Convicts roll out a new idea
MoHo
Sony PlayStation £29.99 Take 2
Originality isn't an overly common commodity in the PlayStation market but, for their first title since leaving Bullfrog, Lost Toys have developed an inventively different game.
Move quickly past the wafer-thin plot - future criminals lose legs, gain ball and become freedom-seeking gladiators - and choose from a list of curiously unlovable characters. Then it's into the action which is best described as mixing Marble Madness, skateboarding and future sport. Fans of those genres will enjoy the accurate rolling and movement, but it is the rippling landscape that impresses most.
Caused by explosions and other seismic activity, this is a remarkable graphical effect on a machine already drawing its pension, and enables you to surf past baddies and obstacles alike. The game is split up into numerous arenas made up from one of seven basic elements - race, tag, pursuit etc - but all involve time trials or tricky challenges.
Successful arena qualification opens up further levels and there is certainly a lot to do before your spherical-limbed convict tastes freedom. But frustration can set in with a steep learning curve for first-timers. Just getting used to the physics and control takes time and it's likely that MoHo's charms will remain hidden to all but the most committed and patient gamer. Or, perhaps, to those who fondly recall the days when games were hair-wrenchingly tough and Fifa was a little known acronym. Flawed, yes, but in these days of sequels and licenses, MoHo is a breath of fresh air. (GH)
Great game, shame about the console
In Cold Blood
Revolution Software/ Sony PlayStation
Developing a game for the PlayStation these days is like launching a space shuttle with an elastic band: however good the design, it's never going to get off the ground.
In Cold Blood has good design coming out of its ears. A tight, twisting plot, challenging puzzles, intricate visuals, and an interface that remains intuitive without wasting a button on the controller. Sadly, these noble efforts are thwarted at every turn by the limitations of the console.
In theory, the animations and backgrounds are rich and detailed. In practice, on the PlayStation's ageing processor, it's like watching the cast of Thunderbirds wandering round the set of Scooby-Doo.
In theory, the ubiquitous shadows add atmosphere; in practice, unless you're playing on a multiplex cinema screen, it's impossible to tell good guys from bad, or which way your character is facing (a hitch in a third-person stealth adventure).
The nine huge levels, split Resident Evil-style into dozens of smaller zones, ought to give relentlessly nail-biting gameplay; but with the PlayStation's feature-length load times, you'd better have some knitting handy. Revolution must take its share of the blame. It's way too easy to die: three bullets and you're dead, and you can't draw your gun without triggering world war three. There are also believability problems: guards shoot you if you so much as show your face, while their technician colleagues treat you like a long-lost brother.
Then there's the sort of carelessness that would leave Homer Simpson's forehead sore. The first guy you meet, for example, helps you out by chatting with the guards outside a mine so that you can sneak in. But once you've hacked into the mine's computer, you discover that the entry under your pal's name reads "shoot to kill".
It's almost as if the developers, having sweated blood over the core of the game, gave up when they found out it was PlayStation-bound. On the other hand, if this is a test run for something sensational on the PS2, I can't wait. (AB)
No sex please, we're killers
Dead or Alive 2
Sega Dreamcast £39.99 Tecmo/Sega
Acclaim's poster campaign for this game - featuring a reclining digital woman with the legend "Are you hard enough?" -is a pitiable example of the kind of drooling teenage sexism that still infects the videogame industry. Which is stupid, because underneath the soft-porn trappings of heaving breasts and flashing knickers, Dead or Alive 2 boasts some highly refined beat-'em-up mechanics.
Most games in the Tekken or Street Fighter mould require you to learn head-frazzling strings of button-presses to execute special moves, but DOA2 is different.
Punches and kicks flow together with beautiful freedom, while an intuitive system of grapples and reversals explodes the tedious old "I'll attack while you guard and then you attack while I guard" paradigm.
The gorgeously modelled 3D arenas include a church with stained-glass windows and a verdant mountain pass with a splashing stream, as well as the usual hi-tech rooms of steel and glass.
Their topography demands strategic thinking: fighters can be hurled through windows, slammed up against walls, or thrown off the edge of a platform to land painfully 100 feet below.
The animation is astounding. The physics of waving hair and flapping clothing are slightly slowed down, to lend a patina of John Woo-style grace to the frenetic punching and kicking, and a fighter will even glance down as a feinted punch passes the side of his body.
The illusion of solid, crunching contact is unmatched, even by Namco's brilliant Soul Calibur. DOA2 can't match that masterpiece for sheer eye candy or long-term solo interest, but its two-player contests, especially in the excellent tag mode, are fascinatingly tense, and it is possibly the more sophisticated game design. Shame it's marketed for 12-year-old boys. (SP)
