSIONS OF THEMSELVES WHO YOU GONNA CALL? A SMALL FROG, OF COURSE Cuteness. Love it □r loathe it, if* definitely a driving force - and selling point - in videogames, helping to propel the likes of Spyro, Rayman and Nintendo's Mario to Platinum levels of performance. So when Hermit The Frog's nephew Robin hops and gribbets his way on to your screen in Moppet Monster Adventure don't be surprised to find